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      The Observer view on Joe Biden’s Capitol Hill anniversary speech | Observer editorial

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      The Observer view on Joe Biden’s Capitol Hill anniversary speechObserver editorialThe president is right to rage, but the only real antidote to Donald Trump’s dangerous lies is US law The 6 January insurrection, when supporters of former US president Donald Trump stormed Capitol Hill, is widely viewed as a seminal moment in the history of US democracy. Never before had the modern nation witnessed such an organised, violent attempt to overthrow the elected government. Never before, not even at the height of the Civil War, had the Confederate flag flown over the halls of Congress.Yet last week, as the US marked the first anniversary of the thwarted insurrection, another significant turning point was reached. President Joe Biden, the lawful winner of the 2020 election and Trump’s principal intended victim, dropped what some call his Mr Nice Guy act. With gloves off, Biden came out swinging. It was about time.Since taking office almost exactly one year ago, Biden has deliberately ignored Trump. He has rarely mentioned his predecessor by name. He has refused to engage with Trump’s insults, lies and unceasing propagation of the “big lie” – that Democrats stole the 2020 vote. Instead, Biden sought to reunite a divided, fractious nation, appealing to what he called our “better selves” and looking to the future, not the past.It didn’t work. That is not to say it was not worth trying, nor that the effort should be discontinued: it should not. But in the intervening 12 months, Trump, egged on by cynical, unprincipled Republicans such as House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and far-right disruptors such as Steve Bannon, has not only not faded from view but, rather, he has emerged, strengthened, as Republican king-maker and his party’s leading 2024 presidential contender.Trump’s bottomless mendacity, lacking any factual, legal or moral basis and flying in the face of numerous court judgments, vote recounts and electoral inquiries, has nevertheless persuaded a majority of Republican voters that Biden was not legitimately elected while seeding doubt in the minds of others. His poison corrodes America’s governing institutions and incites civil strife. Trump embodies a clear and present danger to US national security, stability and democracy. He must be stopped.Biden’s 6 January speech appeared to unleash a new strategy to do just that. Trump, he said, was “holding a dagger” at the throat of American democracy. His “web of lies” could no longer be tolerated. Trump “rallied the mob to attack”, then did nothing to stop the ensuing lethal violence, Biden fumed.The president’s sudden switch to direct confrontation entails obvious dangers. It plays to Trump’s agenda and ego, making him the centre of attention. The shift may also be indicative of political weakness. Biden’s approval ratings are low, his legislative agenda has stalled, the Democrats in Congress are split and the party is widely expected to lose Congress in November’s elections.Yet Biden really had no choice but to go on the offensive. Trump and Trumpism’s world of “alternative facts” has had a free run for too long. To be defeated and debunked, it must be publicly and robustly challenged at every turn. Legal remedies, soft-pedalled until now by the justice department, must be pursued with renewed vigour and determination.“The legal path to investigate the leaders of the coup attempt is clear. The criminal code prohibits inciting an insurrection or ‘giving aid or comfort’ to those who do, as well as conspiracy to forcibly ‘prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law’,” veteran Harvard constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe wrote recently. It’s a widely held opinion.The many documented actions of Trump and his circle in attempting to overturn the 2020 vote provide numerous grounds for criminal investigation and prosecution. Why is Merrick Garland, the attorney general, still dragging his feet? Biden can righteously rage. But the best antidote to toxic Trump’s dangerously lawless spree, and fears of civil war, is the law itself. Take him down – before it’s too late.TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsDonald TrumpJoe BidenSteve BannonRepublicanseditorialsReuse this content More

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      The epic struggle for America’s soul is just getting started

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      The epic struggle for America’s soul is just getting startedSimon TisdallA year after the Capitol insurrection, democracy is still under attack from Republicans in thrall to Trump’s lies. What is to be done to avoid a descent into violence? Is democracy in America really on the brink of collapse? A lot of serious people appear to think so. Last week’s first anniversary of the Capitol Hill insurrection, viewed by Democrats as a coup attempt incited by Donald Trump, has sparked a torrent of nervous speculation that it could happen again before, during or after the 2024 presidential election – and that next time, the coup may succeed.One unhappy fact underpins this alarming scenario: many, perhaps most, voters have lost trust in the democratic system that governs them. A majority of Republicans believe Trump’s “big lie” – that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. Democrats cite elections in 2000 and 2016 when Al Gore and Hillary Clinton respectively won the popular vote but were denied the presidency. Each side accuses the other of fraud and bad faith.A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll found eight in 10 Republicans, Democrats and independents are worried about the future of American democracy. But they disagree over the causes – and who’s to blame: 85% of Democrats call the Capitol Hill rioters “criminals”; two-thirds of Republicans believe “they went too far but had a point”.“Only free and fair elections in which the loser abides by the result stand between each of us and life at the mercy of a despotic regime,” warns Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe. But increasingly, for today’s politicians, honourable defeat is a wholly foreign concept.This chronic loss of institutional trust and credibility, also tainting a politicised, conservative-dominated supreme court, reflects a society more openly riven by longstanding cultural, racial and religious animosities – and one in which income, wealth and health inequalities are growing. These divisions are in turn wilfully exacerbated by rightwing broadcast and online media, bloggers and internet trolls.A Republican party mostly in thrall to Trump’s lies, delusions and conspiracy theories is creating a world of “alternative facts”, says columnist Thomas Friedman. If they succeed in replacing truth, “America isn’t just in trouble. It is headed for what scientists call ‘an extinction-level event’”.Jedediah Britton-Purdy, a Columbia law professor, is similarly apocalyptic. “One thing Democrats and Republicans share is the belief that, to save the country, the other side must not be allowed to win … Every election is an existential crisis,” he wrote.