US Politics

The people who turned in their parents for their role in the Capitol attackMany young Americans are still reeling from their parents’ involvement in the violence of a year ago – and some reported them to the police A year on from the Capitol attack by loyalist supporters of Donald Trump, many families are still reeling from members outing each other to law enforcement and offspring traumatized by their parents’ involvement in the insurrection.Biden condemns Trump’s ‘web of lies’ a year on from deadly Capitol assaultRead moreJackson Reffitt, a 19-year old from Texas, called the FBI weeks before his father, Guy Reffitt, stormed the US Capitol on January, saying that his father had been hinting at doing “something big”, Teen Vogue reported.In text messages obtained by the magazine, Jackson’s younger sister texted their father in a family group chat, writing: “Dad, please be safe!! You know you are risking not only your business but your life too.”Guy Reffitt replied: “I have no intention on throwing it away. I love ALL of you with ALL my heart and soul. This is for our country and for ALL OF YOU and your kids. God bless us, one and all … ”Guy Reffitt has since been charged with numerous crimes.The charges relate to obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of justice for threatening his children, transporting firearms with the intention of using them during the mob attack on the Capitol, and a misdemeanor charge of accessing Secret Service-protected grounds without lawful authority.While in jail awaiting trial, the senior Reffitt texted news reports to the family group chat that featured photos of himself at the riots.Jackson told Teen Vogue that as the attacks unfolded, live on television, he received a phone call from the FBI, asking him to confirm his father’s identity and he confirmed that it was his father at the riot.Jackson now lives away from his family and rarely communicates with them.“He used to be one of the best dads ever,” he told the magazine. “He made me the man I am today. He taught me to be honest, not to steal, all that cliche stuff. I believe he brought me up to do what I did.”When Jackson does talk to his mother, she calls him “the Gestapo”, referring to Nazi secret police. His older sister, Sarah, 24, reportedly remains in disbelief towards Jackson.According to Sarah, she knows that their father loves Jackson, which in turn makes her even more upset to accept the fact that her brother turned him in to the FBI.“It’s hard not to condemn Jackson in defending my father,” she said. “I’m not gonna call [my dad] a hero for going [to the Capitol],” she added, but said: “He’s a hero to me because he’s my dad, but not for that.”Sarah also does not think her father should be jailed as he awaits trial. Unlike the judge in Guy Reffitt’s case, she does not see her father as a danger to the community.In a jailhouse letter obtained by ProPublica, Guy Reffitt wrote: “January 6 was nothing short of a satirical way to overthrow a government. If overthrow was the quest, it would have no doubt been overthrown.”On Thursday, Joe Biden, and Liz Cheney, the Republican congresswoman and the co-chair of the Capitol attack select committee, spoke about how close the mob came to violently overturning the election result – but failed.Meanwhile, Robyn Sweet, the 35-year-old daughter of a Virginia man, Douglas Sweet, is dealing with being the daughter of a Capitol Hill insurrectionist.Douglas Sweet, a staunch Donald Trump supporter, has been sentenced to 36 months’ probation with one month of home detention, fined and ordered to perform community service. Robyn Sweet said that once, when she was protesting against schools being named after Confederate generals, she saw her father across a parking lot, standing under a Confederate flag with his friends.“It’s like we’re living these mirrored lives,” Robyn told the magazine. When a friend sent her a link to a news report that mentioned her father as one of the rioters arrested on 6 January, Robyn said she felt relieved because she knew he was safe.Since then, Robyn and her father have limited their conversation topics to only light ones.“We can’t even talk about religion, politics or current events,” she said. While Jackson and Robyn continue to remain in touch with their families, albeit to different extents, 19-year-old Helena Duke has not spoken to her mother, Therese Duke, since the day she found out that her mother was part of the Capitol mob.After a video showing Therese harassing a Capitol police officer and then being punched in the face surfaced online, Helena tweeted, in what has become a viral post: “Hi mom, remember the time you told me I shouldn’t go to [Black Lives Matter] protests because they could get violent … this you?”Helena has since moved across the country from her mother and says that they are barely in contact.“It horrifies me to this day that she did such a thing. I’ve attempted to close the last chapter of my life in order to heal fully,” Helena said.Nevertheless, Helena mourns the relationship that she used to have with her mother. “As a child, my mother was my idol. She was the ‘fun mom’ who all my friends adored. She was so loving and full of life. I wish people knew how painful it is to grieve the life of a parent who is still living,” Helena said.Since the riots, federal prosecutors have brought cases against 727 individuals over their involvement in the deadly riots.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

