How Trump Uses Jan. 6 to Humiliate the GOP
"You are nothing and I am everything" is his message to his slavish enablers, who must forget about the danger he placed them in on Jan. 6
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You did not hear from me on Jan. 6 because when I arrived at my mother's home in a small village in northwest England, she told me she had fallen and could not get up to answer the door. Miraculously, she is fine, if sore from crawling on the floor to reach her phone. Jan. 6 and today were devoted to caring for her and arranging things in her flat to lessen the chances of a future fall. Today we also looked at old photographs, which is an activity recommended by experts for keeping up the spirits of those who suffer from dementia.
Having left her to have a rest, I am writing this post from the Rose & Crown pub in the center of her village. The pub dates from 1641.
This is my current view. I love the windows and the stone.
Memory has also been on my mind as I monitor the evolving narratives of the American far-right about Jan. 6. The insurrection may have been unsuccessful, but Trump has pulled off a double coup. Working in a democracy, with a pluralistic media environment, he got tens of millions of Americans to “forget” a fact that even Fox News accepted on election night —that Trump lost the 2020 election— and embrace an alternate reality (the stolen election) that spurred civilians to take up arms on his behalf.
Three years later, over 1,200 individuals have been arrested for participation in the insurrection and Trump and his co-conspirators have been indicted for trying to overthrow the government. Yet 1 in 4 Americans believe that the FBI "probably" or "definitely" instigated the coup attempt. "The government implants were the violent ones," said one independent voter the Washington Post interviewed. "The FBI, the police people that were put in there, the antifa and BLM hired by George Soros; everyone knows that." Three years after Jan. 6, a memory politics designed to exonerate Trump, by blaming everyone but Trump, has taken hold.
But what are the memories of those Republicans who were running for their lives that day? We laughed at the memes generated by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), who egged on the thugs that day with a fist-pump and then had to flee to avoid being harmed. But we were not privy to the third act of that tragedy: when Hawley and his fellow targeted politicians decided to "forget" their traumatic near escapes to keep in good standing within a party that had become Trump's tool.
We have not reflected enough on the way Trump has used Jan. 6 to debase the GOP, demanding that they forget their near-misses with death at the hands of his thugs to keep his reputation intact. In classic autocratic fashion, Trump is telling them "I am everything, and you are nothing. Your life means nothing next to my security and ability to escape prosecution." And they nod along with him.
Think about the moral abyss of those GOP politicians who pledge to support Trump even if he is convicted for acts that jeopardized their safety. No one excels at this game of self-humiliation more than former VP Mike Pence, whose public support for a man who tried to have him killed that day reminds me of the behaviors of the frightened subalterns who live in authoritarian regimes or work in organized crime (two worlds that overlap considerably).
Every anniversary of Jan. 6 reminds us of the horrors of that day and all that Trump's GOP lackeys are deciding to "forget." This year, we have a new video. It shows Rep. Troy Nehl (R-TX) speaking with MAGA thugs who were attempting to breach the House chamber. "I've been in law enforcement in Texas for 30 years, and I've never had people act this way," said Rep. Nehls. "I'm ashamed!"
On that day, Rep. Nehls' life was in danger and he reacted, as people do in such extreme situations, with a sincerity that soon became taboo as Operation Coverup of Trump’s Coup and GOP Complicity In It began. "Troy Nehls Defended the House Floor From Rioters. Then He Got To Work Defending Trump," read a tart Texas Monthly headline one year later. As each year passes, Rep. Nehls buries the memories of the emergency he lived through further so that he can retain his status within the cult of Trump. "They're coming after President Trump because he will drain the swamp," he remarked on X on Dec. 29. "Have you ever seen the Left so afraid of a candidate before?"
It is not the "Left" that is afraid of Trump: it is cowards like Nehls, Pence, and Hawley, who refuse to speak the truth about who Trump is for fear of what he might do to them, their families, and their careers.
Other GOP luminaries just want Jan. 6 to be "over," so they don't have to think about their cowardice any longer. That's the case with former Senator Mitt Romney, who told the New York Times that Jan. 6 is old news. "Biden needs fresh material, a new attack, rather than kicking a dead political horse," he commented after President Biden's recent pro-democracy speech.
As I wrote in an Jan. 2017 Atlantic essay on Trump's politics of threat and the ruin he would bring to America, "normalization is actually decriminalization, a willingness to forget that such things were once thought of as lawless behavior." In deciding to "forget" that Trump targeted them for violence, GOP politicians are making Trump's job of autocratic capture easier.
Like all authoritarians, Trump needs his enablers to have no limits on what they will do to protect him; he asks them, ultimately, to betray themselves, and accept their fates of being put into danger if that is necessary for the Leader's safety. And now Trump asks them to publicly deny an experience that, for many, was likely traumatic for them and their families. "You are nothing and I am everything" is the strongman's mantra, and it is the essence of the memory politics developing around Jan. 6.
Trump posted this on his social media:
And on June 14th, 1946, God looked down on his plan Paradise, and said, I need a caretaker. So God gave us Trump.
God said, I need somebody willing to get up before dawn. Fix this country. Work all day. Fight the Marxists. Eat supper. Then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight. And a meeting of the heads of state. So God made Trump.
I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle the deep state, and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to ruffle the feathers. Tame the cantankerous World Economic Forum. Come home hungry. Have to wait until the First Lady is done with lunch with friends. Then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon and mean it. So God gave us Trump.
It goes on. This man is a lunatic and should be locked into an asylum where he can't do any damage. Then he can pretend to be Napoleon or whatever it is he thinks he is.
I'm glad that your mother is doing better and thank you for sharing the pictures of the pub. It seems that throughout history, as you describe, there are always a group of people who, for reasons of greed and power, stand behind strongmen in the hope of getting the leftovers. I think this will be a long, exhausting year, full of ups and downs, but in the end, democracy will survive. Although not always vocal, I think a lot of people are very tired of Trump and his henchmen; they're tired of the hate and having their rights taken away. They may appear apathetic but I think instead, they're waiting for the November elections to show where they stand.