JAN. 6, 2021: A DAY WHICH SHALL LIVE IN INFAMY...

 

By David Leonhardt

New York Times

NPR

Today is the first anniversary of the violent attack on the Capitol, by a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters who were trying to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election. The mob smashed windows and threatened the vice president and members of Congress. Seven people died as a result of the attack, including three police officers.

The Jan. 6 attack was part of a larger anti-democracy movement in the U.S. In the year since, the movement — which is closely aligned with the Republican Party — has changed some laws and ousted election officials, with the aim of overturning future results. The movement’s supporters justify these actions with lies about voter fraud.

Encouraged by Trump, other Republican politicians and conservative media stars, the anti-democratic movement is following a playbook used by authoritarians in other countries, both recently and historically. The movement is trying to use existing democratic laws — on vote counting and election certification, for example — to unravel democracy.

“We are in a terrible situation in which one of two major parties is no longer committed to playing by democratic rules,” Steven Levitsky — a political scientist and co-author of “How Democracies Die” with his Harvard colleague Daniel Ziblatt — told me. “No other established Western democracy faces such a threat today, not this acutely anyway.”

(Related: “I fear for our democracy,” former President Jimmy Carter writes in Times Opinion.)

The experience of other countries does offer some lessons about how to defeat anti-democratic movements. The most successful approach involves building coalitions of people who disagree, often vehemently, on many issues but who all believe in democracy.

So far, more than 700 people have been charged with crimes, and that number continues to steadily grow. The FBI has estimated that 2,000 people may have been involved in the attack that day. Law enforcement has arrested alleged rioters in nearly all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia. 

The defendants appear to be largely white, though not entirely. Federal prosecutors say far-right militia members decked out in tactical gear rioted next to a county commissioner, a New York City sanitation worker, and a two-time Olympic gold medalist.

In public comments and court documents, the Justice Department has roughly put the cases into three categories: those who conspired over days, weeks and even months to attack the Capitol; those who allegedly violently attacked police, often with the use of weapons; and the remainder who breached the building as part of the mob, but did not commit other crimes. 54 defendants have been charged with conspiracy. And 187 defendants have been charged with violence.

So far, 173 people have pleaded guilty to one or more charges stemming from the riot. Judges have handed down sentences to 74 people. 45% of those people who have been sentenced received prison time. The average prison sentence across all defendants who pleaded guilty is 115 days. One defendant had his charges dismissed.