Republican Party

Subterms

    More stories

    • 38 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Republicans for Democracy

      by

      American democracy may depend on a conservative-liberal alliance.Liz Cheney opposes most abortions and most gun control. She favors tax cuts for the wealthy and expanded drilling for oil. The right-wing Family Research Council has given her voting record a perfect score. Her political hero is her hawkish father, who was the architect of the second Iraq War.This description may remind you why you loathe Cheney or have long admired her. Either way, it helps explain why she has become such an important figure for the future of American democracy.Today is the first anniversary of the violent attack on the Capitol, by a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters who were trying to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election. The mob smashed windows and threatened the vice president and members of Congress. Seven people died as a result of the attack, including three police officers.The Jan. 6 attack was part of a larger anti-democracy movement in the U.S. In the year since, the movement — which is closely aligned with the Republican Party — has changed some laws and ousted election officials, with the aim of overturning future results. The movement’s supporters justify these actions with lies about voter fraud.Encouraged by Trump, other Republican politicians and conservative media stars, the anti-democratic movement is following a playbook used by authoritarians in other countries, both recently and historically. The movement is trying to use existing democratic laws — on vote counting and election certification, for example — to unravel democracy.“We are in a terrible situation in which one of two major parties is no longer committed to playing by democratic rules,” Steven Levitsky — a political scientist and co-author of “How Democracies Die” with his Harvard colleague Daniel Ziblatt — told me. “No other established Western democracy faces such a threat today, not this acutely anyway.”(Related: “I fear for our democracy,” former President Jimmy Carter writes in Times Opinion.)The experience of other countries does offer some lessons about how to defeat anti-democratic movements. The most successful approach involves building coalitions of people who disagree, often vehemently, on many issues but who all believe in democracy.As Ziblatt wrote to me this week:A classic dilemma of democracy, going back to the mid-20th century, is how to respond to a political party that uses democracy’s very openness to gain power and attack democracy. One response that has worked in the past in other countries in the 1930s (e.g. Belgium, Finland) that have overcome this dilemma is for broadly small-d democratic parties, even with big ideological differences, to overlook their differences in the short run to contain autocratic leaders or parties. Big coalitions are often necessary in the short run.Trump supporters attacking the Capitol a year ago.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesRepublican democratsThis is why Cheney and the rare other elected Republicans combating Trump’s “big lie” are so important. (Here’s a look at the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last year.) If the fate of American democracy becomes a partisan contest between Democrats and Republicans, democracy could lose.In our closely divided and highly polarized country, each party is likely to hold power at some point in coming years. But when the Republican Party does, it may change the rules to ensure that it remains in power, as Trump tried in 2020 and as Viktor Orban has done in Hungary.Understand the Jan. 6 InvestigationBoth the Justice Department and a House select committee are investigating the events of the Capitol riot. Here’s where they stand:Inside the House Inquiry: From a nondescript office building, the panel has been quietly ramping up its sprawling and elaborate investigation.Criminal Referrals, Explained: Can the House inquiry end in criminal charges? These are some of the issues confronting the committee.Garland’s Remarks: Facing pressure from Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed that the D.O.J. would pursue its inquiry into the riot “at any level.”A Big Question Remains: Will the Justice Department move beyond charging the rioters themselves?Only a cross-ideological coalition is likely to prove strong enough to prevent this outcome. A coalition makes it easier for Republican officials across the country to beat back future attempts to overturn elections; when the Cheney family is standing up for democracy, it does not look like just another liberal position.A broad coalition can also win more votes, keeping anti-democratic politicians out of power. Levitsky is alarmed enough that he believes the authoritarian threat should shape the Democrats’ 2024 campaign strategy, and perhaps its presidential and vice-presidential nominees. Once the authoritarian threat has receded, Americans can focus on their other disagreements, he argues:There is obviously no easy way out, but in my view the Democrats need to work to forge a broader (small-d) democratic coalition that explicitly and publicly includes all small-d democratic Republicans. This means Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, the Bush establishment network and other conservatives (as well as major business leaders and Christian leaders) need to publicly join and support a fusion ticket with the Democratic Party.I know that many Democrats will recoil at this idea. Some anti-Trump Republicans will, too. It has real downsides and could forestall progress on other important issues, starting with climate change. I also know that some progressives believe that Liz Cheney and her father have helped create the radicalized Republican Party and are themselves part of the problem with American democracy.But whatever you think of their policy views, that last claim strikes me as inconsistent with American history. Opposing abortion, gun control and environmental regulation is well within the bounds of this country’s democratic traditions. So is — uncomfortable as this may be to acknowledge — starting a disastrous foreign war, as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did in Iraq, or playing hardball over vote counting, as they did in Florida in 2000. Democratic presidents have done those things, too.Violently attacking the Capitol is not consistent with American democratic traditions. Nor is trying to airbrush the horror of that attack, as many top Republican officials have. Nor are flamboyant, repeated lies about election results — and promises to act on those lies in the future.“The vast majority of Americans — Republicans and Democrats — want to live in a country that continues to be characterized by the freedoms that we enjoy and that they are fundamentally faithful to the Constitution,” Cheney told “The Daily.” “It’s a dangerous moment. The stakes are really high.”You can listen to Cheney’s interview with my colleague Michael Barbaro here.More on Jan. 6A year after the attack, Trump remains the G.O.P.’s dominant figure.Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general, vowed to hold the perpetrators of the attack “at any level” accountable.The House committee investigating the attack aims to release a final report by November.The attack casts a pall over Congress, Carl Hulse writes. Staff members are frightened to go to work, and lawmakers are checked for weapons.FiveThirtyEight’s Alex Samuels wrote about the noose, Confederate flag and other symbols of white supremacy at the riot.Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, spoke to NPR’s Terry Gross about losing his son to suicide days before the attack.“The Argument” podcast asks if America is sliding toward authoritarianism.THE LATEST NEWSThe VirusGetting a Pfizer shot at a school in the Bronx last year.James Estrin/The New York TimesThe C.D.C. recommended boosters of the Pfizer vaccine for children 12 and up.A White House official said Americans could start getting reimbursed for at-home Covid tests next week.A study found that some rapid tests failed to detect Omicron cases early in an infection.Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said he wanted to antagonize the unvaccinated, including by barring them from public places.Australia told Novak Djokovic to leave the country, rejecting his vaccine exemption for the Australian Open. He has appealed the decision.Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival street parties have been called off again, and the Grammys have been postponed.Other Big StoriesA fire official said 26 people were in the three-story home.Alejandro A. Alvarez/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated PressA house fire in Philadelphia killed 12 people, including eight children.Among the proposals in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s first State of the State address: building a Brooklyn-Queens transit link and legalizing drinks to go.A Russian-led alliance has sent troops into Kazakhstan to quash protests against the country’s authoritarian government. (Here’s how they started.)The F.B.I. arrested a man accused of tricking authors into sending him unpublished manuscripts.OpinionsThe Omicron wave will be different. These charts show how.Women are told pregnancy gets riskier after 35, but there’s nothing magical about that age, says Jessica Grose.MORNING READSRyan Kaji on the set of “Ryan’s Mystery Playdate.”Ilona Szwarc for The New York TimesBoy King of YouTube: A family has turned toy videos into a multimillion-dollar empire.Be prepared: How to stay safe if you’re trapped in your car during a snowstorm.Advice from Wirecutter: Christmas decorations still up? Here’s how to store them.‘85 and up’: At the end of a long life, what matters, and what is noise?Lives Lived: William Ellinghaus led AT&T at the height of its power and presided over its breakup in the early 1980s. He also helped save New York City from default. Ellinghaus died at 99.ARTS AND IDEAS A partial solar eclipse over New York City last year.Justin Lane/EPA, via ShutterstockThe year in spaceSave the date: The James Webb Space Telescope, a modern successor to the Hubble, is set to finish unfolding its massive mirrors in the coming days. Its mission is to peer deeper into space than ever before, in search of light that has been traveling toward us since just after the Big Bang.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Christian Nationalism Is One of Trump’s Most Powerful Weapons

