US democracy is more resilient than we give it credit for

Jan. 6 was an unsuccessful attack on democracy — the key word being "unsuccessful."

One year ago, the country watched a physical assault on one of our great symbols of democracy. Jan. 6 was bad, but it was not the death knell so many are claiming it to be. 

To be clear, I am more than sympathetic to Paul Miller’s argument that the Jan.6 attack on the Capitol should be considered an act of domestic terrorism rather than a mere riot. Mounting piles of evidence show that a handful of right-wing groups were prepared to inflict violence on people as well as symbols — offering a textbook definition of terrorism. 

The shameful backsliding of Republican officials who condemned the violence and the rhetoric of former President Donald Trump that day should be enough for voters to doubt their fitness for office. They have damaged their reputations, the reputation of their party, and the standing of the country in the eyes of the world. There is no excuse for their reticence to stand by their words spoken in the clear light of day immediately following the attack.  

But what so many pundits are not willing to discuss is that Jan. 6 did not hobble democracy. Trump did not emerge victorious from the attack. And he has since been banished from social media and left with little public voice outside of press releases. President Joe Biden sits in the oval office, and Democrats control Congress. Polls sadly show that a majority of Republicans don’t believe Trump was culpable for the violence on Jan. 6 and that Biden is not the legitimate president. But on that second point, they are only continuing a now two-decade trend of supporters of losing candidates questioning the legitimacy of presidential winners. 

Democrats insisted that George W. Bush was not a legitimate president after he lost the popular vote and entered the White House on the back of a Supreme Court ruling. For four years, the country was treated to diatribes about how Trump was not legitimately elected. Republicans are acting shamefully, but no differently than their colleagues across the aisle when it comes to complaining about winners and losers. 

There is no denying the severity of Jan. 6 as an attack on democracy, but it’s clear the attack failed. Congress has not had any problems investigating the events leading up to the sacking of the Capitol. The truculence of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy did nothing to stop the House from convening a committee to lift the rock under which many nasty details about the attempted coup are hiding. McCarthy and his coalition had an opportunity to participate in a bipartisan commission. The fact that he refused to acknowledge his weak bargaining position, resulting in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi having the power to appoint the only two Republicans to the committee, reinforced the fact that democracy is, in fact, alive and well in America. 

Republicans are attempting a counterinvestigation of their own, which is their prerogative, but nothing one partisan committee finds will cancel out the findings of another. We can be cynical about the GOP’s attempts to shift blame away from the former president, but more eyes and hands investigating is a net positive for anyone interested in understanding what was happening off-camera. 

Despite revisionist histories about the attack, Trump announced he will not hold a press conference from his refuge at Mar a Lago commemorating his troops’ attempt to wrest the presidency from the hands of democracy. Republicans might overwhelmingly be willing to say Trump played little to no part in the violence, but there are currents forcing the famously fickle and combative executive from trying to bask in the light of that dark day’s shadow. 

Last year was a banner year for coups. Bad actors looking to overthrow their governments might have looked to the attempt in the U.S. as a beacon that a time for violence had come. What the rest of the world should see is that despite the violence, the coup was unsuccessful. Many democracies fell to the hands of violent perpetrators in 2021. America’s was not one, and there is no sense in suggesting it is any weaker because of it.