“We should stop underestimating the threat facing the country,” a grim New York Times editorial thundered last week. “January 6 is not in the past; it is every day. It is regular citizens who threaten election officials, who ask ‘when can we use the guns?’, who vow to murder politicians who dare to vote their conscience. It is Republican lawmakers scrambling to make it harder for people to vote and subvert their will if they do. It is Trump who stokes the flames of conflict.” Democracy, it said, was in “grave danger”.Systemic violence that overwhelms conventional politics may be near at hand. “We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe,” says Barbara Walter, a California politics professor.No one is talking about a remake of the 1861-65 US civil war. Instead, as in Ukraine or Libya, an “open insurgency”, as defined by Walter, would probably involve (at least initially), disparate militias and their supporters pursuing forms of asymmetrical warfare – typically terrorist acts, bombings, assassinations, kidnappings. That said, worrying echoes of Confederate-era secessionism are once again heard in Texas and elsewhere. When the warlike rhetoric of Charlottesville-style paramilitary white supremacists, the high nationwide incidence of gun ownership and, for example, worries about far-right cells within the US military are factored in, civil war scenarios do not appear so implausible.“Only a spark is needed, one major domestic terrorist event that shifts the perception of the country,” analyst Stephen Marche wrote last week. Marche quotes a military history professor and Iraq war veteran, Col Peter Mansoor, who tells him: “It would not be like the first civil war, with armies manoeuvring on the battlefield. I think it would very much be a free-for-all, neighbour on neighbour, based on beliefs and skin colours and religion. And it would be horrific.”So what is to be done?Columbia’s Britton-Purdy says America’s democracy is failing because it is not democratic enough. Old saws about the “tyranny of the majority”, propagated by founding father James Madison, among others, are redundant. The electoral college, which can override the popular vote, should be abolished, the franchise widened, and constitutional amendments curbing money in politics, banning gerrymandering and enshrining abortion rights should be voted on by all, he argued.Cynthia Miller-Idriss, author of Hate in the Homeland, says a key problem is the “mainstreaming of far-right extremism” during Trump’s presidency. She advocates large-scale investment to strengthen communities and improve media literacy and civic education. Friedman wants corporate America to cut off funding to Trump and anti-democratic Republicans. “Civil war is bad for business,” he wrote. Just look at Lebanon.Senator Bernie Sanders says radical change is the only answer. “At a time when the demagogues want to divide us … we must build an unstoppable grassroots movement that helps create the kind of nation we know we can become,” he says. Yet many Americans, including moderate Democrats, find the progressive left’s “transformational” agenda deeply disturbing, exemplified by calls to defund the police.Harvard’s Laurence Tribe and fellow lawyers say that for democracy and the rule of law to survive, there must be accountability. That requires, in addition to the congressional inquiry, “a robust criminal investigation” into all those responsible for 6 January – including Trump. In a tougher than usual speech marking the anniversary, Biden condemned “the former president’s web of lies” – but gave no hint of legal or other action to punish or restrain him.The Trump menace is darker than ever – and he’s snapping at Biden’s heels | Jonathan FreedlandRead moreWhat would Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the famous study, Democracy in America, make of the present-day US? The French aristocrat and political scientist travelled the country in 1831-2, talking to ordinary people about governance and citizenship. He concluded, broadly, that democracy was an unstoppable, levelling historical trend that would eventually conquer the world.Until relatively recently, many in the west still held to that view. Now, with the rise of China and other powerful authoritarian, anti-democratic regimes, optimism is fading – and America, the global paradigm, is itself under the reactionary hammer. Has De Tocqueville’s dream been exploded?Not yet. The epic struggle for America’s democratic soul is just getting started. For a watching world, the stakes are sky-high, too. Where would Britain, Europe and all the globe’s democracies, actual and aspiring, be without the flawed but inspiring US example, without the “arsenal of democracy” to justify, validate and fortify their political universe?Best ask Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and other despots. They are betting the ranch on the failure of American democracy – and aim to profit greatly thereby.TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS Capitol attackJoe BidenDonald TrumpRepublicansXi JinpingVladimir PutincommentReuse this content More

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      Trump has birthed a dangerous new ‘Lost Cause’ myth. We must fight it | David Blight

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      Trump has birthed a dangerous new ‘Lost Cause’ myth. We must fight itDavid BlightThe lie that the election was ‘stolen’ from Trump is building its monuments in ludicrous stories, and codifying them in laws to make the next elections easier to pilfer American democracy is in peril and nearly everyone paying attention is trying to find the best way to say so. Should we in the intellectual classes position our warnings in satire, in jeremiads, in social scientific data, in historical analogy, in philosophical wisdom we glean from so many who have instructed us about the violence and authoritarianism of the 20th century? Or should we just scream after our holiday naps?Some of us pick up our pens and do what we can. We quote wise scribes such as George Orwell on how there may be a latent fascist waiting to emerge in all humans, or Hannah Arendt on how democracies are inherently unstable and susceptible to ruin by aggressive, skilled demagogues. We turn to Alexis de Tocqueville for his stunning insights into American individualism while we love to believe his claims