January 6th
It still matters
As I’m sure everyone has been reminded, yesterday marked one year since the Capitol Building was breached by hundreds of people protesting the results of the 2020 Presidential election. I am perfectly aware that many (if not most) people on the right are tired of hearing about Jan. 6th. I understand that many feel like it has been a cudgel used by those on the left to justify all of their previous condemnations of any and all Trump supporters as a threat to democracy. I know that it is a topic in which many others have written about endlessly.
With all of that knowledge, I am still going to write about Jan. 6th because it is still worth discussing. Maybe I am being self-indulgent because Jan. 6th was the inspiration behind this newsletter and the most significant event in my life to shape my political beliefs. Maybe Jan. 6th had an outsized effect on me compared to everyone else and it really isn’t as significant as I believe it to be. I won’t deny that possibility, but I also haven’t heard an argument convincing enough to believe that to be true. I think Jan. 6th provided valuable lessons that ought to be discussed because they have been forgotten by many people who claim to be conservative and, as Jan. 6th demonstrated, failure to remember these lessons has serious consequences.
Character Matters
During the Trump presidency, the most common comment from conservatives was “I don’t like Trump as a person, but I like his policies.” This was an understandable sentiment for many conservatives because Trump’s administration oversaw many conservative policies such as tax cuts, deregulation, Federalist judges, etc. At the same time, it was a recognition that Trump wasn’t necessarily the ideal person to be president. Sometimes, conservatives would not go so far and talk about Trump as a person and merely mention that they wish he would stop tweeting.
While it’s interesting to me that so many conservatives would distance themselves from the person of Trump, it isn’t surprising because they had every reason to. The reality is that Trump is and has been a person of low moral character. He’s had multiple affairs, paid off a pornstar not to talk about their affair, talked about sexually assaulting women, childishly name called, among other things. To be clear, Trump did not just “send some mean tweets” like many will trivialize but participated in abhorrent behavior as defined by any orthodox Christian perspective with no admission of wrong. Not to mention, he is narcissistic, childish, exaggerates/lies, and refuses to acknowledge error. Even by most non-Christians, these behaviors and characteristics are deemed unethical.
There can be no debate regarding Trump’s character. However, there can be and is debate over whether or how much of a role character should play when supporting a politician. Usually, this argument goes something like: “We can’t expect politicians to be saints.” Or, the famous “it’s choosing the lesser of two evils” or “throwing away your vote on someone who isn’t going to win.” No matter how this argument is phrased, the intention is to minimize the importance of character in supporting a politician as long as they have good policies.
I frequently made basically the same argument by saying that I assumed all politicians were awful people so to support any would prove that character doesn’t/shouldn’t matter. With that said, Jan. 6th made me realize how completely wrong I was to believe character doesn’t matter.
It was Donald Trump’s failure to accept a loss that allowed Jan. 6th to happen. His inability to accept the loss of the 2020 election led him to consistently and intentionally cast doubt on the election. He did not care what the consequences of casting such doubt would be because to him accepting a loss was worst.
It was Donald Trump’s consistent lying and inability to tell the truth that allowed Jan. 6th to happen. Because he could not accept that he had lost, Trump refused to say anything other than the election had to be stolen. He promoted conspiracy theories and made-up claims of voter fraud that were consistently thrown out of court because there was no evidence.
It was Donald Trump’s selfishness that allowed Jan. 6th to happen. He cared more about his ego than defending and protecting America’s constitutional system as his oath required. He was more concerned with his followers and other Republicans demonstrating loyalty to himself than to the Constitution.
Jan. 6th was the product of Donald Trump’s varied character issues that many conservatives attempted to distance themselves from during his presidency. Many, including myself, believed those character issues, while not ideal, would not amount to anything too damaging as long as he continued pursuing conservative policies. Jan. 6th proved me, and other conservatives, wrong. Yes, policies still matter but character matters just as much if not more. When we elect politicians who have poor moral character, we can’t be surprised when they act in morally abhorrent ways.
Truth Matters
Furthermore, Jan. 6th demonstrably showed that the truth matters, politicians speaking the truth matters, and holding politicians accountable for lying matters. While this could probably be included in the previous discussion about character, I want to talk about it separately because lies played such an important role on Jan. 6th.
This is an important point because many on the left wrongly describe the people that were at the Capitol on Jan. 6th as enemies of democracy. While I certainly believe they were threats to democracy, most people were there because they believed that they were saving democracy. Somebody that seeks to save democracy cannot also be an enemy of democracy. They were not out to end American democracy but protect it from what they deemed to be the real threat: a fraudulent election result.
