Rally #1
On January 6, 2021 a group of thousands of Donald J. Trump supporters gathered outside the Capitol building in Washington D.C. The right-wing news media reported to them that Joseph R. Biden had not really won the 2020 election and they protested peacefully to make their displeasure known. The Capitol was closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the joint session of Congress which met to certify the 2020 Presidential election. The demonstrators did not enter any buildings and maintained the spirit of the 1st amendment’s right-to-protest. They were prompted to attend when Trump posted on social media: Big protest in D.C. on January 6. Be there, will be wild!
Rally #2
On January 6, 2021, a group of thousands of Donald J. Trump supporters gathered to hear the President speak at the ellipse outside the White House. Trump claimed that he had won the 2020 election and did not want Joseph R. Biden’s win to be certified by the joint session of Congress. Attorney Rudy Giuliani warmed up the crowd by stating “let’s have trial by combat.” The President lied to about the election results as he had been doing for weeks. He told the the crowd to “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength.”. Knowing that armed citizens were near the ellipse, he told the crowd to go to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically’ and “stop the steal”. Trump wanted to go to the Capitol as well, but was stopped by his security detail who could not guarantee the President’s safety within a mob. They took the President back to the White House where he watched acts of violence unfold on TV. The crowd who ascended the Capitol steps did not behave peacefully or patriotically. The Capitol Police and Metro DC Police were vastly outnumbered by rioters who attacked police and swarmed into the Capitol. For over 3 hours the President’s staff begged him to call off the mob which he only did after Congress had been evacuated from the Capitol. Over 1,000 people were later charged with assaulting police with flag poles, bear spray and, in the case of Metro DC Police Officer Michael Fanone, his own taser. Fanone had a heart-attack and is no longer able to work for the Metro DC Police. Officer Brian Sicknick had two strokes later that day which ended his life. A total of 140 officers reported injuries due to the violence. Air Force veteran, Ashli Babbitt, was shot by a Capitol Police officer when she climbed through a broken window into the Speaker’s Lobby. Members of Congress heard the shot and barricaded the door to their chamber. People in the mob filmed themselves attacking police as well as breaking windows and doors to gain access to the Capitol which was closed while Congress met to certify the 2020 Presidential election. The security detail was in plain view before Babbitt made this attempt. With the additional footage provided by police body-cams and documentary filmmakers, there was a lot of detail about what specific actions were taken by members of the crowd and security officers.
These two versions of events are significant because both happened. Trump supporters who watched right-wing media only accept version #1 (R1) and refuse either to accept that version #2 (R2) ever occurred or that if it did occur that Trump himself was not responsible for the violence. (An issue with this is that many rioters have been tried and many declared that Trump’s words were the reason they attacked the Capitol on Jan 6.) Meanwhile mainstream media discussed the violent aspects of the day without mentioning the peaceful protesters. This follows a pattern treating many peaceful protests of deserving barely a mention because they are legal. Rioting mobs are more newsworthy. The mainstream media handled the 2020 protests/riots following the police-induced death of unarmed citizen George Floyd in Minneapolis in a similar fashion.
On November 3, 2020, 81 million voters chose Joe Biden for President while 74 million chose Donald Trump. The 2016-2021 Trump Presidency involved many scandals and ended with the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic was the only major issue faced by President Trump that was not of his own making. Trump did not see the pandemic as a threat to the public but rather as a threat to his re-election. Rather than treat the virus itself as the enemy, he treated information about the virus as the enemy. He told people “it would go away in the Spring” (it didn’t) and he decided not to wear a face mask which was the only way to prevent the spread of the virus in 2020. In Cassidy Hutchison’s book “Enough” she describes telling the President that his face mask was smearing his make-up and he refused to wear one after that. Public Health officials advocated policies to prevent people from gathering in crowds to slow the spread of the virus because hospitals were getting overwhelmed with cases. Trump encouraged people to attend his political rallies and attendees shamed anyone who wore a mask. The President at different times also encouraged the public to take medications that were not recommended for human consumption. People who followed his advice created work for poison-control centers. The President’s irresponsible behavior during this crisis caused older voters (the most likely to become fatally ill from COVID-19) to fear for their lives. Trump’s mishandling of this crisis is the most obvious reason that he lost the 2020 election.
The 2020 election results took a few days to be finalized. Fox News reported that Biden had won Arizona which made the Fox audience angry. Viewers began to watch the more extreme network, OAN, because reporters there told the audience what they wanted to hear. Fearing for their ratings, Fox opinion hosts decided to back Trump’s narrative that he had really won the election. His attorneys filed 60 court cases which were dismissed due to lack of evidence. Right-wing media twisted this narrative to ‘the courts would not hear the evidence’ because Trump and others kept claiming that evidence of massive fraud existed but were never able to produce any of it.