Assault on American democracy has gained pace since US Capitol attackAnalysis: Republican strategy has focused on sowing doubt about 2020’s result, passing new laws and taking over key election offices On 6 January 2021, it seemed like the stitching holding America’s democracy together might finally collapse. As armed supporters of a defeated president laid siege to the Capitol, the US Congress did something extraordinary – it suspended the official procedure to certify the winner of a presidential election.The attack was eventually put down and Congress returned to officially certify Joe Biden’s victory. “They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed,” Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said when the Senate came back into session.Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterBut the effort to disrupt and undermine American democracy didn’t end on 6 January. In fact, it has speeded up over the 12 months since then.Working in state legislatures across the US, Republicans have launched a methodical effort to undermine the post-election processing of votes and the people who count them. One year after the effort to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump failed, Republicans have put in place machinery to ensure future attempts could be successful. The potential for a stolen election in the US is higher than ever.In recent years there has been growing alarm over the way the Republican party has eagerly embraced voter suppression – efforts to change election rules to make it harder to vote. But what’s happening now, experts say, is new – an effort to take control of the administration of elections and vote counting itself.The insurrection is only the tip of the iceberg | Sidney BlumenthalRead more“What we’re seeing is an unprecedented, multi-pronged assault on the foundations of our democracy,” said Wendy Weiser, who directs the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “We’re really seeing an all-out effort to undermine election administration in America.”Republicans have built this attack around three pillars. First, they have encouraged and fomented doubt about the results of the 2020 election. Second, they have passed new laws that inject more partisanship into election administration. And third, they have sought to take over key election offices from which they could exert enormous unilateral power over vote-counting and post-election certification.Republicans have taken the idea of a stolen election from the fringes of political discourse and made it party orthodoxy. Senior Republicans have castigated fellow members who have contested claims the election was illegitimate. At the state level, Republicans have continued to spread false accusations about the 2020 vote and embraced unusual and partisan reviews of the 2020 election that have used shoddy methodology to question the results.In Arizona, Republicans hired Cyber Ninjas, a firm with no election experience to lead a widely panned review of the election results in the state’s largest county. The final report affirmed Biden’s win, but also suggested there were irregularities. The claims were immediately explained and debunked. In Wisconsin, Republican legislators authorized their own post-election inquiry, led by a former state supreme court justice who has hired partisan staffers, threatened to jail mayors of some of the state’s biggest cities and said he doesn’t know how elections work.In 2020, Trump allies pushed state lawmakers in Georgia and Arizona to reject the popular vote in their state and choose their own electors. That effort was unsuccessful. But the focus on undermining the 2020 results now appears to be laying the groundwork to allow lawmakers to successfully do this in 2024 and beyond, said Jessica Marsden, a lawyer at Protect Democracy who is tracking election subversion efforts.“In both Arizona and Georgia, you had the governors not willing to go along with that game, they would have been doing that quite explicitly to throw out the vote of their own constituents,” Marsden said. “What the disinformation campaign does is try to lower the political cost of throwing out election results by creating a lot of uncertainty about what the true results were.”The effort appears to be working – 71% of Republicans believe Biden’s victory was not legitimate, according to a recent UMass Amherst poll.There was also a surge of bills last year that sought to interfere with election administration in 2021. As of mid-December last year, 262 election interference bills had been introduced in 41 states, according to the States United Democracy Center. Thirty-two of those bills have become law in 17 states.Among them is a new law in Georgia that gives state lawmakers the authority to review local election boards and replace them if the state election board determines they are underperforming. Separate from that law, Georgia Republicans have also quietly acted to remove Democrats from their positions on county election boards. A new Arkansas law allows state officials to investigate irregularities and remove local election officials from their posts if needed.In Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, a Republican US senator, has suggested that the Republican-controlled legislature should unilaterally assert control of federal elections, eliminating the six-member bipartisan commission that runs elections in the state. Republicans in the state legislature have also called for criminal punishment for members of the commission as well as its non-partisan administrator.“What’s going in Wisconsin is sort of the canary in the coalmine of what is spreading across the United States,” said Ann Jacobs, a Democrat who chairs the six-person panel that oversees elections in Wisconsin. “There is a faction of the Republican party that is openly embracing the idea that people’s votes should not count.”Beyond laws, Republicans who believe the election was stolen have also launched an aggressive effort to win elections for secretary of state, the top election official in many places. They are targeting offices in Michigan, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin, all key swing states where secretaries played a key role in ensuring a fair vote count in 2020.In Michigan, Republicans have also tapped election deniers to serve on local canvassing boards, responsible for local election certification, in several counties, a role from which they could cause significant damage in future elections.That effort comes as a flood of election officials have left their jobs in the last year facing a flood of harassment and other threats, opening up opportunities for inexperienced and partisan workers to fill the void. It has raised fears over what might happen in 2024’s presidential election, especially if Trump runs again.Democrats are still seeking a way to block this kind of subversion.The Freedom to Vote Act, one of two sweeping voting rights bills stalled in Congress, would prohibit the removal of election officials without cause and strengthens protections for election workers. It also requires the use of paper ballots, creating a paper trail to verify after an election, and sets minimum election standards around election rules. But even though Democrats have pledged they will find a way to pass the bill, they have yet to find a way around the filibuster to do so.While Democrats try to find a way forward, Weiser, the Brennan Center expert, noted the Republicans campaign already appeared to be succeeding.“We have vote suppression measures in place. We have qualified, professional election administrators across the country having left their positions,” she said. “We have candidates for election office at the gubernatorial level saying that they would refuse to certify election results if it didn’t turn out a certain way.“We already have significant damage to our electoral system that’s already in place. That we’re already going to be living with.”TopicsUS politicsThe fight to voteUS Capitol attackRepublicansUS elections 2020analysisReuse this content More