      by

      This article is part of a collection on the events of Jan. 6, one year later. Read more in a note from Times Opinion’s politics editor Ezekiel Kweku in our Opinion Today newsletter.The most serious attempt to overthrow the American constitutional system since the Civil War would not have been feasible without the influence of America’s Christian nationalist movement. One year later, the movement seems to have learned a lesson: If it tries harder next time, it may well succeed in making the promise of American democracy a relic of the past.Christian nationalist symbolism was all over the events of Jan. 6, as observers have pointed out. But the movement’s contribution to the effort to overturn the 2020 election and install an unelected president goes much deeper than the activities of a few of its representatives on the day that marks the unsuccessful end (or at least a temporary setback) of an attempted coup.A critical precondition for Donald Trump’s attempt to retain the presidency against the will of the people was the cultivation of a substantial population of voters prepared to believe his fraudulent claim that the election was stolen — a line of argument Mr. Trump began preparing well before the election, at the first presidential debate.The role of social and right-wing media in priming the base for the claim that the election was fraudulent is by now well understood. The role of the faith-based messaging sphere is less well appreciated. Pastors, congregations and the religious media are among the most trusted sources of information for many voters. Christian nationalist leaders have established richly funded national organizations and initiatives to exploit this fact. The repeated message that they sought to deliver through these channels is that outside sources of information are simply not credible. The creation of an information bubble, impervious to correction, was the first prerequisite of Mr. Trump’s claim.The coup attempt also would not have been possible without the unshakable sense of persecution that movement leaders have cultivated among the same base of voters. Christian nationalism today begins with the conviction that conservative Christians are the most oppressed group in American society. Among leaders of the movement, it is a matter of routine to hear talk that they are engaged in a “battle against tyranny,” and that the Bible may soon be outlawed.A final precondition for the coup attempt was the belief, among the target population, that the legitimacy of the United States government derives from its commitment to a particular religious and cultural heritage, and not from its democratic form. It is astonishing to many that the leaders of the Jan. 6 attack on the constitutional electoral process styled themselves as “patriots.” But it makes a glimmer of sense once you understand that their allegiance is to a belief in blood, earth and religion, rather than to the mere idea of a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”Given the movement’s role in laying the groundwork for the coup attempt, its leaders faced a quandary when Mr. Trump began to push his repeatedly disproven claims — and that quandary turned into a test of character on Jan. 6. Would they go along with an attempt to overthrow America’s democratic system?Some attempted to rewrite the facts about Jan. 6. The former Republican Representative Michele Bachmann suggested the riot was the work of “paid rabble rousers,” while the activist and author Lance Wallnau, who has praised Mr. Trump as “God’s chaos candidate,” blamed “the local antifa mob.” Many leaders, like Charlie Kirk, appeared to endorse Mr. Trump’s claims about a fraudulent election. Others, like Michael Farris, president and chief executive of the religious right legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, provided indirect but no less valuable support by concern-trolling about supposed “constitutional irregularities” in battleground states.None appeared willing to condemn Mr. Trump for organizing an attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden. On the contrary, the Rev. Franklin Graham, writing on Facebook, condemned “these ten” from Mr. Trump’s “own party” who voted to impeach him and mused, “It makes you wonder what the thirty pieces of silver were that Speaker Pelosi promised for this betrayal.”At Christian nationalist conferences I have been reporting on, I have heard speakers go out of their way to defend and even lionize the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. At the Road to Majority conference, which was held in Central Florida in June 2021, the author and radio host Eric Metaxas said, “The reason I think we are being so persecuted, why the Jan. 6 folks are being persecuted, when you’re over the target like that, oh my.” At that same conference, the political commentator Dinesh D’Souza, in conversation with the religious right strategist Ralph Reed, said, “The people who are really getting shafted right now are the Jan. 6 protesters,” before adding, “We won’t defend our guys even when they’re good guys.” Mr. Reed nodded in response and replied, “I think Donald Trump taught our movement a lot.”Movement leaders now appear to be working to prime the base for the next attempt to subvert the electoral process. At dozens of conservative churches in swing states this past year, groups of pastors were treated to presentations by an initiative called Faith Wins. Featuring speakers like David Barton, a key figure in the fabrication of Christian nationalist myths about history, and led by Chad Connelly, a Republican political veteran, Faith Wins serves up elections skepticism while demanding that pastors mobilize their flocks to vote “biblical” values. “Every pastor you know needs to make sure 100 percent of the people in their pews are voting, and voting biblical values,” Mr. Connelly told the assembled pastors at a Faith Wins event in Chantilly, Va. in September.“The church is not a cruise ship, the church is a battleship,” added Byron Foxx, an evangelist touring with Faith Wins. The Faith Wins team also had at its side Hogan Gidley, a deputy press secretary in the Trump White House, who now runs the Center for Election Integrity, an initiative of the America First Policy Institute, a group led in part by former members of the Trump administration. Mr. Gidley informed the gathering that his group is “nonpartisan” — and then went on to mention that in the last election cycle there were “A lot of rogue secretaries of state, a lot of rogue governors.”He was presumably referring to Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state of Georgia who earned the ire of Trumpists by rebuffing the former president’s request to find him an additional 11,780 votes. “You saw the stuff in Arizona, you’re going to see more stuff in Wisconsin, these are significant issues, and we can’t be dismissed out of hand anymore, the facts are too glaring,” Mr. Gidley said. In fact, the Republican-backed audit of votes in Arizona’s largest county confirmed that President Biden won Arizona by more votes than previously thought. But the persecution narrative is too politically useful to discard simply because it’s not true.Even as movement leaders are preparing for a possible restoration of a Trumpist regime — a period they continue to regard as a golden age in retrospect — they are advancing in parallel on closely related fronts. Among the most important of these has to do with public education.In the panic arising out of the claim that America’s schools are indoctrinating young children in critical race theory, or C.R.T., it isn’t hard to detect the ritualized workings of the same information bubble, persecution complex and sense of entitlement that powered the coup attempt. Whatever you make of the new efforts in state legislatures to impose new “anti-C.R.T.” restrictions on speech and teaching in public schools, the more important consequence is to extend the religious right’s longstanding program to undermine confidence in public education, an effort that religious right leaders see as essential both for the movement’s long-term funding prospects and for its antidemocratic agenda.Opposition to public education is part of the DNA of America’s religious right. The movement came together in the 1970s not solely around abortion politics, as later mythmakers would have it, but around the outrage of the I.R.S. threatening to take away the tax-exempt status of church-led “segregation academies.” In 1979, Jerry Falwell said he hoped to see the day when there wouldn’t be “any public schools — the churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them.”Today, movement leaders have their eye on the approximately $700 billion that federal, state, and local governments spend yearly on education. The case of Carson v. Makin, which is before the Supreme Court this term and involves a challenge, in Maine, to prohibitions on using state tuition aid to attend religious schools, could force taxpayers to fund sectarian schools no matter how discriminatory their policies or fanatical their teachings. The endgame is to get a chunk of this money with the help either of state legislatures or the Supreme Court, which in its current configuration might well be convinced that religious schools have a right to taxpayer funds.This longstanding anti-public school agenda is the driving force behind the movement’s effort to orchestrate the anti-C.R.T. campaign. The small explosions of hate detonating in public school boards across the nation are not entirely coming from the grass roots up. The Family Research Council, a Washington, D.C.-based Christian right policy group, recently held an online School Board Boot Camp, a four-hour training session providing instruction on how to run for school boards and against C.R.T. and to recruit others to do so. The Bradley Foundation, Heritage Action for America, and The Manhattan Institute are among those providing support for groups on the forefront of the latest public school culture wars.A decade ago, the radical aims at the ideological core of the Christian nationalist movement were there to see for anybody who looked. Not many bothered to look, and those who did were often dismissed as alarmist. More important, most Republican Party leaders at the time distanced themselves from theocratic extremists. They avoided the rhetoric of Seven Mountains dominionism, an ideology that calls explicitly for the domination of the seven “peaks” of modern civilization (including government and education) by Christians of the correct, supposedly biblical variety.What a difference a decade makes. National organizations like the Faith & Freedom Coalition and the Ziklag Group, which bring together prominent Republican leaders with donors and religious right activists, feature “Seven Mountains” workshops and panels at their gatherings. Nationalist leaders and their political dependents in the Republican Party now state quite openly what before they whispered to one another over their prayer breakfasts. Whether the public will take notice remains to be seen.Katherine Stewart (@kathsstewart) is the author of “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Why Trump’s Hold on the G.O.P. Is Unrivaled After the Capitol Riot

