Commentary

Tom Nichols, at the Atlantic, on “A Slow Democratic Recovery“:

President Biden today decorated 14 Americans with the Presidential Citizens Medal, an honor established by President Richard Nixon in 1969 to recognize any citizen of the United States who has “performed exemplary deeds or services for his or her country or fellow citizens.” There are, I am sure, people on the right who will roll their eyes at honoring a Democrat such as Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, or a Republican such as the former Arizona House speaker Rusty Bowers (whose long political career ended with censure and a primary defeat from his own party). Likewise, the Capitol Police officers and the election officials who will be honored have already been the target of harassment and threats; their medals cannot make them whole now. Nor can such a posthumous honor restore Officer Brian Sicknick to life. (Sicknick’s family yesterday filed a wrongful-death suit against former President Donald Trump and two of the January 6 rioters.)

These American citizens are all, in fact, heroes. They took risks—not only politically but also by enduring physical threats from unhinged conspiracists—to protect our democracy. It’s easy to forget just how much danger these people were in, and how narrowly we escaped even greater chaos. Imagine what America would look like today if some of the people being honored by Biden had been intimidated or defeated, or if they’d just lost their nerve.

I reached out to Rosa Brooks today to explore that question. Brooks is one of the scholars who convened a group of experts and partisan operatives in late 2020 to game out the “worst thing that could happen to our country during the presidential elections.” She and her colleagues attracted a lot of snippy criticism at the time, but the events of January 6, 2021, proved their prescience. When I asked about her view of the worst that could have happened on that day, her scenario was chilling: She believes that had the rioters caught Vice President Mike Pence, or perhaps some members of Congress—such as the Democrats trapped in the House gallery at the time—they may well have been beaten or killed. “We know what happened to the police officers caught by the mob,” she told me. “Imagine if the mob had caught members of Congress.”…

Brooks’s most disheartening conclusion was that we escaped this disastrous possible outcome only by sheer luck. “I don’t think some sort of resilience in our system prevented that,” she said. “It wasn’t the supposed ‘guardrails of democracy’ that kept things from getting that bad—it was chance, plain and simple.”

I agree. We might be glad Pence stood firm at a key moment, but Pence had to be free—indeed, alive—to act. We might also comfort ourselves knowing that the clowns and opportunists who tried to overthrow our constitutional order have been outed by a thorough investigation in Congress. We can hope that justice is served, with prison sentences for some of the most dangerous seditionists and violent rioters. But is it enough? As the Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn tweeted this morning: “730 days later. We’re still waiting on accountability.”…

The anniversary of January 6 should remind us that the crisis of American democracy isn’t over, and that we should continue to take seriously what a close call we had in January 2021. (Exhibit A: Twitter’s new boss, the deeply unserious Elon Musk, trollishly chose today to reinstate the account of the disgraced Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn, the man who wanted the military to seize voting machines.)…

It is fitting that we remember the heroes of January 6, including the many people who weren’t at the White House that day but who stayed at their posts and did their jobs as election officials, volunteers, observers, and many other of the tasks that allow the millions of citizens of a giant federal democracy to govern themselves. But the events today on Capitol Hill and the ceremony at the White House are reminders that the threats to our constitutional order have not vanished, and that we cannot magically wish them away.

Our Failed Mainstream Media:

to provide context for readers since bob here won't do it, i will point out that the whole reason he will have to deal with these members and dynamics is because he has ruled out working with the entire other half of the chamber who represent more than 50% of americans. https://t.co/om4RED5qPq

— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) January 6, 2023

political media stop volunteering to lay your bodies over the broad, wide, utterly exposed ass of the republican party challenge 2023, difficulty level impossible

congress is broken, and an enormous part of why it’s broken is that the fourth estate simply do not bother to provide americans with the important background or context for how it got broken, why it’s broken, or who broke it

i have had a good time with this over the course of the week, because it’s very funny, but it’s no fucking way to run a government

mccarthy could easily get democrats on board were he willing to offer any concessions, and they would be exponentially more reasonable that what the freedom caucus demand, but because he is not a leader, he has rejected the option

i harp about “leadership” a lot, and how so many of our critical functions lack it in this country, and this is what that looks like, a bunch of stupid, vain and malicious assholes kicking each other in the balls while the press reports on the velocity of their shoes

like, this is a disgrace. it’s a hilarious disgrace (for now), but it’s legitimately a disgrace. stop giving these disgraceful incompetent shitheads cover just because they feed you juicy text messages, bob.

https://t.co/0RaEq3E6KG

— antifa bus driver (@ihldmybreth4fun) January 6, 2023

just so we're clear, McCarthy of Bakersfield does NOT have the Mandate of Heaven. Heaven tolerates him at best.

— the abbot of unreason (an archaeologist) ?? (@merovingians) January 7, 2023

God bless whoever did this, I was gonna tweet the URL as a joke https://t.co/6ufHlMjVeK

— Mrs. Detective Pikajew, Esq. (@clapifyoulikeme) January 7, 2023