Jonathan Freedland speaks to the House Representative from Maryland about last January’s Capitol riots, leading an impeachment trial against Trump, investigating colleagues and how his own grief influenced his work in 2021

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Archive: C-SPAN, NBC, CNBC In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth and the Trials of American Democracy, is available here Listen to David Smith on Thursday’s episode of Today in Focus Send your questions and feedback to [email protected] Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

On anniversary of Capitol riot, Washington – and America – are as divided as ever Partisanship overshadows sombre commemorations as insurrection becomes another wedge in a split nationThey thought it couldn’t happen here. But so did many other nations before America.Walking the halls of the snowbound US Capitol on Thursday afternoon, a year to the hour since it was breached by a fascist impulse, it was hard to imagine the mob running riot – pummeling police, flaunting the Confederate flag and abusing a Black officer with the n-word.But yes, it did happen here.The cathedral of American democracy was scarcely attended and hauntingly hushed for the anniversary, in part because the coronavirus is rampant in Washington. Walk up a staircase and you might see a solitary reporter fetching coffee. Turn down a marbled corridor and you might spot a lone Capitol police officer – was he among those that fought and bled that day?Republicans were particularly hard to find, their absence illustrating the radically different interpretations of what happened on 6 January 2021, or as one headline put it, “a national day of infamy, half remembered”. It was clear that America could not decide whether this was a political scrap or a national tragedy, a moment for angry polarisation or unified mourning. It did not feel like catharsis.The vice-president, Kamala Harris, kicked it off just after 9am by pointing to “dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars, but a place in our collective memory”, citing 7 December 1941, 11 September 2001 – and 6 January 2021.But whereas the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought Americans together to fight the second world war, and the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington conjured rare solidarity, the deadly siege of the Capitol turns out to be just another wedge in the divided states of America.And unlike those previous calamities, the more than 220-year-old Capitol bears few visible scars of the day that windows were smashed, congressional offices ransacked and faeces left on the floor. Without a tangible reminder, it is easier to deny reality or forget. Instead, the scars are psychological and institutional; the bleeding is internal.Harris was followed by Joe Biden, whose barnstorming speech offered his most vivid critique yet of his predecessor Donald Trump’s big lie about the 2020 election and incitement of the mob. It was an I-don’t-negotiate-with-terrorists epiphany for the president about the limits of bipartisanship.“I did not seek this fight brought to this Capitol one year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either,” said Biden, unexpectedly at 79 discovering his inner Henry V and previewing his 2024 election campaign. “I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. And I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.”But it was the details of that day – the sound of gunfire, the narrow escapes, the messages to loved ones – that struck a chord and stuck. They were bulwarks against the attempts to rewrite history and supplant it with a false narrative.These details were recalled by senators speaking in the chamber that had been overrun by the rioters such as Jacob Chansley who, wearing a Viking hat and carrying a six-foot spear, scaled the dais and took the seat that Mike Pence had occupied an hour earlier, proclaiming, “Mike Pence is a fucking traitor” and