Today marks the 5th anniversary of January 6. Do y’all remember where you were that day?
Do you agree with the president who pardoned the 1500 “patriots” convicted for planning an insurrection and storming the Capitol?
Do you agree with the words he spoke while doing so?
“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation.”
Recasting traitors as heroes and patriots is what permitted the Klan to rise and white supremacy to flourish after the Civil War.
The reality is that Donald Trump took criminals and elevated them to hero status. He turned criminals into champions. While also permitting white supremacist movements to take hold as a legitimate part of our current political landscape. A new Lost Cause.
We get to review events after January 6 through the recent testimony of Jack Smith before the House Judiciary Committee. Hopefully it will refresh some memories that have apparently become twisted through the attempted rewriting of history.
Like Senator McConnell, who said after Trump was acquitted following his impeachment for inciting an insurrection that his conduct on January 6 was “disgraceful” and that he was “practically and morally responsible” for what took place.
Like House minority leader Kevin McCarthy who told key Republicans privately that Trump’s behavior on January 6 was “atrocious and totally wrong,” going so far as to accuse Trump of “inciting” the mob that went to the Capitol.
Like many other Republicans who had feared for their lives on January 6 and joined in condemning events as well.
But more than 140 Republican members of Congress also refused to accept Trump’s loss. Even though federal judges, including many appointed by Trump and other Republicans, confirmed the result in rulings from more than 60 lawsuits.
Some, like former Alabama Rep Mo Brooks, explicitly encouraged violence that day, telling the crowd that “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. … Today is a time of choosing and tomorrow is a time of fighting.”
If the newly romanticized version from Trump, the story of heroes and winners, is permitted to prevail, it will make it impossible for us to emerge whole from this era. Like the Big Lie that led to January 6 it will perpetuate a false history. Is this the version of history you want taught in our schools? Is this the event that we want to refer to as a proud moment in our democracy? Are these the people we want to erect statues to, honoring them as symbols of American greatness?
Praising them while the plaque honoring the Capitol police, who protected you and yours during that day, has mysteriously disappeared from where it had been installed in the Capitol.
Trump will continue with disregarding the laws of our country, the will of the people, the Constitution. And Congress.
Only a united front from the Legislative branch has a chance of stopping him. Remember the reality of January 6, 2021.
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