that democracy would create greater equality. And oh! how we love Walt Whitman’s fabulously open, infinite democratic spirit. We inhale Whitman’s verses and are captured by the hypnotic power of democracy. “O Democracy, for you, for you I am trilling these songs,” wrote our most exuberant democrat.Read enough of the right Whitman and you can believe again that American democracy may yet be “the continent indissoluble … with the life-long love of comrades”. But just now we cannot rely on the genius alone of our wise forbears. We have to face our own mess, engage the fight before us, and prepare for the worst.Our democracy allows a twice-impeached, criminally inclined ex-president, who publicly fomented an attempted coup against his own government, and still operates as a gangster leader of his political party, to peacefully reside in our midst while under investigation for his misdeeds. We believe in rule of law, and therefore await verdicts of our judicial system and legislative inquiry.Yet Trumpism unleashed on 6 January, and every day before and since over a five-year period, a crusade to slowly poison the American democratic experiment with a movement to overturn decades of pluralism, increased racial and gender equality, and scientific knowledge. To what end? Establishing a hopeless white utopia for the rich and the aggrieved.On this 6 January anniversary is it time to sing anew with Whitmanesque fervor, or is the only rational response to scream? First the scream.On 6 January 2021, an American mob, orchestrated by the most powerful man in the land, along with many congressional and media allies, nearly destroyed our indirect electoral democracy. To this day, only Trump’s laziness and incompetence may explain why he did not fire Vice-President Mike Pence in the two months before the coup, install a genuine lackey like Mark Meadows, and set up the formal disruption of the count of electoral votes. The real coup needed guns, and military brass thankfully made clear they would oppose any attempt at imposing martial law. But the coup endures by failing; it now takes the form of voter suppression laws, virulent states’ rights doctrine applied to all manner of legislative action installing Republican loyalists in the electoral system, and a propaganda machine capable of popularizing lies big and small.The lies have now crept into a Trumpian Lost Cause ideology, building its monuments in ludicrous stories that millions believe, and codifying them in laws to make the next elections easier to pilfer. If you repeat the terms “voter fraud” and “election integrity” enough times on the right networks you have a movement. And “replacement theory” works well alongside a thousand repetitions of “critical race theory”, both disembodied of definition or meaning, but both scary. Liberals sometimes invite scorn with their devotion to diversity training and insistence on fighting over words rather than genuine inequality. But it is time to see the real enemy – a long-brewing American-style neo-fascist authoritarianism, beguilingly useful to the grievances of the disaffected, and threatening to steal our microphones midway through our odes to joy.Yes, disinformation has to be fought with good information. But it must also be fought with fierce politics, with organization, and if necessary with bodies, non-violently. We have an increasingly dangerous population on the right. Who do you know who really wants to compromise with their ideas? Who on the left will volunteer to be part of a delegation to go discuss the fate of democracy with Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy or the foghorns of Fox News? Who on the right will come to a symposium with 10 of the finest writers on democracy, its history and its philosophy, and help create a blueprint for American renewal? As a culture we are not in the mood for such reason and comity; we are in a fight, and it needs to happen in politics. Otherwise it may be 1861 again in some very new form. Unfortunately it is likely to take events even more shocking than 6 January to move our political culture through and beyond our current crisis.And if and when it is 1861 again, the new secessionists, namely the Republican party, will have a dysfunctional constitution to exploit. The ridiculously undemocratic US Senate, now 50/50 between the two parties, but where Democrats represent 56.5% of the population and Republicans 43.5%, augurs well for those determined to thwart majoritarian democracy. And, of course, the electoral college – an institution more than two centuries out of date, and which even our first demagogue president, Andrew Jackson, advocated abolishing – offers perennial hope to Republicans who may continue to lose popular votes but win the presidency, as they have in two of the last six elections. Democracy?And now the song? Well, keep reading. Of all the books on democracy in recent years one of the best is James Miller’s Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World. A political philosopher and historian, Miller provides an intelligent journey through the turbulent past of this great human experiment in whether we can actually govern themselves. He demonstrates how thin the lines are between success and disaster for democracies, how big wins turn into reactions and big losses, and how the dynamics of even democratic societies can be utterly amoral. Intolerant new ruling classes sometimes replace the tyrants they overthrow.“Democratic revolts, like democratic elections,” Miller writes, “can produce perverse outcomes.” History is still waiting for us. But in the end, via examples like Václav Havel in the Czech Republic, Miller reminds us that the “ideal survives”. Democracy does require the “best laws”, Havel intoned, but it must also manifest as “humane, moral, intellectual and spiritual, and cultural”. Miller does the history to show that democracy is almost always a “riddle, not a recipe”. Democracy is much harder than autocracy to sustain. But renew it we must.Or simply pick up Whitman’s Song of Myself, all 51 pages, from the opening line, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself,” to his musings on the luck of merely being alive. Keep going to a few pages later when a “runaway slave” enters Whitman’s home and the poet gazes into his “revolving eyes”, and nurses “the galls of his neck and ankles”, and then to his embrace of “primeval”, complete democracy midway in the song, where he accepts “nothing which all cannot have”. Finally read to the ending, where the poet finds blissful oblivion, bequeathing himself “to the dirt to grow from the grass I love”. Whitman’s “sign of democracy” is everywhere and in everything. The democratic and the authoritarian instinct are both deep within us, forever at war.After 6 January, it’s time to prepare thee to sing, to scream, and to fight.