      by

      His continued grip on the party shows, once again, that the former president can outlast almost any outrage cycle, no matter how intensely it burns.​​One year ago, on the very same day when fevered supporters of Donald J. Trump breached the United States Capitol in a violent riot that defiled a symbol of American democracy, the leadership of the Republican National Committee happened to gather, almost 700 miles away at a Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla.In Washington, Mr. Trump’s political future had never appeared darker — and was dimming fast. He was an electoral loser. Top staff were resigning in protest. Prominent allies were repudiating him. Social media giants would soon banish him.But the seeds of a political revival, at least within his own party, were there from the start.With broken glass and debris still scattered across the Capitol complex, well over half of House Republicans voted against certifying the election, echoing Mr. Trump’s false claims of fraud. Even as the national committee drafted a statement condemning the violence — it did not mention Mr. Trump by name — some committee members pressed to add an expression of sympathy for the views of the crowd that had mobbed the Capitol. They had to be overruled.The next morning, Mr. Trump called into the committee’s meeting via speakerphone. “We love you!” some of the attendees shouted.“Many of us from the Northeast states just rolled our eyes,” said Bill Palatucci, a Republican national committeeman from New Jersey and a prominent Trump critic inside the party. But more common was the view of members like Corey Steinmetz, of Wyoming, who said in an interview that blaming Mr. Trump for the events of Jan. 6 was “nothing more than a sham from the get-go.”Today, the Republican Party is very much still Mr. Trump’s, transforming his lies about a stolen 2020 election into an article of faith, and even a litmus test that he is seeking to impose on the 2022 primaries with the candidates he backs. He is the party’s most coveted endorser, its top fund-raiser and the polling front-runner for the 2024 presidential nomination.Mr. Trump is also deeply divisive, unpopular among the broader electorate and under investigation for his business practices and his interference with election officials in Fulton County, Ga. He remains the same politician whose White House oversaw four years of devastating Republican losses, including of the House and Senate. And while a scattered few Republicans publicly warn about yoking the party to him, more fret in private about the consequences.Yet his unrivaled power inside the G.O.P., one year after inciting the sacking of the Capitol to forcibly forestall the certification of the election, is a testament to his unrelenting hold on the loyalty of the party base.His rehabilitation — to the extent one was even needed among Republicans — is the latest example of an enduring lesson of his tumultuous time in politics: that Mr. Trump can outlast almost any outrage cycle, no matter how intensely it burns.The spotlight shifts. The furor fades. Then, he rewrites history.For Jan. 6, the warped narrative that Mr. Trump has spun is that “the real insurrection happened on Nov. 3rd” — the date he lost a free and fair election.Understand the Jan. 6 InvestigationBoth the Justice Department and a House select committee are investigating the events of the Capitol riot. Here’s where they stand:Inside the House Inquiry: From a nondescript office building, the panel has been quietly ramping up its sprawling and elaborate investigation.Criminal Referrals, Explained: Can the House inquiry end in criminal charges? These are some of the issues confronting the committee.Garland’s Remarks: Facing pressure from Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed that the D.O.J. would pursue its inquiry into the riot “at any level.”A Big Question Remains: Will the Justice Department move beyond charging the rioters themselves?There was a fleeting moment, in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack, when Republican leaders in the House and Senate had an opportunity to break cleanly with Mr. Trump, as Democrats moved swiftly to impeach him.“Count me out,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a staunch Trump ally, had said that night on the Senate floor. “Enough is enough.”But if some Republican lawmakers who had narrowly escaped the violence that day were at a breaking point, Republican voters were less moved. Within a month, in early February 2021, an AP-NORC Poll found that only 11 percent of Republicans said Mr. Trump bore a great deal or quite a bit of responsibility for the breach of the Capitol; that figure is at 22 percent today.Republican politicians quickly realigned themselves to comport with public opinion. In less than a week, Mr. Graham was back at Mr. Trump’s side, riding Air Force One, and he repeatedly visited Mr. Trump’s golf courses for face time with the former president in the last year.Perhaps the first most consequential pivot back to Mr. Trump came from Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, who had said on Jan. 13 that Mr. Trump “bears responsibility” for the riot. By the end of the month, he was on a plane to Mar-a-Lago to try to keep the peace.An article was published about the closely-guarded meeting ahead of time. “Did you leak it?” Mr. Trump said to Mr. McCarthy twice, according to two people briefed on the discussion. Mr. McCarthy said he did not.Mr. Trump smiled slightly and shrugged his shoulders, seeming to acknowledge that Mr. McCarthy hadn’t been the leaker. “But it’s good for both of us, Kevin,” Mr. Trump said. A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy declined to comment, while a spokesman for Mr. Trump denied the exchange took place.Afterward, Mr. Trump’s PAC released a photo of the two men side by side.In the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, had been more forceful in denouncing Mr. Trump. “President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” Mr. McConnell declared in a floor speech, adding, “The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.”But Mr. McConnell ultimately voted to acquit Mr. Trump at his impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the insurrection.Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell are not on speaking terms now, though Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chair of the Senate Republican campaign arm, has been solicitous of Mr. Trump, even giving him a new “Champion for Freedom” award on a trip to Mar-a-Lago in April.That same weekend, at a Republican National Committee fund-raiser, Mr. Trump ripped Mr. McConnell while speaking to donors, uttering a crude insult to his intelligence.On his way out of office, Mr. Trump had fumed about starting a third party of his own, though he closed the door on that idea in his first post-presidential speech in late February, at the Conservative Political Action Conference of pro-Trump activists.Instead, he said, he planned to take back command of the G.O.P. and cleanse it of his critics.“Get rid of them all,” he said.Mr. Trump has already endorsed candidates in nearly 100 races in the midterms, setting up the 2022 primary season as something of a vengeance tour against those Republicans who dared to cross him. Some advisers worry his expansive set of endorsements will expose him to stinging potential losses that could signal a weakening of his sway over the Republican electorate.Still, Mr. Trump has recruited challengers to his loudest G.O.P. critics, such as Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was purged from House leadership for refusing, in her words, to “spread his destructive lies” about 2020.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      10 Republicans Voted to Impeach Trump. What's Become of Them?