writing, “It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming!”There was Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, who had only been in the chamber for 45 minutes, watching the start of the counting of ballots, when an armed police officer in a big flak jacket grabbed him firmly by the collar.”I’ll never forget that grip.” he said. “And said to me, ‘Senator, we got to get out of here, you’re in danger.’”Schumer was within 30ft of “these nasty, racist, bigoted insurrectionists”, he recounted. “Had someone had a gun, had two of them blocked off the door, who knows what would have happened. I was told later that one of them reportedly said, ‘There’s the big Jew. Let’s get him’. Bigotry against one is bigotry against all.”Senator Amy Klobuchar also had indelible memories of being evacuated from the chamber. “I remember the words of one staff member who yelled out, ‘Take the boxes. Take the boxes.’ She was talking about the mahogany boxes that were filled with the electoral ballots, because we knew they would be destroyed if they were left behind.”She remembered how her staff hid in a closet with only forks to protect themselves, next to the doors where the insurrectionists had invaded. She remembered the cuts on the faces of police officers. And she remembered officer Harry Dunn, who was called the n-word multiple times, looked at his friend as they collapsed in the rotunda and asked, “Is this America? Is this America?”Over in the House of Representatives, where 20 members had to take cover in the gallery that day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi presided over a moment of silence. Tellingly, there were only two Republicans on the floor: the former vice-president Dick Cheney and his daughter, congresswoman Liz Cheney, dying embers of the party’s anti-Trump resistance.Dick Cheney said in a statement that he is “deeply disappointed at the failure of many members of my party to recognize the grave nature of the January 6 attacks and the ongoing threat to our nation.”That failure was manifest in the decision of Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy to stay well away from Washington. Minority whip Steve Scalise’s office did have a sign that said, “Thank you, U. S. Capitol police heroes”, but it opened to reveal a staffer and a TV showing replays of the riot, but no sign of the congressman himself.Trump had cancelled a press conference but there were two Republicans who could not resist the limelight. In a tiny room (for which they inevitably blamed Pelosi), Trump acolytes Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene spun baseless conspiracy theories about FBI involvement in the deadly attack. Gaetz insisted: “We did not want the Republican voice to go unheard today.”Greene played the all too familiar whataboutism card. Don’t forget, she said, that Senator Bernie Sanders thinks the 2016 Democratic primary was stolen from him, and Hillary Clinton thinks the 2016 general election was stolen from her. “If Democrats cared about riots, they would have cared about the Antifa-BLM riots all over the country in 2020.”When one reporter challenged Gaetz about Biden’s memorable image of a dagger being held at the throat of democracy, the Florida congressman insisted: “We are here to vindicate our democracy.”That is the twist: the mass delusion behind Trump’s big lie is that his followers believe they are saving democracy rather than destroying it. Republicans are imposing voter restriction laws and seeking to put Trump loyalists in charge of running elections. The next assault on the republic is unlikely to be as clumsy or crude as 6 January.Thursday’s commemorations ended with a prayer vigil on the US Capitol steps. Two decades ago on 9/11, Democrats and Republicans stood side by side here and sang “God Bless America”. This time, holding candles and wearing masks as the US marine band played, Democrats again stood and sang “God Bless America”. This time, there were no Republicans.TopicsUS politicsThe US politics sketchfeaturesReuse this content More