      David W Blight is sterling professor of American History at Yale and author of the Pulitzer-prize winning Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
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      Strategy shift: Biden confronts Trump head on after year of silent treatment

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      Strategy shift: Biden confronts Trump head on after year of silent treatmentPresident strikes different tone in tacit admission that ignoring the most powerful force in the Republican party is risky In the first moments of his presidency, Joe Biden called on Americans to set aside their deep divisions inflamed by a predecessor he intentionally ignored. He emphasized national unity and appealed to Americans to come together to “end this uncivil war”.The Trump menace is darker than ever – and he’s snapping at Biden’s heels | Jonathan FreedlandRead moreNearly a year later, as a divided nation reflects on the first anniversary of the 6 January assault on the US Capitol, the uncivil war he sought to extinguish rages on, stronger than ever. In a searing speech on Thursday, Biden struck a different tone.He said he was “crystal clear” about the dangers facing the nation, and accused Donald Trump and his political allies of holding a “dagger at the throat of America, at American democracy”. In the course of the 21-minute speech, delivered from the US Capitol, Biden offered himself as a defender of democracy in the “battle for the soul of America”.“I will stand in this breach,” he promised. “I will defend this nation.”That moment of visceral speech-making marked a shift in strategy for how Biden has chosen to engage Trump – whose name he never uttered but instead taunted as the “defeated former president”.The decision to break his silence about Trump comes at a challenging moment in Biden’s presidency, with his Build Back Better agenda stalled, the Covid-19 pandemic resurgent and economic malaise widespread. It also reflected the reality that, far from being shunned, Trump remains the most powerful force in the Republican party and a potential rival to Biden in 2024.Confronting Trump was a calculated risk. Trump seized the opportunity to hurl all manner of insults and accusations at his successor, whose remarks he said were “very hurtful to many people”.But Biden’s speech was an acknowledgment that there were dangers in continuing to ignore Trump and what Biden called his “web of lies”. Recent polling suggests the vast majority of Republicans believe Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about the election fraud while a growing percentage of Americans are willing to tolerate political violence in some instances.Republican-controlled states are pursuing a raft of new voting restrictions, motivated in part by the doubts they sowed about the 2020 election results. At the same time, Republicans are passing laws that inject partisanship into the administration of elections and vote-counting while stripping power from and driving power from election officials who resisted pressure to throw out votes or overturn the elections in their state.“It was essential to be specific about the problem, and the source of the crisis,” said Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton University. “Otherwise the vague rhetoric, without agency, that we hear about polarization misses the way in which Trump and the GOP are the source of so much instability.”But he warned that a speech can only do so much. “Without holding people accountable for January 6 and the campaign against the 2020 election, and without real legislation to protecting voting rights and the electoral process, the ‘dagger at the throat of democracy’ won’t go away.”In his remarks, Biden argued that protecting voting rights was paramount to safeguarding American democracy. He sought to connect the dots between Trump’s promotion that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud and Republicans’ coordinated effort to “subvert” and undermine the electoral process in states where they control the levers of power.“Right now, in state after state, new laws are being written – not to protect the vote, but to deny it; not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert it; not to strengthen or protect our democracy, but because the former president lost,” he said.Biden will follow up on the theme on Tuesday when he delivers another consequential speech on voting rights. In Atlanta, Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris will call for the passage of two voting rights bills that face daunting odds in the US Senate: the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.The issue of voting rights has taken center stage after hopes of passing Biden’s sweeping domestic policy agenda were dashed by the opposition of Senator Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia. So far Republican opposition has blocked passage of the legislation in the evenly divided chamber, where Democrats lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.Manchin again holds the keys on voting rights legislation, which he broadly supports. But his opposition to eliminating the filibuster has forced Democrats to pursue other avenues such as creating an exception in the rules for certain legislation. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said he would schedule a vote on easing the filibuster rules not later than 17 January, which is Martin Luther King Day.Biden has faced immense pressure from civil rights leaders and voting rights advocates frustrated with his handling of the issue, seen as critical to the president’s legacy. Indeed, a coalition of Georgia-based voting rights groups warned Biden and Harris not to bother coming to the state unless they delivered a concrete plan to move forward, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters this week that Biden planned to stress the “urgent need to pass legislation to protect the constitutional right to vote and the integrity of our elections”.Spencer Overton, an election law expert and the president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, hopes Biden will use his bully pulpit to explain why passing federal voting rights legislation is so essential to combatting the lies and conspiracies undermining faith in the nation’s system of government.“Those lies have real consequences,” said. “Sometimes they’re graphic, as we saw a year ago on 6 January, but sometimes they silently erode democracy by preventing average citizens from participating in our democracy, and exercising their freedom to vote.”“This is the most important legislation in Congress now,” he added. “There’s just no benefit in waiting. The moment is now.”TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel investigates Trump over potential criminal conspiracy