      by

      Ten House Republicans voted to charge President Donald J. Trump with inciting the Capitol attack. All of them are still struggling with the consequences.WASHINGTON — The 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald J. Trump did so with the same conviction — that a president of their party deserved to be charged with inciting insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 — and the same hope — that his role in doing so would finally persuade the G.O.P. to repudiate him.But in the year since the deadliest attack on the Capitol in centuries, none of the 10 lawmakers have been able to avoid the consequences of a fundamental miscalculation about the direction of their party. The former president is very much the leader of the Republicans, and it is those who stood against him whom the party has thrust into the role of pariah.Since they cast their impeachment votes on Jan. 13, Representatives Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois have announced their retirements amid death threats from voters and hostility from colleagues. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming has gone from a star in the House Republican leadership to an exiled party gadfly and truth teller.Representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Peter Meijer of Michigan and Fred Upton of Michigan have Trump-endorsed primary challengers on their heels and uncertain political futures. Four others — John Katko of New York, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Tom Rice of South Carolina and David Valadao of California — have gone to ground, silent if not silenced, in the apparent hope that the entire episode will be forgotten.The fate of the 10 over the past year has offered a bracing reality check about the nature of today’s Republican Party, one that has fully embraced the lie of a stolen election and its main purveyor, and sidelined the few remaining members who have dared to publicly question Mr. Trump or his actions.“There’s been this waiting game and an arbitrage between an individual’s political future and the trajectory of that guy, assuming the apex has passed,” Mr. Meijer said in a lengthy interview, referring to Mr. Trump. “The view among some was that this would be essentially a self-correcting issue,” and that Mr. Trump’s power would fade.“I think that’s proven overly optimistic,” Mr. Meijer added.The 10 could be forgiven for believing that their votes last January would not leave them so exposed. In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, some of Mr. Trump’s most stalwart allies quit the government in disgust. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, voted against impeachment but declared, “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.”The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, orchestrated Mr. Trump’s acquittal after a hasty Senate impeachment trial. But he had let it be known that he considered the president culpable, and said as much in a scathing speech afterward: “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”But the rhetorical cover fire proved as ephemeral as it was useless. Mr. Gonzalez, deluged with threats and fearing for the safety of his wife and children, announced in September that he would not seek re-election — and called Mr. Trump “a cancer for the country.”After receiving threats, Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio announced in September that he would not seek re-election.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesA Cuban American who starred as a wide receiver at Ohio State, Mr. Gonzalez had been considered the kind of politician who would ensure the Republican Party’s future in a multiethnic, multiracial country after his election in 2018. But he found little support from the party that recruited him into politics once Mr. Trump endorsed a primary challenger and the threats began.Understand the Jan. 6 InvestigationBoth the Justice Department and a House select committee are investigating the events of the Capitol riot. Here’s where they stand:Inside the House Inquiry: From a nondescript office building, the panel has been quietly ramping up its sprawling and elaborate investigation.Criminal Referrals, Explained: Can the House inquiry end in criminal charges? These are some of the issues confronting the committee.Garland’s Remarks: Facing pressure from Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed that the D.O.J. would pursue its inquiry into the riot “at any level.”A Big Question Remains: Will the Justice Department move beyond charging the rioters themselves?Mr. Kinzinger, who announced his retirement in October, has faced similar threats. But he has turned his opposition to Mr. Trump into a capstone of his career, defying Republican leaders to join the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, laying into Mr. Trump and his defenders at every opportunity, and promising not to leave the political stage once his House career ends this year.“The 2020 election was not stolen,” Mr. Kinzinger said in a lengthy video message on Wednesday for the anniversary of Jan. 6. “Joe Biden won, and Donald Trump lost. We have to admit it. But the leadership of the Republican Party won’t. They lied to the American people and continue to push the big lie and echo the conspiracy theories that line their pockets, keeping them in power.”Mr. Upton has never been one for flash, yet his future is no more secure, despite 35 years in the House. He could face Steve Carra, a state representative endorsed by Mr. Trump, who would have to move homes to mount a primary challenge against Mr. Upton because of new congressional maps drafted by a bipartisan commission.“I’m 100 percent running for Congress, it’s an honor to have President Trump’s endorsement, and Fred Upton will not be a congressman in 2023,” Mr. Carra said in a text message.Even if Mr. Upton does not have to face Mr. Carra, his impeachment vote has placed him at risk. The new map pushed Mr. Upton into the same district as Bill Huizenga, a more conservative congressman who voted against impeachment.Under the circumstances, Mr. Upton is showing clear signs of fatigue.“You’ve got metal detectors now going on the House floor. We get really nasty threats at home. The tone gets, you know, tougher and tougher, and it’s a pretty toxic place,” he said last month on CNN. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”None of the 10 have fallen so far in the Republican firmament as Ms. Cheney, nor risen so high in the esteem of many in both parties who fear and loathe Mr. Trump. The daughter of a former vice president who was once the embodiment of confrontational conservatism, for better or worse, Ms. Cheney started 2021 as the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, a political knife fighter believed by many to be destined for the speakership.Her vote to impeach, and her outspoken denunciations of the lie — pushed by Mr. Trump and embraced by many of her colleagues — that the 2020 election was “stolen,” cost her dearly. She was ousted from her leadership post, ejected from the Wyoming Republican Party and targeted repeatedly by the former president, who has tried to unite Wyoming voters around the primary opponent he has endorsed, Harriet Hageman.Ms. Cheney has soldiered on, becoming the vice chairwoman of the House select committee investigating the riot, the face of Republican resistance to Trumpism and a one-woman wrecking crew for Mr. McCarthy’s ambitions to become speaker next year if the party retakes control of the House.Looking back, Ms. Cheney said in an interview that her fall from Republican leadership was inevitable as long as she had to share the stage with Mr. McCarthy, whose brief denunciation of Mr. Trump after Jan. 6 quickly gave way to a resumption of fealty.