Why Jan. 6 isn’t over

The mob is gone. The pepper spray has dissipated. The pounding on the door into the House of Representatives – a battering ram sound that still haunts some members – has stilled.

It has been a year since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and in some ways American politics and government has returned to normal. Lawmakers are wrangling over bills and budgets. Party strategists are focused on redistricting and upcoming midterm elections.

But Jan. 6 isn’t just an event for the history books. It’s not even past. It’s still occurring.

In the months since pro-Trump protesters smashed their way into the halls of Congress with the apparent intent of attacking and disrupting the counting of Electoral College votes, it has become increasingly clear that the violence was just one part of a broader effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In the months since, that effort has focused on the nation’s electoral system, making changes that might favor former President Donald Trump and pro-Trump candidates in elections to come.

In that sense, Jan. 6 was a highly visible symbol of – and important piece of – systemic action to undermine the nature of American democracy. Since then, former Trump officials have revealed the surprising extent of planning to stop certification of President Joe Biden’s victory – including one alleged effort nicknamed the “Green Bay Sweep.”

Former President Trump has continued to push Republican candidates at all levels to embrace his false claims of election fraud and pass new laws restricting voting. Violent threats have poured into the offices of state election officials, leading many to quit.

The good news is that American democracy stood up and passed its test in late 2020 and early 2021. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other key GOP officials resisted Mr. Trump’s pressure to “find” votes to reverse the presidential outcome in key states.

The question is, can it withstand further challenge?

“People say, ‘Look, it held, the institution held,’” says Laura Thornton, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund. “That’s true to an extent, but it’s not quite as strong as that indicates. It held because a few election officials had a moral compass. It should be a little stronger than that.”

“Green Bay Sweep” and other tactics

At the time, the Jan. 6 insurrection seemed a shocking, virtually unprecedented event. Five people died during or in the hours after the violence that day, and more than 145 police officers were injured. Crowds bludgeoned members of law enforcement with metal barriers, flagstaffs, fire extinguishers, and their own riot shields. Intruders broke into the Senate chamber and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. A Confederate flag fluttered in the Rotunda.

The Department of Justice has moved deliberately since that day to identify and prosecute those who broke the law by intrusion or violent action. So far 725 people have been charged for their roles on Jan. 6, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday. Of those, 325 have been charged with felonies.

“Actions taken thus far will not be our last,” said Attorney General Garland.

No evidence has yet emerged that Trump White House officials or other political figures communicated with or controlled members of the mob as they assaulted the building. But over the past year plenty of evidence has emerged that ties Trump figures to plans to slow or block the counting of electoral votes scheduled for that day, on the pretext the votes were fraudulent and the “steal” needed to be stopped.

Conservative lawyer John Eastman, then working with President Trump’s legal team, drew up a memo that hinged on Vice President Mike Pence halting the count or throwing out the results. More recently, Bernard Kerik, former New York City police commissioner and another legal adviser to Mr. Trump, informed the House January 6 committee of the existence of a document titled “Draft Letter from POTUS to Seize Evidence in the Interest of National Security for the 2020 Elections.” (Mr. Kerik said he is withholding that letter on grounds of executive privilege.)

In his recent memoir, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro wrote of the “Green Bay Sweep” plan, which involved not former Packer great Paul Hornung but an attempt by friendly members of Congress to delay an electoral count vote by 24 hours, allowing key state legislatures time to send new slates of electors to Washington.

The House January 6 committee has released numerous text messages to and from White House officials outlining different versions of this basic attempted Biden-blocking scheme. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, for instance, said “Yes. Have a team on it,” in a text to one unidentified GOP lawmaker.

On Jan. 6 itself, texts from Donald Trump Jr., Fox News personalities, and others poured into the White House imploring a silent President Trump to call off the rioters. Wrap all this together and the riot seems just one part of a larger ongoing effort.

“What we’re learning is the depths of that intention on the part of the White House,” says Robert Lieberman, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University.

America sharply divided over Jan. 6 meaning

Meanwhile, over the past year the U.S. has split along political lines over Jan. 6 memories. One side sees it as a stain on national history. The other, driven largely by false assertions of voter fraud and the efforts of some Republicans to downplay aspects of the day, see it as something else.

Ninety-three percent of Democrats, and about 60% of the nation as a whole, say they consider Jan. 6 an attack on the government, according to a Quinnipiac poll from last October. Only 29% of Republicans agree.

Ninety percent of Democrats, and about 66% of the nation as a whole, remember the day as being extremely or very violent, according to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey. Only 40% of Republicans say they remember the events of Jan. 6 as violent.

Behind this are conservative conspiracy theories spun by Fox News hosts and others who have asserted that the attack on the Capitol was a false-flag operation instigated by Antifa, or FBI informants, or some other sort of deep state government agents. 

Last year Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia compared the violent insurrection to a “normal tourist visit” by vacationers. Not every GOP official believes this. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell described the day as “horrendous” in an interview late last year. Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said on Jan. 2 that comparing the struggle for the Capitol to tourism is “insane.”

The context for this is Mr. Trump’s grip on the Republican Party. Denial that he lost in 2020 has become a litmus test for winning his endorsement. He has pushed for revenge GOP candidates to compete in primaries against party figures who deny his false allegations of election fraud, such as Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who voted to impeach President Trump and lost her leadership position in the GOP. Trump followers are pursuing election posts in many states. At least 15 Republicans running for secretary of state – a key election post – in states across the U.S. question the legitimacy of President Biden’s win, despite no evidence of widespread fraud.

“It’s one thing to see these types of attitudes, these anti-democratic attitudes, among the mass public. It’s another thing to see it taking such a hold among the elected elites, and I think that’s what is most troubling and worrying,” says Cornell Clayton, professor of government at Washington State University.

“Democracy was attacked”

President Biden spoke from the Capitol on Thursday trying to put the events of Jan. 6 in a larger context.

“For the first time in our history, a president not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol,” Mr. Biden said. “But they failed.

“Democracy was attacked,” he added. “We the people endure. We the people prevailed.”

Mr. Trump issued a statement in response attacking Mr. Biden on a range of issues from the border to the economy, and saying that Democrats were using Jan. 6 to divide the country.

That’s the divide the U.S. now faces.

Yet that’s also the new reality of American politics. The power of disinformation disseminated by partisan outlets and social media is such that it can deny evidence in front of our eyes, says Ms. Thornton of the Alliance for Securing Democracy. 

“I think January 6th was a democracy-rocking event. To have people try to rewrite that script is shocking enough, but it’s also perplexing, because we can see the video evidence that it wasn’t peaceful,” she says.

That’s why it isn’t enough that democracy survived a troubled transfer of power in 2021, she adds. One political party is full of seething voters who think the presidency has already been stolen. Unless that can be defused, in a nation full of guns, Jan. 6 might just be a harbinger.

More civic education and more election transparency via trained observers are among the things that might help. 

“What are the solutions? How do we fix it?” Ms. Thornton asks, adding that getting ahead of this problem should be a national focus in years ahead.

Staff writer Dwight Weingarten contributed to this report from Washington.