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      Capitol attack panel investigates Trump over potential criminal conspiracyMessages between Mark Meadows and others suggest the Trump White House coordinated efforts to stop Joe Biden’s certification The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is examining whether Donald Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy on 6 January that connected the White House’s scheme to stop Joe Biden’s certification with the insurrection, say two senior sources familiar with the matter.Biden condemns Trump’s ‘web of lies’ a year on from deadly Capitol assaultRead moreThe committee’s new focus on the potential for a conspiracy marks an aggressive escalation in its inquiry as it confronts evidence that suggests the former president potentially engaged in criminal conduct egregious enough to warrant a referral to the justice department.House investigators are interested in whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy after communications turned over by Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and others suggested the White House coordinated efforts to stop Biden’s certification, the sources said.The select committee has several thousand messages, among which include some that suggest the Trump White House briefed a number of House Republicans on its plan for then-vice president Mike Pence to abuse his ceremonial role and not certify Biden’s win, the sources said.The fact that the select committee has messages suggesting the Trump White House directed Republican members of Congress to execute a scheme to stop Biden’s certification is significant as it could give rise to the panel considering referrals for potential crimes, the sources said.Members and counsel on the select committee are examining in the first instance whether in seeking to stop the certification, Trump and his aides violated the federal law that prohibits obstruction of a congressional proceeding – the joint session on 6 January – the sources said.The select committee believes, the sources said, that Trump may be culpable for an obstruction charge given he failed for hours to intervene to stop the violence at the Capitol perpetrated by his supporters in his name.But the select committee is also looking at whether Trump oversaw an unlawful conspiracy that involved coordination between the “political elements” of the White House plan communicated to Republican lawmakers and extremist groups that stormed the Capitol, the sources said.That would probably be the most serious charge for which the select committee might consider a referral, as it considers a range of other criminal conduct that has emerged in recent weeks from obstruction to potential wire fraud by the GOP.The vice-chair of the select committee, the Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, referenced the obstruction charge when she read from the criminal code before members voted unanimously last November to recommend Meadows in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify.The Guardian previously reported that Trump personally directed lawyers and political operatives working from the Willard hotel in Washington DC to find ways to stop Biden’s certification from happening at all on 6 January just hours before the Capitol attack.But House investigators are yet to find evidence tying Trump personally to the Capitol attack, the sources said, and may ultimately only recommend referrals for the straight obstruction charge, which has already been brought against around 275 rioters, rather than for conspiracy.The justice department could yet charge Trump and aides separate to the select committee investigation, but one of sources said the panel – as of mid-December – had no idea whether the agency is actively examining potential criminality by the former president.A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment on details about the investigation. A spokesperson for the justice department declined to comment whether the agency had opened a criminal inquiry for Trump or his closest allies over 6 January.Still, the select committee appears to be moving towards making at least some referrals – or alternatively recommendations in its final report – that an aggressive prosecutor at the justice department could use to pursue a criminal inquiry, the sources said.US Capitol attack: Liz Cheney says Mike Pence ‘was a hero’ on 6 JanuaryRead moreThe select committee is examining the evidence principally to identify legislative reforms to prevent a repeat of Trump’s plan to subvert the election, but members say if they find Trump violated federal law, they have an obligation to refer that to the justice department.Sending a criminal referral to the justice department – essentially a recommendation for prosecution – carries no formal legal weight since Congress lacks the authority to force it to open a case, and House investigators have no authority to charge witnesses with a crime.But a credible criminal referral from the select committee could have a substantial political effect given the importance of the 6 January inquiry, and place pressure on the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to initiate an investigation, or explain why he might not do so.​​Internal discussions about criminal referrals intensified after communications turned over by Meadows revealed alarming lines of communication between the Trump White House and Republican lawmakers over 6 January, the sources said.In one exchange released by the select committee, one Republican lawmaker texted Meadows an apology for not pulling off what might have amounted to a coup, saying 6 January was a “terrible day” not because of the attack, but because they were unable to stop Biden’s certification.The select committee believes messages such as that text – as well as remarks from a Republican on the House floor as the Capitol came under attack – might represent one part of a conspiracy by the White House to obstruct the joint session, the sources said.In referencing objections to six states, the text also appears to comport with a memo authored by the Trump lawyer John Eastman that suggested lodging objections to six states – raising the specter the White House distributed the plan more widely than previously known.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, added on ABC last week that the investigation had found evidence to suggest the events of 6 January “appeared to be a coordinated effort on the part of a number of people to undermine the election”.Counsel for the select committee indicated in their contempt of Congress report for Meadows that they intended to ask Trump’s former chief of staff about those communications he turned over voluntarily, before he broke off a cooperation deal and refused to testify.Thompson has also suggested to reporters that he believes Meadows stopped cooperating with the inquiry in part because of pressure from Trump, but the select committee has not opened a separate witness intimidation investigation into the former president, one of the sources said.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsMark MeadowsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      The Trump menace is darker than ever – and he's snapping at Biden’s heels | Jonathan Freedland