“It was increasingly clear that staying as conference chair was going to require me to perpetuate the lie about the election,” Ms. Cheney said. “I was simply not willing to look the other way and accept what he did.”Mr. McCarthy, by contrast, visited Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla, near the end of January, making it “pretty clear the path that he had chosen,” Ms. Cheney added. “It was one that was not faithful to the Constitution.”Never one to let bygones be bygones, Mr. Trump has relentlessly pursued retribution against those who voted to impeach him.In September, he endorsed a square-jawed, Army Special Forces veteran, Joe Kent, to challenge Ms. Herrera Beutler, who before her vote had revealed one of the most damning vignettes of Jan. 6 for Mr. Trump. She recounted a phone call in which Mr. McCarthy had personally pleaded with the president to call off the rioters during the assault. Mr. Trump had responded, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      A Year After Jan. 6: ‘Democracy Is at Risk’

      by

      Readers worry about the future of our Republic.To the Editor:Re “Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now” (editorial, Jan. 2):We are very close to losing our Republic. I know we are tired after the last few years, but we have had a year to lick our wounds and we must rise up and push back on the Big Lie and hold all of the people who propagated this lie accountable. Period.We are past the “when they go low, we go high” point. The majority of us know that Donald Trump attempted a coup. Where is the Democratic Party with good countermessaging? We need to play the Republicans’ game — harsh, quick and now.We need to brand ourselves the Patriot Party and take away that claim from them. We need to point out through advertisements, billboards, etc., that the acts of Mr. Trump and the Republicans who supported him were seditious. We need to bring all of our advocacy groups together, put aside our causes for now and unite to save our country.A plea for my fellow patriots to write to their representatives, push back on misinformation, use billboards and advertisements, and reach out to notable people and news sources to roar.Susan M. McDonnellFort Pierce, Fla.To the Editor:Although The Times may be ringing in the new year with an alarm bell warning of the ongoing threat that the “stop the steal” movement poses to our democracy, I fear that President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland intend to lower the decibels.Regardless of how important the congressional investigation may be, Donald Trump and his supporters have exploited the weaknesses in Congress’s investigative process and powers. A congressional report may preserve facts for posterity but will change nothing. Only a criminal grand jury investigation can ferret out the truth and demand accountability by issuing criminal indictments.I believe that the president and his attorney general are concerned about the inevitable accusations of political prosecution, the cycle of recriminations such proceedings might ignite, and energizing a Trump movement fueled by grievance and reveling in victimhood. Maybe they presume the powers of normality will prevail to fend off future assaults on our electoral process, just as they had in 2020.Which strategy is the best is currently a matter of debate. What is certain is that in short order we will learn whether Ben Franklin was right to worry about whether we can keep our Republic.Asher FriedCroton-on-Hudson, N.Y.To the Editor:“Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now” evinces the paternalistic mentality that is likely to result in the Democrats facing a wipeout in the November 2022 elections. The evident panic in the editorial reflects the realization that Republicans are poised to retake the House this year. Why are Democrats polling so poorly? Perhaps it is because a dogmatic ideology that sees political opposition as a threat to be suppressed, surveilled, hounded or outlawed is itself a direct threat to our democracy.Political pluralism is a central tenet of our democracy and must be protected from both the reckless zeal of the mob and the self-righteous zeal of the elites. Ultimately, the American people are the caretakers of our democracy, having never failed to fulfill that obligation.Barry ZimanAlexandria, Va.To the Editor:I agree completely with your editorial. Unfortunately, our citizens are in denial. What you describe is terrifying, but denial is even more terrifying. Democracy is at risk, and the filibuster and the courts are collaborating against the will of the people. Without taking drastic measures, the majority will be ruled by the minority for years to come, by a party that denies truth to retain power.The House committee investigating Jan. 6 might be our last hope to save democracy. We need the public to hear the truth.Linda GravellWaterbury Center, Vt.To the Editor:You correctly observe that Democrats and the American public in general are “underestimating the threat facing the country.” Our democratic government remains in peril, as swing states enact laws that permit postelection nullification.Prosecutors and judges who face the insurrectionists in court are also showing a lack of appreciation of the seriousness of Jan. 6 and its ongoing threat to our democracy.Why are convicted rioters (even those who physically assaulted police officers defending the Capitol) getting off with no prison sentences or only three to five years? Why are so many of the Capitol attackers being charged with misdemeanors (such as trespassing or destruction of federal property) rather than with felonies up to and including insurrection and sedition?L. Michael HagerEastham, Mass.The writer is co-founder and former director general of the International Development Law Organization in Rome.To the Editor:You cite President Benjamin Harrison’s belief that the Constitution guarantees to all Americans a republican form of government. He added that “the essential features of such a government are the right of the people to choose their own officers” and to have their votes counted equally in making that choice.It is slightly ironic, however, that Harrison was elected president (in 1888) despite losing the popular vote.Donald IslerIrvington, N.Y.To the Editor:On the basis of information gathered so far by the congressional Jan. 6 committee, one can stipulate that not only did President Donald Trump, while in office, cry “Fire!” when there was no fire (i.e., the Big Lie about a stolen election), but he also did not cry “Fire!” when one was raging — for 187 minutes of presidential dereliction of duty on Jan. 6.Manfred WeidhornFair Lawn, N.J. More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Why Republicans Keep Falling for Trump’s Lies