Kamala Harris evacuated on 6 January when pipe bomb discovered, report saysPolitico reports then vice-president elect was taken out of DNC headquarters minutes after Capitol police arrived to investigate Kamala Harris was inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters when a pipe bomb was discovered outside the building on 6 January last year, according to a report.Biden condemns Trump’s ‘web of lies’ a year on from deadly Capitol assaultRead moreThe then vice-president elect, who was sworn into office two weeks later, was evacuated minutes after Capitol police began investigating the bomb, Politico reported. The FBI described the bomb as a “viable” device which “could have been detonated, resulting in serious injury or death”.Citing anonymous sources, Politico said that Harris was evacuated from the DNC office in Washington at 1.14pm on January 6, seven minutes after police attended to the bomb.The threat from the pipe bomb was eventually neutralized at 4.36pm, while another bomb, found at the Republican National Committee headquarters, was nullified at 3.33pm.The news that Harris was, for a time, vulnerable to a potential explosion adds a new dimension to the events of 6 January. Harris is the first female US vice-president and first woman of color in the White House.As Harris was being escorted from the DNC building, Trump supporters were beginning to grapple with police on the steps of the Capitol building. Some of the group would breach the building a little over an hour later.No one has been arrested in connection with the DNC and RNC bombs, which the FBI believes were planted by the same person. The devices were planted on the evening of 5 January, and discovered the next day.In September, the FBI published a series of videos showing what it said was a suspect in the case. The agency, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the identification of the person in the videos.TopicsKamala HarrisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Historians mark 6 January with urgent warning on threats to US democracyTheir comments come as many Americans, particularly Trump supporters, continue to deny the dark reality of the Capitol insurrection Some of America’s most prominent historians gave an urgent warning about the state of American democracy as they gathered on Capitol Hill on Thursday to commemorate the 6 January insurrection.Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham condemned the attack on the Capitol, which was carried out by a group of former president Donald Trump’s supporters to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.They warned that the US remained at a crucial turning point amid ongoing threats to its democratic systems.Biden condemns Trump’s ‘web of lies’ a year on from deadly Capitol assaultRead more“What you saw a year ago today was the worst instincts of both human nature and American politics,” Meacham said. “And it’s either a step on the way to the abyss or it is a call to arms figuratively for citizens to engage.”Echoing Meacham’s message, Goodwin argued that this moment represents an opportunity for Americans to rededicate themselves to the cause of democracy, citing the example set by those who fought for the Union in the civil war and marched for civil rights in the 1960’s.“We’ve come through these really tough times before,” Goodwin said. “We’ve had lots of people who were willing to step up and put their public lives against their private lives. And that’s what we’ve got to depend on today. That’s what we need in these years and months ahead.”The historians’ comments came as many Americans, particularly those who support Trump, continue to deny the dark reality of the Capitol insurrection.Only about 4 in 10 Republicans describe the 6 January attack as very violent or extremely violent, according to a recent AP-NORC poll. About 30% of Republicans say the insurrection was not violent at all, while another 30% say it was only somewhat violent.The insurrection resulted in the deaths of five people, including US Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick. In the year since, four other law enforcement officers who responded to the Capitol that day – Capitol police officer Howard Liebengood, and Gunther Hashida, Kyle DeFreytag and Jeffrey Smith of Washington’s Metropolitan police department – have died by suicide. More than 100 other officers were injured on 6 January, and many of them continue to struggle with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.At the historians’ event, House speaker Nancy Pelosi played a video depicting some of the violence that occurred during the insurrection. The video included footage showing law enforcement officers being beaten and attacked with chemical spray and hockey sticks by insurrectionists.“One year later, it is essential that we do not allow anyone to rewrite history or whitewash the gravity of what took place,” Pelosi said.Despite the chilling evidence of the insurrection’s devastating consequences, Trump himself used the anniversary as an opportunity to spread the “big lie” of widespread fraud in the 2020 election and downplay the violence of the attack.“To watch Biden speaking is very hurtful to many people. They’re the ones who tried to stop the peaceful transfer with a rigged election,” Trump said in a statement full of wrong and baseless allegations. “Never forget the crime of the 2020 presidential election.”In his own scathing remarks to commemorate the anniversary of the attack, Biden accused his predecessor of having “created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election,” and the president underscored the need to set the record straight about 6 January.“The former president and his supporters are trying to rewrite history. They want you to see election day as the day of insurrection and the riot that took place here on January 6th as the true expression of the will of the people,” Biden said on Capitol Hill. “Can you think of a more twisted way to look at this country – to look at America? I cannot.”Pointing to Trump and his allies’ alarming efforts to downplay the insurrection, Goodwin argued that the work of the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack was vital and could help prevent similar violence in the future.“We have to retell the story of what happened on January 6, with all of the gaps filled in,” Goodwin said. “And I do believe that a line will be drawn.”TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpJoe BidenUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