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      The Trump menace is darker than ever – and he’s snapping at Biden’s heels Jonathan FreedlandThe Republicans who once denounced him are beginning to accept Trump’s election lies. But where will voters go in the midterms? The problem with coverage of this week’s anniversary of the events of 6 January 2021 is that too much of it was written in the past tense. True, the attempted insurrection that saw a violent mob storm Capitol Hill in order to overturn a democratic election was a year ago, but the danger it poses is clear and present – and looms over the future. For the grim truth is that while Donald Trump is the last US president, he may also be the next. What’s more, the menace of Trumpism is darker now than it ever was before.This grim prognosis rests on two premises: the current weakness of Joe Biden and the current strength of his predecessor. Start with the latter, evidence of which comes from the contrast in how Trump’s fellow Republican politicians talked about 6 January at the time and how they talk – or don’t talk – about it now.At the time, they were clear that the outgoing president had crossed a line, that he was “practically and morally responsible” for the rioters who had marched on Congress and built gallows for those politicians who stood in their way. Many of those Republicans had pleaded with Trump, sending text messages begging him to call off the mob. Now, though, they either say nothing – refusing even to show up for a moment’s silence in memory of those killed on 6 January – or they rush to apologise for having, rightly, branded that day a “violent terrorist attack”.That’s because they fear Trump and they fear his supporters. In order not to rouse their fury, they have to mouth the new shibboleths: they have to accept the big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and accept that political violence is not to be condemned but indulged when it comes from your own side.It means that Trump’s tactics, his authoritarianism, have not shamed or repelled Republicans – as some hoped might be the result of 6 January – but infected them. What was once the eccentric stance of the lunatic fringe – that Trump won an election that more than 60 different court judgments ruled he had lost – has become the required credo of one of America’s two governing parties, believed by two-thirds of Republican voters.More alarming still, surveys show 30% of Republicans say that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Word the question slightly differently, and that figure rises to 40%. Not for nothing did the editor of the New Yorker this week ask if a second American civil war is coming.You might imagine that all this should secure Biden’s position. Surely the majority of the US electorate will rally to the message he set out so trenchantly in a speech on Thursday taking direct aim at Trump and the “web of lies” he had spread to soothe his own “bruised ego”. Surely they will recoil from a Republican party that is breaking from the fundamentals of democracy. Surely they’ll turn away from the party of Trump and flock to the Democrats as the only reliable democrats. But that is not how it’s playing out.Biden has the lowest approval rating of any US president at this stage of his term, barring Trump himself. He is trailing especially badly with the independent voters who decide elections. Polls suggest that Democrats will lose seats in November’s midterm contests, thereby losing control of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate too. That will leave Biden paralysed, unable to pass any legislation at all without Republican approval.Which is why 2022 is the make-or-break year for the Biden presidency. If it breaks, the ground will be laid for the return of Trump in 2024. Except this will be a Trump with fewer restraints than held him back before, one who now openly espouses the autocrat’s creed that elections are illegitimate unless he wins them, that he alone should hold office and that violence is justified to maintain his power.Republicans are working hard to unlevel the playing field in Trump’s favour. Republican-run states are rewriting electoral law to make it harder to vote – curbing the early or postal balloting often used by low-income and minority voters – and handing Republican-controlled state legislatures extra powers over the running of elections. They want to remove one of the safety mechanisms that ensured the integrity of the 2020 contest: fair-minded election officials. To that end, they are setting about filling those all-important positions with Trump loyalists. Put simply, they want fewer people voting and their people counting.Current Republican strength is a combination, then, of both the resilience of public support, despite the party’s submission to Trumpism, and its ability to game the system in its favour. But it is also a function of Biden’s weakness. It’s worth recalling here how shaky the president’s position was from the start, seeking to govern with a diminished, razor-thin Democratic majority in the House and a 50-50 deadlocked Senate. Despite that, he has passed some major bills and made some big, even transformative moves. As the former speechwriter to George W Bush David Frum puts it: “In 11 months, Biden has done more with 50 Democratic senators than Barack Obama did with 57.”And yet, it’s not enough. Biden passed a vital infrastructure bill, but his larger package of social spending and action on the climate crisis is stalled. His poll ratings took a hit with the speed of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan after August’s chaotic US withdrawal. And his 4 July declaration that America could celebrate its “independence from Covid-19” now looks horribly premature.You can make a strong case that none of these things is Biden’s fault. His spending bill is stalled thanks to two Democratic senators who simply refuse to get on board. (Given their politics, Biden probably deserves credit for getting them to back him as often as they have.) The withdrawal from Afghanistan was under a deal agreed by Trump; indeed, Trump’s exit would have come earlier. As for Covid, what could any president do when more than a quarter of the country – overwhelmingly Trump supporters – refuse to get vaccinated?But politics is an unforgiving business. Voters are used to blaming the man in the White House, especially when they face rising bills and daily costs as they do now. To turn things around, Biden can start with passing that key spending bill, even if it means stripping it of some cherished, and necessary, programmes. Voting rights legislation, to block those continuing Republican efforts to load the dice yet further in their own favour, is also a must. One way or another, Democrats have to go into the autumn midterms with a record to run on. Defeat would not guarantee the return of Trump two years later, but it would make it much more likely. That is a prospect to chill the blood of all those who care about America – and democracy.