      by

      When called upon to believe that Barack Obama was really born in Kenya, millions got in line. When encouraged to believe that the 2012 Sandy Hook murder of twenty children and six adults was a hoax, too many stepped up. When urged to believe that Hillary Clinton was trafficking children in the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor with no basement, they bought it, and one of them showed up in the pizza place with a rifle to protect the kids. The fictions fed the frenzies, and the frenzies shaped the crises of 2020 and 2021. The delusions are legion: Secret Democratic cabals of child abusers, millions of undocumented voters, falsehoods about the Covid-19 pandemic and the vaccine.While much has been said about the moral and political stance of people who support right-wing conspiracy theories, their gullibility is itself alarming. Gullibility means malleability and manipulability. We don’t know if the people who believed the prevailing 2012 conspiracy theories believed the 2016 or 2020 versions, but we do know that a swath of the conservative population is available for the next delusion and the one after that. And on Jan. 6, 2021, we saw that a lot of them were willing to act on those beliefs.The adjective gullible comes from the verb to gull, which used to mean to cram yourself with something as well as to cheat or dupe, to cram someone else full of fictions. “Not doubting I could gull the Government,” wrote Daniel Defoe in 1701, and Hannah Arendt used the word gullible repeatedly in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” published in 1951. “A mixture of gullibility and cynicism is prevalent in all ranks of totalitarian movements, and the higher the rank the more cynicism weighs down gullibility,” she wrote. That is, among those gulling the public, cynicism is a stronger force; among those being gulled, gullibility is, but the two are not so separate as they might seem.Distinctions between believable and unbelievable, true and false, are not relevant for people who have found that taking up outrageous and disprovable ideas is instead an admission ticket to a community or an identity. Without the yoke of truthfulness around their necks, they can choose beliefs that flatter their worldview or justify their aggression. I sometimes think of this straying into fiction as a kind of libertarianism run amok — we used to say “you’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” Too many Americans now feel entitled to their own facts. In this too-free marketplace of ideas, they can select or reject ideas, facts or histories to match their goals, because meaning has become transactional.But gullibility means you believe something because someone else wants you to. You’re buying what they’re selling. It’s often said that the joiners of cults and subscribers to delusions are driven by their hatred of elites. But in the present situation, the snake oil salesmen are not just Alex Jones, QAnon’s master manipulators and evangelical hucksters. They are senators, powerful white Christian men, prominent media figures, billionaires and their foundations, even a president. (Maybe the belief that these figures are not an elite is itself a noteworthy delusion.)It’s true that these leading lights of the right often portray themselves as embattled outsiders. But they’re not; they’re the status quo gone rogue. They are still powerful, still insiders, but something even more potent is changing — you could call it the zeitgeist or the arc of justice or historical momentum or just demographic reality. The world is moving on; those who’d rather it stand still are eager to push narratives depicting these shifts as degeneration and white Christian heterosexual America as profoundly imperiled.A lot of conspiracy theories are organic or at least emerge from true believers on the margins when it comes to topics like extraterrestrials, but those at the top of conservative America have preached falsehoods that further the interest of elites, and those at the bottom have embraced them devoutly. Though when we talk about cults and conspiracies we usually look to more outlandish beliefs, climate denial and gun obsessions both fit this template.Both originated as industry agendas that were then embraced by both right-wing politicians and the right-leaning public. For decades, the fossil fuel industry pumped out ads and reports, and supported lobbyists and front groups misleading the public on the science and import of climate change. The current gun cult is likewise the result of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry pushing battlefield-style weapons and a new white male identity — more paramilitary than rural hunter — along with fear, rage and racist dog whistles. I think of it as a cult, because guns serve first as totems of identity and belonging, and because the beliefs seem counterfactual about guns as sources of safety rather than danger when roughly 60 percent of gun deaths are suicides and self-defense by gun is a surpassingly rare phenomenon.Right-wing political fictions have a long history, from Joe McCarthy’s bluffs about communists in the government to the United Nations’ black helicopters of 1990s paranoia to an endless stream of stories portraying immigrants, Jews, Muslims, gay men then and trans people now as sinister threats. The digital age and then the pandemic caused many of us to withdraw further from contact with people unlike ourselves, and pundits and social media offered those “others” back as phantasms and gargoyles leering at us through the filters.We all have confirmation biases, and of course leftists and moderates have also entertained delusions and paranoia — about extraterrestrials, vaccines and political assassinations, for instance. But mainstream figures in the center and the left are not pushing radically counterfactual stuff akin to the conservative lies about Covid-19, let alone trying to instigate or whitewash the kind of violence we saw on Jan. 6. Democrats operate on the basis of reasonably factual premises and usually accept the authority of science, law and history, while Republicans uninhibitedly push whatever’s most convenient for their goals and incendiary for their base. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      How to Stop Trump and Prevent Another Jan. 6