Biden condemns Trump’s ‘web of lies’ a year on from deadly Capitol assault
President blames predecessor for role in violence of 6 January
‘The lies that drove the anger and madness have not abated’
Biden denounces Trump in anniversary speech – follow live
01:43Joe Biden on Thursday forcefully denounced Donald Trump for spreading a “web of lies” about the legitimacy of the 2020 election in a desperate attempt to cling to power, accusing the former president and his allies of holding a “dagger at the throat of American democracy”.The US president condemned his predecessor’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as a “failed” pursuit, but one that continues to imperil American democracy one year after the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol, when a violent mob of Trump loyalists breached the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Biden’s presidential election victory.Biden blames Trump’s ‘web of lies’ for US Capitol attack in first anniversary speech – liveRead moreIn a speech from the Capitol marking the first anniversary of the deadly assault, Biden was unsparing in his assessment of the harm caused by the “defeated former president” whose “bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or constitution”.“For the first time in our history, the president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob reached the Capitol,” Biden said, never mentioning Trump by name. “But they failed.”And yet the falsehoods and conspiracies that were a precursor to the violence still persist, Biden warned. He asked Americans to recommit to the protection of the nation’s 200-year-old system of government.“At this moment we must decide: what kind of nation we are going to be?” Biden said, speaking from the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol’s inner sanctum, one of several spots overrun and defiled by rioters on 6 January. He warned: “The lies that drove the anger and madness we saw in this place, they have not abated.”Trump originally planned to hold a news conference from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday evening, but canceled amid pressure from Republicans and conservative allies who worried it would be a harmful distraction.But that did not prevent Trump from issuing a series of furious statements in which he continued to perpetuate the “big lie”, claims that were rejected by dozens of courts, Republican election officials and members of his own administration.“They got away with something, and it is leading to our country’s destruction,” Trump wrote in one such salvo that made no mention of the violence that occurred in his name that day. Four people died in the chaos of the hours-long siege, as rioters overran police barricades, wielding flagpoles and fire extinguishers to break windows and battle law enforcement officers. One US Capitol police officer, Brian Sicknick, died a day after being attacked by rioters and 140 police officers were injured.Most Republicans were physically absent from the Capitol on Thursday, with many of party’s senators, including the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, traveling to Georgia for the funeral of their former colleague Johnny Isakson, who died in December.In a statement, McConnell called the attack “antithetical to the rule of law” and said he supported efforts to hold accountable those who broke the law.‘I was there’: Democrat recalls horror and fury on day of Capitol attackRead moreBut he did not denounce Trump as he and many Republicans did in the aftermath of the attack. But a year on, the shock and revulsion have dissipated, and Trump remains the most powerful and popular figure in a Republican party, and questions about the legitimacy of Biden’s election have become a litmus test for candidates seeking the former president’s endorsement. Biden’s speech opened a day-long program of events on Capitol Hill to mark the anniversary.Throughout the day, members grew emotional as they recounted their memories of the insurrection – the sound of pounding fists at the door of the chamber, the whirring of the escape hoods, the shock of a Confederate flag in the hallowed halls.Others recounted quiet moments of grief and acts of heroism – the bravery of the police officers who defended the Capitol and the aides with the presence of mind to carry to safety the wooden boxes containing the electoral votes.Presiding over the House floor on Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that democracy had prevailed when members returned to the Capitol after the riot to ratify Biden’s electoral victory.“The Congress, because of the courage of all of you, rose to honor our oath and protect our democracy,” she said, before leading members – all Democrats with the exception of congresswoman Liz Cheney – in a moment of silence.Speaking just before Biden, vice-president Kamala Harris, a former California senator who was in the Capitol on 6 January last year, said the rioters not only defiled the building but assaulted “the institutions, the values, the ideals that generations of Americans have marched, picketed and shed blood to establish and defend”.In their comments, Harris and Biden called for the protection of voting rights. Harris urged lawmakers to pass the voting rights bills currently stalled before Congress.The insurrection was the last desperate attempt by Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election, after a series of legal challenges and a pressure campaign failed.On that day, a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol after Trump encouraged them to “fight like hell” as Congress convened to certify the election result. But lawmakers who had initially fled for their lives during the siege returned to the chamber, shaken but resolved, to make Trump’s electoral defeat official.In the year since the attack, elected officials, historians and democracy advocates have warned that the threat of future violence remains high. Trump and his allies have spent the past months rewriting the 6 history of January, downplaying the violence and shifting the blame.It was the the worst attack on the Capitol since it was burned by British forces in 1814.Much of Biden’s speech was devoted to establishing fact from fiction about the events of 6 January, as a revisionist history of the attack, promoted by Trump and his allies, takes root.“That’s what great nations do: they don’t bury the truth, they face up to it,” he said. “We must be absolutely clear about what is the truth and what is a lie.”“This wasn’t a group of tourists. This was an armed insurrection. They weren’t looking to uphold the will of the people, they were looking to deny the will of the people,” Biden said. All the while, Biden charged, Trump watched the violence unfold on TV from the private dining room near the Oval office. “He can’t accept that he lost.”TopicsUS Capitol attackJoe BidenDonald TrumpUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

