Preparing for the Final Jan. 6 Hearing
Appeasing authoritarians, rather than prosecuting them, creates opportunities for more violent and lawless actions
Welcome back to Lucid, and a big hello to new subscribers. The weekly Lucid essay will appear on Wednesday, but in view of today’s final Jan. 6 Committee hearing, scheduled for 1pmET, I wanted to give you a roundup of some of my writings on the coup attempt. If you’re not a Lucid subscriber yet, here’s some of what you’ve been missing!
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Coups were the most common way democracies were destroyed in the postwar period, which is why 1/3 of my book Strongmen is about them. I had no idea how relevant the knowledge of how coups are prepared and executed would be for the U.S. situation. In fact, this knowledge was also valuable to the members and investigators of the Jan. 6 Committee: they interviewed me twice and I wrote a report for them.
Here is a piece that incorporates some of the research for that report on how Trump’s actions after his 2020 election loss resemble the desperate measures autocrats engage in when they think they are going down.
As reported by Politico, the committee is expected to make several criminal referrals to the Department of Justice regarding former president Donald Trump. They could be: inciting insurrection, obstructing an official proceeding, and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.
As I wrote last July in the essay “Should Trump Be Prosecuted?” appeasing authoritarians merely creates the conditions for more lawless actions. Only prosecution works to deflate their personality cults and show that they can be held accountable. In the short term, prosecution may play into the victimhood complexes authoritarians specialize in, but it is an essential act of democracy prevention nonetheless.
When coups succeed, the new government can swiftly cover its tracks, including by arresting the opposition press and politicians. But what happens when coups fail and coup planning becomes public, as in the Jan. 6 case?
Then the conspirators become uniquely vulnerable, leading them to embrace authoritarian actions to save themselves. Here is my piece on how jailing investigators to cover up corruption and violence is a time-tested authoritarian strategy.
In that regard, I found it interesting that the Fox News website’s headline today about the possible criminal referrals includes a reference to punishing “allies” —i.e. sitting GOP lawmakers. They will all be in full self-protection mode.
Until Wednesday, stay safe and stay lucid.
I have always thought Trump's failure to take immediate action to stop the insurrection was overwhelming evidence of his complicity. It's linked to all the charges against him, but had he decided to honor his oath of office and defend the Constitution while our Capitol was being attacked the damages would have not been as great and lives and injuries could have been saved or prevented. He was aware some of the insurrectionists were armed with guns and could see they were carrying various types of other weapons. People were dying or being injured over the three hours while he did nothing except further incite the crowd to more violence and deadly harm, in his behalf.
Excellent as usual! Thank you Ruth!