The First Russian Revolution of 1905 failed (though it did lead to some reform). Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (better known as Lenin) called it the “The Great Dress Rehearsal.” In 1917 Lenin came back from exile and founded Soviet Russia, which eventually became the Soviet Union in 1922.
Adolf Hitler’s 1923 “Beer Hall Putsch,” an attempted coup d’etat by the Nazi party, failed. Hitler was tried for treason and sentenced to 5 years in prison. He was released after having served only nine months. In 1933 he assumed dictatorial power over Germany.
The January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol to stop the counting of Electoral Votes failed. On January 20, Donald J. Trump left the White House. Where will he be in 10 years?
GOP response to the insurrection hearing
On July 27, 2021, the House select committee began their hearings on the events surrounding the Capitol on January, 6, 2021. In moving testimony, two Capitol policemen and two DC Metropolitan policemen described their first-hand experiences during the violence of that day.
We never imagined this could happen: an attack, by our own people, fostered and encouraged by those granted power through the very system they sought to overturn…
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, (R-IL)
There is a difference between breaking the law and rejecting the rule of law, between a crime — even grave crimes — and a coup.
Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) both said they were too busy to watch the hearing. However, McCarthy was not too busy to hold a press conference prior to the hearing in which he, and newly appointed GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY), actually had the gall to blame Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for the Insurrection.
Meanwhile that same day, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Matt Gatz (R-FL), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Louis Gohmert (R-TX) and others held a press conference in front of the Justice Department building because they are trying to cast the Jan. 6 rioters who are in jail as patriotic “political prisoners.” In a July 20th appearance on Newsmax, Greene referred to these insurrectionists as “political prisoners of war.”
Undermining democracy
It is far past time to recognize that the Republican Party is at war with American ideals and the US Constitution. In January, 139 US Representatives (including Utah’s own Burgess Owens and Chris Stewart) and 8 US Senators voted, with absolutely no factual justification, to challenge the 2020 election results. We somehow accepted this outrageous and unprecedented behavior as a normal news day.
The right-wing effort to undermine our democratic processes and procedures has been taking place for decades, but the Trumpists, by defending and spreading the “Big Lie,” have unleashed a newly impassioned war against democracy in America. The corrupt and feeble Republican Party has completely surrendered to this madness.
House Republicans are fundraising off the attack of January 6th – from Trump, to Kevin McCarthy to Marjorie Traitor Greene. They are intent on owning January 6th. Let them.
Keith Olbermann
In any other time in our history, the degenerate defenses of the attempt to overthrow our democracy would have landed them in prison, or worse.
And more important than anything else, each day their terrorism remains unrecognized, and they remain unpunished, gives them more time to plan and more reason to believe they will succeed next time.
The Republicans have adopted the January 6th Insurrection as their own. They are all falling in line behind Der Fuhrer (the leader) and are assisting his hoped for return to power with continuing lies, gaslighting, obstruction, rallies, and a major push for gerrymandering and voter suppression. Their violent mobs have been put down for a time, but they are still seething just below the surface.
Violently attacking the Capitol with the intent to stop Congress from validating an election is terrorism. Conspiring and lying to protect those terrorists is treason. Most Americans don’t seem to realize it, but the Republican Party is determined to completely destroy our form of government in the name of an ignorant, incompetent, malignant, narcissist.
What would Captain Moroni do?
Those of us who live in the reality-based community need to wake up and respond to this threat firmly, if not forcefully. Ignoring it and attempting to just move on and return to conducting business as if nothing has changed is folly.
History clearly teaches that the forces of totalitarianism will not back down on their own. They must be strongly and consistently opposed. Occasionally, democracy and freedom win a decisive victory and the darkness withdraws for a while. But it always comes back. Now it has advanced quite far with little serious opposition. We have been too complacent for too long.
In the Book of Mormon, when Amalickiah wanted to be king, he led away many members of the church. Moroni, seeing the danger, raised the title of liberty to rally the Nephites to defend their form of government. Seeing he was outnumbered, Amalickiah and his closest followers disappeared. Without him, the rebellion ended. Moroni gave Amalickiah’s remaining followers a stark choice: they could make a covenant to support the free government, or they would be killed.
However, next door, using murder and treachery, Amalickiah eventually took the Lamanite throne and started a bloody war against the Nephites. The most savage leaders of the Lamanite army were the former Nephites (the traitors).