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsDonald TrumpJoe BidencommentReuse this content More

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      Andres Serrano on his Capitol attack film: ‘I like that word, excruciating’

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      InterviewAndres Serrano on his Capitol attack film: ‘I like that word, excruciating’Janelle ZaraThe provocative artist has made a shocking new ‘immersive experience’ for the one year anniversary of the 6 January attack Andres Serrano is not known as an especially political artist. The 71-year-old’s photographs are more accurately described as transgressive, perennially summed up with a singular point of reference: Piss Christ, his 1987 photo of a crucifix submerged in his own orange-tinted urine, which has over the years sparked multiple instances of national outrage. In the photographic series that followed, including The Klan (1990), The Morgue (1992), Shit (2007), and Nudes (2009), Serrano’s work has remained as provocative as it is aptly named.“I like to make the kind of pictures where you don’t need much more than the title to tell you what you’re looking at,” the artist said over the phone. As for his perpetual association with a single, 34-year-old work of art, he doesn’t mind: “Piss Christ is a good soundbite – easy to remember and repeat.”‘I was there’: Democrat recalls horror and fury on day of Capitol attackRead moreSerrano’s latest work, Insurrection (2022), takes a decidedly more political tone, having debuted in CulturalDC’s Source Theatre in Washington this week, the one-year anniversary of the Capitol attack. As the artist’s first-ever film, Insurrection offers a grim portrait of the United States, stitched together from found footage of the 6 January riot. True to the transgressive nature of Serrano’s practice, it zooms well past the point where ordinary news media would cut away: we get extended cuts of the sheer spectacle of violence, the smashing of windows, the prolonged attempt of one adrenalized horde of men to force its way past another. The frenzy climaxes with an uncut, closeup sequence of Ashli Babbitt’s death, and her subsequent martyrdom in a eulogy by the former president. Much of Insurrection is nothing short of excruciating to watch.“I like that word, excruciating,” Serrano says. “What I intended to make was an immersive experience that takes you to Washington DC on January 6 in real time.”In close collaboration with the London-based organization a/political, Serrano began working on the film in April, feeling compelled to respond to the day’s events on multiple levels. He was appalled by the racial dynamics that played out on the Capitol steps, as white rioters who had broken into a federal building were gently escorted out: “Black people get killed for a lot less than storming the Capitol, and these white people got treated with kid gloves.”To him, the Capitol insurrection was also an extension of Donald Trump’s legacy of divisiveness and fraud, a subject the artist had begun to explore in his 2018 installation The Game: All Things Trump. The former president’s widely accepted version of events – that these were righteous citizens protesting a rigged election – represented not only a triumph of fake news, but his continued hold over the Republican party.“This guy has to be commended for having the charisma that Hitler had with the German people; there are Americans who don’t believe it really happened, and Republicans who say let’s forget about it and move on,” Serrano says. “I wanted to make a film that anyone would have a difficult time walking away from saying ‘We should forget about it.’”Spanning 75 minutes, Insurrection comprises news clips and smartphone footage culled from around the internet, alongside archival imagery dating back to the riots of the Great Depression. The score is a mix of American ballads that range from Bob Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere to a children’s rendition of the historic civil war song, Battle Hymn of the Republic. As rioters march toward the Capitol steps, the incessant repetition of “glory, glory hallelujah” emphasizes the role that Christianity, a recurring theme in Serrano’s practice, plays in validating violence in American mythology. “There are groups of people who believe they have the right interpretations of Christ, not only in how they should live their lives, but how the rest of us should live ours,” he says. “They’re going into battle like Crusaders in their holy war.”The musical interludes and title cards interspersed throughout – “D.J. Trump Presents Insurrection”; “The Killing of Ashli Babbitt” – were inspired by Birth of a Nation, a 1915 silent civil war film condemned for its heroic portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan. The inclusion of these historical references is a reminder, according to Serrano, that “history repeats itself in specific ways.” The insurrection was not a novel event, but another instance of division within a nation that never recovered from civil war, he adds, citing the widespread refusal to accept Biden’s presidency as a resonant parallel. “There are also a lot of people who’ll never accept that the north won, and who’d love to go back to the good ol’ days. Donald Trump was there to tell those people what they wanted to hear.”Despite the symbolic criticism embedded throughout the insurrection, Serrano is actually reluctant to speak poorly of Trump, whom he photographed in 2004 for his America series. “This guy is a massive showman; he’s incredible at it, and I could see why he’s gone this far in life. He did not wreak damage on America – America was damaged already.” As for the Capitol rioters, he refuses to condemn anyone, nor say that they belong in jail: “I tried to humanize this crowd, to show their faces and hear what they’re saying. That’s what gives a work of art power: when you let people speak for themselves.”Serrano makes an important distinction in his practice: while provocation is essential to bringing art to life, he is not in the business of political messaging, telling his viewers what or how to think: “A lot of times I look at work, particularly paintings or pictures on the wall, and I’m not particularly moved,” he says. “The one thing I always try to do, whether it’s photographs or with this film, is to give you something to react to. I’m not concerned too much about how you’re going to feel about it, good or bad, but the important thing is that you’re not indifferent. You can’t walk away from it, and say, ‘I didn’t feel nothing.’”TopicsFilmArtUS Capitol attackUS politicsinterviewsReuse this content More