      by

      On Christmas morning, I woke up early and flipped on CNN, where I found the newscaster toggling among three news stories — two really depressing ones and an amazingly uplifting one.The first depressing story was the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. The other was the looming anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Both the threat from the virus and the distorted beliefs about the attack on the Capitol were being fueled by crackpot conspiracy theories circulated by Facebook, Fox News and Republican politicians.But then there it was — sandwiched between these two disturbing tales — a remarkable story of U.S. and global collaboration to reach a new scientific frontier.It was the launch at 7:20 a.m. Christmas Day of the James Webb Space Telescope. According to NASA, “thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians” — from 306 universities, national labs and companies, primarily in the U.S., Canada and Europe — contributed “to design, build, test, integrate, launch and operate Webb.”JM Guillon/ESAThank you, Santa! What a gift to remind us that a level of trust to do big, hard things together is still alive on planet Earth. By operating from deep in space, Smithsonian magazine noted, “Webb will help scientists understand how early galaxies formed and grew, detect possible signatures of life on other planets, watch the birth of stars, study black holes from a different angle and likely discover unexpected truths.”I love that phrase — unexpected truths. We have launched a space telescope that can peer far into the universe to discover — with joy — unexpected truths.Alas, though, my joy is tempered by those two other stories, by the fact that here on Earth, in America, one of our two national parties and its media allies have chosen instead to celebrate and propagate alternative facts.This struggle between those seeking unexpected truths — which is what made us great as a nation — and those worshiping alternative facts — which will destroy us as a nation — is THE story on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurgency, and for the coming year. Many people, particularly in the American business community, are vastly underestimating the danger to our constitutional order if this struggle ends badly.If the majority of G.O.P. lawmakers continue to bow to the most politically pernicious “alternative fact” — that the 2020 election was a fraud that justifies empowering Republican legislatures to override the will of voters and remove Republican and Democratic election supervisors who helped save our democracy last time by calling the election fairly — then America isn’t just in trouble. It is headed for what scientists call “an extinction-level event.”Only it won’t be a comet hurtling past the Webb telescope from deep space that destroys our democracy, as in the new movie “Don’t Look Up.”No, no — it will be an unraveling from the ground up, as our country, for the first time, is unable to carry out a peaceful transfer of power to a legitimately elected president. Because if Donald Trump and his flock are able in 2024 to execute a procedural coup like they attempted on Jan. 6, 2021, Democrats will not just say, “Ah shucks, we’ll try harder next time.” They will take to the streets.Right now, though, too many Republicans are telling themselves and the rest of us: “Don’t look up! Don’t pay attention to what is unfolding in plain sight with Trump & Company. Trump won’t be the G.O.P.’s candidate in 2024.”Who will save us?God bless Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two Republican House members participating on the Jan. 6 investigation committee. But they are not enough. Kinzinger is retiring and the G.O.P. leadership, on Trump’s orders, is trying to launch Cheney into deep space.I think our last best hope is the leadership of the U.S. business community, specifically the Business Roundtable, led by General Motors C.E.O. Mary Barra, and the Business Council, led by Microsoft C.E.O. Satya Nadella. Together those two groups represent the roughly 200 most powerful companies in America, with 20 million employees. Although formally nonpartisan, they lean center-right — but the old center-right, the one that believed in the rule of law, free markets, majority rule, science and the sanctity of our elections and constitutional processes.Collectively, they are the only responsible force left with real leverage on Trump and the Republican lawmakers doing his bidding. They need to persuade their members — now — not to donate a penny more to any local, state or national candidate who has voted to dismantle the police or dismantle the Constitution.Yes, that’s false equivalency. Nothing is as big as the Trump cult’s threat to our constitutional order. But it’s still relevant. For a lot of Americans, watching a smash-and-grab gang ransack their local mall and violent crime jump — and then seeing the far-left trying to delegitimize, defund or dismantle their police — is just as frightening as those trying to dismantle their Constitution on the Capitol mall.Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesI believe there are many Americans in the center-left and center-right who vigorously oppose both, and they think it’s a disgrace when progressives tell them not to worry about the first or when Trumpers tell them not to worry about the second.When you take both seriously, many more people will listen to you on both. Individually, in their hometowns — like mine, Minneapolis — business leaders have effectively pushed back on dismantling the police. Now it is time for America’s business leaders to just as forcefully push back on the Trump Republicans trying to dismantle the Constitution.Why should they risk alienating pro-Trump lawmakers who soon may control both the House and the Senate? Besides love of country?Let me put it crassly: Civil wars are not good for business. I lived inside one in Lebanon for four years. Corporate America shouldn’t be lulled by 2021’s profits, because once a country’s institutions, laws, norms and unstated redlines are breached — and there is no more truth, only versions, and no more trust, only polarization — getting them back is almost impossible.Can’t happen here? It sure can.Rick Wilson, a longtime G.O.P. strategist opposed to Trump, recently described to The Washington Post what will happen if the campaign by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Trump cultists succeeds to get more Big Lie promoters elected in 2022 — and the G.O.P. takes the House or Senate or both: “We’re looking at a nihilistic Mad Max hellscape. It will be all about the show of 2024 to bring Donald Trump back into power.” He added, “They will impeach Biden, they will impeach Harris, they will kill everything.”So what will big business do? I wish I were more optimistic.CNBC reported Monday that data compiled by the watchdog group Accountable.US “shows that political action committees of top corporations and trade groups — including the American Bankers Association, Boeing, Raytheon Technologies, Lockheed Martin and General Motors — continued to give to the Republican election objectors.”Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, said in a statement: “Major corporations were quick to condemn the insurrection and tout their support for democracy — and almost as quickly, many ditched those purported values by cutting big checks to the very politicians that helped instigate the failed coup attempt. The increasing volume of corporate donations to lawmakers who tried to overthrow the will of the people makes clear that these companies were never committed to standing up for democracy in the first place.”The leaders of these companies are totally underestimating the chances that our democratic institutions will unravel. And if American democracy unravels, the whole world becomes unstable. That will not exactly be good for business, either.Neutrality is not an option anymore. As Liz Cheney put it on Sunday: “We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both.”So, my New Year’s wish is that item one on the agenda for the next meetings of both the Business Roundtable and the Business Council will be: Which side are we on?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      ¿Qué significa el 6 de enero para Estados Unidos?