Captain Moroni did not take up arms against Amalickiah’s followers because they wanted a king. There was no law against political opinion. But when they turned from dissent to violence and treason, when the elected government was threatened, Moroni raised an army and joined the war.
I believe it is time to arrest, convict, and imprison, not just those who attacked the Capitol on January 6th, but also those who incited them and still encourage them — including members of Congress. To do less is to ask for even more serious trouble in the future.
January 6th threatens our most sacred legacy. The question for every one of us who serves in Congress, for every elected official across this great nation, indeed, for every American is this: Will we adhere to the rule of law? Will we respect the rulings of our courts?
Liz Cheney, (R-WY)
Will we preserve the peaceful transition of power? Or will we be so blinded by partisanship that we throw away the miracle of America?
Do we hate our political adversaries more than we love our country and revere our Constitution? I pray that that is not the case.
Sources
Keith Olbermann, “After Police Testimony to the 1/6 Committee, Is It Time to Declare the GOP a Terrorist Organization?,” YouTube, January 27, 2021.
Nicolle Wallace, “John Heilemann: ‘We All Know Who Hired the ‘Hit Man’ For The Jan 6th Riot’,” MSNBC, YouTube, July 27, 2021.
Jake Tapper, “Cheney reacts to GOP leader blaming Pelosi for insurrection,” CNN, YouTube, July 27, 2021.
Will Somner, “Republicans Recast Jan. 6 Riot Defendants as ‘Political Prisoners’,” The Daily Beast, Jul 27, 2021.
Justin Rohrlich, “‘This Is How I’m Going to Die’: Capitol Cops Wipe Away Tears ay Jan 6. Hearing,” The Daily Beast, Jul 27, 2021.
Joshua Solomon, “Stefanik blames Pelosi for Jan. 6 insurrection,” Times Union, July 27, 2021.
Adam Kinzinger, “Read: Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s opening remarks at first hearing for select committee on Jan. 6,” CNN, July 27, 2021.
Chelsey Cox, “Liz Cheney calls for answers, accountability on Jan. 6: ‘We must know what happened’,” USA Today, July 27, 2021.
Holmes Lybrand, Tara Subramaniam, and Jamie Boschma, “Fact check: Some Republicans have tried to rewrite the history of January 6. Here’s how,” CNN, July 27, 2021.
Ryan Nobles and Melanie Zanona, “Republicans attempt to undermine and distract from the first 1/6 select committee hearing,” CNN, July 27, 2021.
Mychael Schnell, “McCarthy, McConnell, say they didn’t watch Jan.6 hearing,” The Hill, July 27, 2021.
Alexis Benveniste, “Carl Bernstein: Trump is a ‘war criminal’,” CNN Business, July 25, 2021.
Julian Zelizer, “Trump’s GOP enablers know just what’s coming,” CNN, July 16, 2021.
Michael D’Antonio, “The real reason Trump keeps telling the Big Lie,” CNN, July 16, 2021.
Anne Applebaum, “Coexistence Is The Only Option,” The Atlantic, January 20, 2021.
Karen Yourish, “The 147 Republicans Who Voted to Overturn Election Results,” The New York Times, January 7, 2021.
Orson Scott Card, “Dissent and Treason,” Ensign, September, 1977.
Well said, and timely. The fact that so many Republican leaders, who were protected during the insurrection on Jan 6, did not even bother to watch the testimony of the four officers, or who even attempted counter-programming, shows where their loyalties lie. That, and their demonization of Cheny for daring to show some principle and integrity, rather than simple tribalism and loyalty to a cult of personality to a narcissistic sociopath.
Incidentally, regarding the stark choice presented to Amalekiah’s followers, Nibley’s essay on “Freemen and Kingmen in the Book of Mormon” makes the case that any of them who were killed were killed in battle where “they did lift their weapons of war to fight against the men of Moroni” (Alma 51:18) and that “Those of their leaders who were not slain in battle were taken and cast into prison for there was no time for trials at this period” (Alma 51:19). See Nibley, in The Prophetic Book of Mormon, 357-358. Reading Alma 46:35 as though it involved summary executions of political opponents neglects the contextual details provided in the passages Nibley explores.
All of this becomes even more important when we remember that Senator Mike Lee tried to compare Trump to Moroni, when Amalekiah is the actual close fit.
Yet, as a loyal reader of the Deseret News, I can tell you they handle Trump with kid gloves. An explanation is due.