This raises the important question of whether the election result was actually fraudulent. I don’t mean whether there were individual cases of election fraud (there almost certainly was and is in every election), but whether there was enough fraud to change the result of the election. The answer is a resounding no. If you disagree then here, here, here, here, here, and here you can read various fact checks that address claims that the election result was fraudulent, not to mention all the various fact checks that address individual claims all across the internet. And yet, the people who stormed the capitol on Jan. 6th were convinced that the election result was fraudulent and they were saving American democracy. Why? Because they were told and believed lies.
Donald Trump told them that the election was fraudulent, Rudy Giuliani told them the election was fraudulent, Republican politicians like Matt Gaetz told them the election was fraudulent, and Republican commentators like Lou Dobbs told them the election was fraudulent. All of the above consistently made claims that were proven false at the time and have continued to prove false. This group covers the gambit from people who knew what they were saying was false and purposely lied and people who very well may have believed every word coming out of their mouths. Whether it was deception or ignorance, the substance of the claims was false but was consistently proclaimed as true.
Before I am accused of picking only the craziest fringe people to point out (though I’m not sure how it gets more mainstream than the President of the United States), I’m aware that other Republicans, maybe the majority, did not go so far as to claim that the election was “stolen.” However, many did not come out and strongly condemn such states as demonstrably false. In fact, a dozen Republican senators and more than 100 Republicans representatives announced on or before Jan. 6th that they would object to the counting of the electoral results.
For many, this election fraud song and dance was seen as harmless because nothing would really come from it. I’m sure most of these Republican politicians were making such claims merely to maintain favor amongst the base of the party and did not actually want the election results to be overturned. They believed it was a cheap way to say that they “fought” for Donald Trump. I believe this because some, like Kelly Loeffler, changed their mind about objecting to the results after the Capitol was breeched.
What Jan. 6th demonstrated though is that there is no “cheap” or non-consequential way to accept, wink/nod at, or ignore lies from people with power. It doesn’t matter how insignificant or crazy the lies seem to be because lies have consequences. It only takes a small minority of the fringiest, most radical segment to believe a lie and act upon that lie to destabilize everything. For example, 99.9% of the 74 million people that voted for Trump may not believe Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being fraudulent (just to be clear I am making this up). This would make it seem like the lies are relatively harmless. However, that .1% consists of his most ardent supporters and can total up to 74,000 people. That many people, able to communicate and coordinate due to the internet, can be an incredibly destabilizing force.
In other words, lies are not insignificant when spoken by people with immense power and must be confronted, called out, and condemned fervently.
Republican Party
Finally, I want to briefly address the current state of the Republican party a year after Jan. 6th. Immediately following the chaos, most Republicans came out and condemned the violence of that day. Politicians like Lindsey Graham said, “Count me out” from supporting Trump. And yet, those same Republican politicians have now jumped back on the Trump train and/or downplayed the events of Jan. 6th.
Republicans have protested more about what the events should be labeled as - insurrection, terrorist attack, protest, etc. - than resisted the lies that caused the event to happen. They have voted out a staunch lifetime conservative in Liz Cheney as Republican Conference Chairman and replaced her with less conservative Elise Stefanik because Cheney would not stop criticizing Trump. Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy made a trip to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago to patch up their relationship a mere few weeks into Joe Biden’s presidency. Republicans, outside of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, refused to participate and have actively discredited the Jan. 6th commission’s investigation of the events of that day.
Let me be clear, none of this has to do with pursuing more conservative policies and governance. If it did then Liz Cheney, who ranks as one of the most conservative members of Congress by pretty much all conservative report card organizations, would not be the pariah that she is. Whether one completely agrees with Liz Cheney or not, she is a staunch conservative by pretty much any definition and certainly more than Elise Stefanik.
It is not her lack of conservative principles that have made Liz Cheney an outcast within the Republican party. It is “disloyalty” to Donald Trump. She has refused to let Donald Trump off the hook for his role in Jan. 6th happening regardless of the consequences. She represents an entire state that voted in favor of Donald Trump by over 70%. By refusing to be quiet about Trump, she has almost certainly ended her career as a representative from Wyoming. It is her conviction in conservative principles like the peaceful transfer of power, faith in the legal system, fidelity to the Constitution, importance of high moral character, and respect of institutions that have made her an outcast.
Cheney’s casting out from the Republican Party’s acceptance speaks greater volumes about the party than it does about her. So many politicians within the Republican party have abandoned these conservative principles in favor of pure, blind loyalty to one man: Donald Trump. If Jan 6th. did anything, it revealed how uncommitted so many Republican politicians are to the conservative principles that they claimed to hold. At least, not when it threatened their hold on power. Ronald Reagan must be turning in his grave.
God Bless,
Hunter Burnett