January 6

A solemn anniversary

Today was the first day of my White Collar Criminal Law class at George Washington University law school. We had to meet over Zoom because the snow here in D.C. has shut down much of the city.

I was reminded of my class four years ago, shortly after January 6, 2021. We were also meeting over Zoom, as we did for that entire semester due to Covid. And we had just witnessed the most serious domestic attack on our country since the Civil War.

Despite all the gaslighting of the past few years, January 6, 2021 wasn’t a peaceful protest by “patriots.” It was a violent attack on democracy by a mob seeking to overturn a free and fair election. More than a hundred law enforcement officers were injured; several later died. The Capitol building was damaged and desecrated. Members of Congress were forced to flee for their lives. And our soon-to-be president incited the mob and then sat by and watched it all happen for three hours without lifting a finger to call it off.

The attack wasn’t carried out by immigrants, or “woke” liberals, or Muslims, or trans people, or any of the other groups Republicans say you should fear. It was carried out by Trump’s own people after he summoned them to descend on Washington on his behalf. Good old home-grown, red-blooded Americans – almost all white, predominantly male. About a thousand of them have been convicted of crimes related to the riot.

This wasn’t just a demonstration that got out of hand. It was the violent culmination of a weeks-long effort to overturn a lawful presidential election. That effort included filing dozens of frivolous lawsuits, urging state officials to break the law and violate their oaths, sending phony presidential electors to Washington with false documents, pressuring the Vice President to violate his constitutional obligations, and spreading lies about voter fraud that continue to undermine faith in our elections. It came very, very close to succeeding.

I remember talking with my students during that class shortly after January 6, and how shaken they were. Most of us were shaken at the time, including many Republican leaders. Surely, we all thought, the man responsible for this will never be entrusted with power again. But now those Republicans have largely fallen in line behind their leader. They’d like to just forget about January 6 or pretend it never happened, or argue that it was not such a big deal. Trump will likely pardon many of those convicted for crimes that day, to suggest that what they did was somehow justified – his latest blow to the rule of law.

Today the certification of the election results was peaceful. Vice President Harris confirmed the victory of her opponent in a brief, almost perfunctory ceremony. That’s the kind of proceeding it always has been, up until four years ago. That’s what grown-ups who believe in our democracy do, even if they lost an election they desperately wanted to win. The peaceful transfer of power has been a hallmark of our country and the envy of the world for more than 200 years.

But if Trump had lost the election, who knows what would have happened today.

I do legal analysis here, not political analysis. But here’s the thing: this shouldn’t be political. A few — too few — high-profile Republicans, such as Liz Cheney, recognize this. Devotion to our free elections, the peaceful transfer of power, and norms like the rule of law should be fundamental, non-negotiable baseline principles for all Americans, regardless of political party.

Here’s what baffles me more than anything else about the last eight years. I can understand favoring Republican or conservative policies – most of them, anyway. I might even agree with some of them. But I will never, never understand why January 6 wasn’t a deal-breaker for almost everyone, regardless of your politics. I’ll never understand how anyone could vote to put the man behind that assault on our country back in the White House. His own Vice-President and most of his Cabinet said he should never again see the inside of the Oval Office. But half the country didn’t care, and now in two weeks he’ll once again be the most powerful man in the world.

One of the great ironies about all of this is that Trump supporters profess to love our country. But they support a man who has shown nothing but contempt for the United States and its most sacred institutions. He loves only power and himself.

When I spoke with my students four years ago, we discussed how the good news was that the institutions of our democracy had withstood the assault. They were severely tested, but they did not break. In the end, the integrity of our election was affirmed, the transfer of power took place, and Trump left office. But we also talked about how those institutions are fragile and can’t be taken for granted. January 6 showed us how easily they could be lost.

The next four years are going to be challenging and potentially dangerous. We have to continue to resist, to stand up for democracy and the rule of law. And whatever else happens going forward, we have to continue stand up for the truth of what happened on January 6, 2021. We can’t let them re-write and sanitize that history. We saw it with our own eyes — and we will not forget.