      by

      Un año después del humo y los vidrios rotos, de la horca simulada y la violencia demasiado real de ese día atroz, es tentador hacer una retrospectiva e imaginar que, de hecho, podemos simplemente hacer una retrospectiva. Es tentador imaginar que lo que sucedió el 6 de enero de 2021 —un asalto mortal en la sede del gobierno de Estados Unidos incitado por un presidente derrotado en medio de una campaña desesperada por frustrar la transferencia de poder a su sucesor— fue terrible pero que ahora está en el pasado y que nosotros, como nación, hemos podido avanzar.Es un impulso comprensible. Después de cuatro años de caos, crueldad e incompetencia, que culminaron en una pandemia y con el trauma antes impensable del 6 de enero, la mayoría de los estadounidenses estaban impacientes por tener algo de paz y tranquilidad.Hemos conseguido eso, en la superficie. Nuestra vida política parece más o menos normal en estos días: el presidente perdona pavos y el Congreso se pelea por la legislación de presupuesto. Pero si escarbamos un poco, las cosas están lejos de ser normales. El 6 de enero no está en el pasado: está presente todos los días.Está en los ciudadanos de a pie que amenazan a funcionarios electorales y otros servidores públicos, está en quienes preguntan “¿Cuándo podemos usar las armas?” y prometen asesinar a los políticos que se atrevan a votar con conciencia. Son los legisladores republicanos que luchan por hacer que el voto sea más difícil para las personas y, si votan, que sea más fácil subvertir su voluntad. Está en Donald Trump, quien continúa avivando las llamas del conflicto con sus mentiras desenfrenadas y resentimientos ilimitados y cuya versión distorsionada de la realidad todavía domina a uno de los dos principales partidos políticos de la nación.En pocas palabras, la república enfrenta una amenaza existencial por parte de un movimiento que desdeña de manera abierta la democracia y que ha demostrado su disposición a usar la violencia para conseguir sus propósitos. Ninguna sociedad autónoma puede sobrevivir a una amenaza así negando que esta existe. Más bien, la supervivencia depende de mirar al pasado y hacia el futuro al mismo tiempo.Encarar de verdad la amenaza que se avecina significa entender plenamente el terror de ese día hace un año. Gracias en gran medida a la labor tenaz de un comité bipartidista en la Cámara de Representantes, una toma de conciencia está en proceso. Ahora sabemos que la violencia y el caos transmitidos en vivo a todo el mundo fue solo la parte más visible y visceral de un esfuerzo por revertir las elecciones. Ese esfuerzo llegaba hasta el Despacho Oval, donde Trump y sus aliados planearon un autogolpe constitucional.Ahora sabemos que los principales legisladores republicanos y figuras de los medios de comunicación de derecha entendieron en privado lo peligroso que era el asalto y le pidieron a Trump que lo detuviera, incluso cuando públicamente decían lo contrario. Ahora sabemos que quienes pueden tener información crítica sobre la planificación y ejecución del ataque se niegan a cooperar con el Congreso, incluso si eso significa ser acusado de desacato criminal.Por ahora, el trabajo del comité continúa. Ha programado una serie de audiencias públicas para exponer estos y otros detalles, y planea publicar un informe completo de sus hallazgos antes de las elecciones intermedias de este año. Después de los comicios, si los republicanos recuperan el control de la Cámara, como se espera, indudablemente el comité será disuelto.Aquí es donde entra la mirada hacia el futuro. A lo largo del año pasado, legisladores republicanos en 41 estados han intentado promover los objetivos de los alborotadores del 6 de enero, y lo han hecho no rompiendo leyes, sino promulgándolas. Se han propuesto cientos de proyectos de ley y se han aprobado casi tres decenas de leyes que facultan a las legislaturas estatales para sabotear sus propios comicios y anular la voluntad de sus votantes, según el recuento activo de un consorcio no partidista de organizaciones a favor de la democracia.Algunos proyectos de ley cambiarían las reglas para hacer más fácil que los legisladores rechacen los votos de sus ciudadanos si no les gusta el resultado. Otros proyectos legislativos reemplazan a los funcionarios electorales profesionales con figuras partidistas que podrían tener un interés claro en que gane su candidato predilecto. Y, otros más intentan criminalizar los errores humanos de funcionarios electorales, en algunos casos incluso con amenaza de cárcel.Muchas de estas leyes se están proponiendo y aprobando en estados que suele ser cruciales en las elecciones, como Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia y Pensilvania. A raíz de la votación de 2020, la campaña de Trump se enfocó en los resultados electorales en estos estados: demandó para reclamar un recuento o trataba de intimidar a los funcionarios para que encontraran votos “faltantes”. El esfuerzo fracasó, en buena medida debido al profesionalismo y la integridad de los funcionarios electorales. Desde entonces, muchos de esos funcionarios han sido despojados de su poder o expulsados de sus cargos y reemplazados por personas que dicen abiertamente que las últimas elecciones fueron fraudulentas.De este modo, los disturbios del Capitolio continúan presentes en los congresos estatales de todo Estados Unidos, en una forma legalizada y sin derramamiento de sangre y que ningún oficial de policía puede detener y que ningún fiscal puede juzgar en un tribunal.Esta no es la primera vez que las legislaturas estatales intentan arrebatarle el control de los votos electorales a sus ciudadanos, ni es la primera vez que se advierte de los peligros que entraña esa estrategia. En 1891, el presidente Benjamin Harrison advirtió al Congreso del riesgo de que ese “truco” pudiera determinar el resultado de una elección presidencial.La Constitución garantiza a todos los estadounidenses una forma republicana de gobierno, dijo Harrison. “Las características esenciales de tal gobierno son el derecho del pueblo a elegir a sus propios funcionarios” y que sus votos se cuenten por igual al tomar esa decisión. “Nuestro principal peligro nacional”, agregó, es “el derrocamiento del control de la mayoría mediante la supresión o distorsión del sufragio popular”. Si una legislatura estatal lograra sustituir la voluntad de sus votantes por la suya, “no es exagerado decir que la paz pública podría estar en peligro serio y generalizado”.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More