To many Americans this seemed like an obvious con job. Unfortunately Trump supporters bought the story hook, line and sinker. After his court cases failed Trump was on the brink of accepting the election results until attorney Kenneth Cheseboro (who had been told not to encourage the President in his falsehood) told Trump that the election was not really over until it was certified by Congress on January 6th. This was the spark of contesting the certification.
Chesebro later admitted to a scheme where duplicate slates of electors would be sent to Congress with faked paperwork. These false State certificates would be presented to Vice President Pence who would become confused about which results were correct, causing the Congress to refuse to certify the election and ‘send it back to the states’ which was supposed to either buy time or give the Congress the authority to vote on the election themselves.
Advocates of this fake-electors scheme, notably Trump aide Peter Navarro, described this is a ‘constitutional’ way to change the election results (it isn’t). Congressman Paul Gosar, R-AZ,and Senator Ted Cruz, R-TX, started the process by contesting Arizona’s election results. Navarro complained that the process was interrupted when the mob attacked the Capitol. Navarro’s interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber was later played during the Jan 6 Select Committee’s hearings in 2022.
Part of the public saw the attack on the Capitol as an act of insurrection by President Trump. Another part of the public, notably peaceful protesters who were at the Capitol on Jan 6, decided that if they had not witnessed the violence with their own eyes, then it did not happen. This attitude continued despite the hours of footage available. Fox News continued to provide cover for Trump, claiming that there had been provocateurs in the crowd or that footage existed that somehow exonerated the violent participants. Trump supporters have been allowed to close their eyes and ears to any evidence that Trump himself knew that violence might happen on Jan 6 and excuse him for not acting to stop it just as they excuse his poor handling of the pandemic.
In the aftermath of the riot, a traumatized House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump for insurrection. The trial in the Senate was the first time the public saw information (mainly from the President’s many social media posts) tying Trump to the rally and ensuing riot. A few Republican Senators voted with the Democrats to almost, but not quite, convict Trump which would have prevented him running for President again. Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had delayed starting the trial until after Joe Biden had been inaugurated. This gave McConnell the excuse that the Senate should not complete the impeachment of a President who was no longer in office. Speaking more for the history books than the living public, he declared the Trump was responsible for the events of the day, but that the Department of Justice should handle matters, not the Senate.
The Department of Justice allowed the rioters to leave Washington D.C and later rounded them up and conducted trials. Due to the quantity of footage available, law enforcement was able to determine who had simply been on the premises and who had committed acts of violence. Charges ranging from trespassing to seditious conspiracy were tailored to each defendant and over 1,000 trials were held over several years.
Trump loudly proclaimed that people who had participated in the riot were patriots who were somehow innocent and deserved pardons. This continued to confuse his supporters who did not necessarily distinguish violent participants from those who simply trespassed or had protested peacefully away from the Capitol building.
The DOJ decided to appear non-political and opted not to charge Trump himself until the Jan 6 Select Committee’s hearing put so much evidence before the public that they shamed the DOJ into acting. Merrick Garland announced the hiring of Special Council Jack Smith right after Trump declared that he would run for President in 2024. By then the DOJ’s action appeared very political.
Unfortunately Trump had just enough helpful judges and Supreme Court justices to delay his criminal trials. (He also took a large amount of classified material home to Florida and refused to give it back.). In November 2023, a court in Colorado held a trial and concluded that Trump had incited insurrection after taking an oath to the Constitution. This violates the 14th amendment which was passed after the Civil War. Trump has undeniably offered aid and comfort to insurrectionists by offering pardons to Jan 6 rioters. A violation of the 14th amendment blocks a person from serving in a federal-level post and the Colorado Supreme Court tried to block Trump’s name from appearing on the primary ballot in 2024. The US Supreme Court intervened and determined that a State Court could not prevent a candidate’s name from appearing on the ballot while ignoring their finding of insurrection. The US Supreme Court also dragged it’s feet on questions about Smith’s Jan 6 indictment, causing the trial to be delayed so long that Trump managed to get voted in for another term starting in 2025. A loss for democracy but a huge win for gaslighting. The public who chose lies and half-truths over annoying reality has gotten its wish. As I write this in January 2025 Trump’s 2nd inauguration is pending. May the Lord have mercy on the United States of America.
Information for this essay was collected from:
Justice Matters, Meidas Touch and MSNBC YouTube channels
The 2nd Impeachment Trial of Donald J Trump
The Jan 6 Select Committee hearings
“Enough” by Cassidy Hutchison
“Network of Lies: The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy” by Brian Stelter