President Joe Biden closed his speech commemorating and deploring the events of Jan. 6, 2021, by asking God to “bless those who stand watch over democracy.”

To “stand watch” is to stand guard, but as a metaphor, it runs deeper. To stand watch on a ship is to keep out a weather eye – to keep an eye on the sea and sky for potential danger. In this larger sense, Biden’s address called on Americans to see the plain truth, to bear witness to the violence of Jan. 6 and survey the coming threats.

As a scholar of presidential rhetoric, I pay attention to metaphors because they often reveal a lot about the ideas, values and beliefs of particular chief executives and, indeed, of the nation as a whole.

Believe with your own eyes

Biden’s speech of Jan. 6, 2022, is of interest not only because of the circumstances that led to its being necessary, but also because of the visual language it employed.

The speech expressed a powerful faith in the plain truth. It asked Americans to believe their own eyes. That reflects a long philosophical tradition in Western culture equating sight or light with the truth. Yet there’s always been a countertradition, one that assumes real power lies in the shadows, conspires behind the curtains.

Former President Donald Trump’s fondness for conspiracies is well known – it was evident in his pushing of the Obama “birther” lie and his reluctance to disavow the QAnon conspiracy.

It has also shaped the view of many in his party that the 2020 election was somehow “stolen.”

In his speech, President Biden sought to disinfect the body politic with the light of truth. He did so in several ways.

Biden shaped the nation’s memory of Jan. 6 by what Americans saw that day. It was a violent attack, he said, an effort to overturn a fair election and overthrow American democracy.

To make that definition vivid, he repeatedly urged audience members, “Close your eyes,” asking them to see again what people saw that day. A mob dragging, stomping, attacking police officers. Rioters using flagpoles as spears. Confederate flags in Statuary Hall. A gallows on the Capitol lawn, readied for the vice president of the United States.

Recognize that violence for what it was, Biden urged. Ignore the excuses that have been made since. See the truth.

‘Dagger at the throat of democracy’

Not only did the president ask the nation to see Jan. 6 clearly, he also asked us to understand its place in history.

Biden asked the audience to look at Statuary Hall, the chamber within the U.S. Capitol from which Biden spoke. It wasn’t just a convenient backdrop for his address. It is a record of history, symbolized by the statue of Clio, the classical muse of history, who stood watch over the Capitol and recorded all that happened there.

Clio, the muse of history, hovers over the National Statuary Hall.
Wikimedia Commons

History saw Confederate flags and knew they had never appeared before in this sacred space. History saw police dying in defense of the Capitol and knew that had never happened before in this space. History saw, in Biden’s words, “a dagger at the throat” of democracy – a powerful visual image.

History saw the facts – they were plain and clear for all to see. The former president was defeated. He lost by millions of votes. Republican judges and politicians rejected his conspiracies.

This is the visual language of democracy. Democracies, Biden asserted, face their problems and recognize reality. They do not fall victim to shadows or what Biden described as Trump’s “big lie.” The truth is right there for all Americans to see, plain and clear.

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