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      Fox News goes through the looking-glass on US Capitol attack anniversary

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      Fox News goes through the looking-glass on US Capitol attack anniversaryRightwing network presented a carnival of conspiracy theories casting blame anywhere other than on Trump and his supporters Joe Biden marked the first anniversary of 6 January with a powerful, ideological speech about the choice between democracy and autocracy. It began a day of reflection in which Democratic Congress members and police officers spoke of the fear they felt for their lives.Every major news network opted for somber programming and roundtable discussions about the fragile nature of American democracy.Except for one.The people who turned in their parents for their role in the Capitol attackRead moreFox News’s primetime lineup of rightwing hosts used rock guitar licks to introduce a different narrative: one of hysterical Democrats “jilling up noise” and crying “crocodile tears”. Hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham pushed conspiracy theories that undercover FBI agents or Capitol police were responsible for the breach of the Capitol and spent most of the night claiming Congress should be focused on investigating the “real rioters”, Black Lives Matter protesters.Carlson began his show in incendiary style. While Biden and the press agreed 6 January was one of the most significant dates in recent history, Carlson said it “barely rates as a footnote”, arguing that because “not a single elected official was killed” and “none of the insurrectionists had guns” that the effort to overthrow the government was “embarrassingly tepid”.“Not a lot happened that day,” he said in an almost disappointed tone. He said he accepted it was a riot, “but really only just a riot, maybe just barely”.In a night of endless false equivalencies, Carlson got his in early. Was what happened on 6 January a greater risk to America than inflation? Why were the protesters rotting in jail while the Sacklers walk free? Why were “unarmed protesters” being demonized?If he had watched the day’s coverage on any other channel, Carlson would have seen that investigations and video evidence have proven that the Capitol mob was incredibly violent. Objects used to attack police officers included bricks, pepper spray, pipes, bats and Tasers. Prosecutors have charged 187 of the rioters with violent acts. Michael Fanone, a Metropolitan police department officer who voted for Trump in 2016, was shocked on his neck with a Taser several times, which led to a heart attack. Rioters threatened to take his weapon and shoot him with it, shouting, “Kill him with his own gun!”Threats to life were not mentioned by the three hosts. Instead Carlson quickly moved on to conspiracy theories, in particular his baseless claim that riots were stoked by Ray Epps, a Trump supporter from Arizona whom Carlson falsely believes is an undercover FBI agent. He showed clips from his documentary series Patriot Purge which led to the resignation of two Fox News contributors who said the documentary was “incoherent conspiracy-mongering”.But his biggest strut was to invite Senator Ted Cruz on the program, who on Wednesday had accurately described 6 January as “a violent terrorist attack”. Carlson was appalled at this language and demanded that Cruz explain himself.Cruz first attempted to wheedle his way out, calling his choice of words “sloppy and dumb” but Carlson continued to berate him, making him walk back and continually apologize for his language. Carlson was dishing out a humiliation, reminding Cruz of his status as a Republican kingmaker.As a final punishment Carlson asked Cruz what he thought about Ray Epps, pushing him to join him in a nonsense conspiracy theory, which Cruz did for the first time, saying “for [Epps] to appear on the FBI’s most wanted list and come off it certainly suggests he was working for the FBI. That’s not conclusive, but that’s the obvious implication.”Later in the evening, Sean Hannity took the baton, railing against the “rank hypocrisy”, “lying” and “grandstanding” by the Democrats – ignoring the hypocrisy that his on-screen opinions are entirely opposed to the feelings he shared with the Trump administration as the attack was taking place.Hannity called Biden a liar, playing a clip from his speech in which he says that Donald Trump did nothing during the attack but watch TV. But Hannity’s own texts, revealed by the congressional committee investigating the attack, show he was perturbed by the former president’s lack of action on that day.Hannity’s texts at the time show he was “very worried about the next 48 hours”, that he begged the chief of staff to persuade Trump to “make a statement” and “ask people to leave the Capitol” and that Trump “can’t mention the election again. Ever.” Hannity has repeated Trump’s lie that the election was rigged almost daily since November.Instead of a mea culpa, Hannity claimed Trump had wanted to send 10,000 national guard troops to protect the Capitol and was blocked from getting them by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. This has been disproven. He made no direct order and was not concerned about securing the Capitol.The night finished with Ingraham returning to the network’s central theme, that Black Lives Matter protesters were to blame for the real violence.“If the Democrats were truly worried about political violence, they would have condemned it in summer of 2020,” she told her viewers. Ingraham’s own texts, also revealed by the committee, show she too was deeply worried about political violence on 6 January. She texted the White House chief of staff saying, “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol this is hurting all of us – he is destroying his legacy”.TopicsFox NewsUS Capitol attackUS politicsSean HannityanalysisReuse this content More