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      Republicans are laying a path back to power – and paving it with lies | Rebecca Solnit

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      Republicans are laying a path back to power – and paving it with liesRebecca SolnitDespite having fled the mob on 6 January, many congressmen are openly fleeing the truth about what happened that day When the insurrectionists of 6 January rampaged through the Capitol, congressman Andrew Clyde of Georgia helped barricade a door, and he fled when the rest of Congress did. A photograph shows him looking panicky, mouth wide open and arm gesticulating wildly, behind what appears to be a security team member with a gun drawn, defending him. But a few months later he declared: “Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes, taking videos, pictures. You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from 6 January, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”Clyde’s account of 6 January might be a little more preposterous than those of his fellow Republican legislators. But they all joined him in pretending nothing much had happened and objecting to the investigation of the day’s events. After all, they were partly responsible, most of them. It was elected Republicans who supported and spread the earlier lies that Donald Trump had won the election, the lies that fed the insurrection; and then they lied some more about their own words and actions before, during and after. In the immediate aftermath, the then Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, was angry and shaken, declaring: “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president.” Then he too began the project of walking it all back.What has ensued is a cover-up in plain sight. When Trump took office in 2016, Republicans faced a crisis: their party had won, but only by ushering to a minority victory one of history’s most extravagantly dishonest men. They had to stand with him or against him, and most chose to stand with him. Others chose to fade away by resigning or going home when their terms were up.Almost none of them stood up against him. The famously vindictive Trump punished any signs of disloyalty, so they were loyal. And to be loyal meant joining him in corruption and lies. “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it,” Lindsey Graham tweeted in the spring of 2016, before becoming one of Trump’s most grovelling sycophants. In a way, the sycophants got stronger: if truth restrains us and links us together, they unchained themselves. We make contracts with each other with words; we share information, make agreements and commitments, hold each other accountable and show who we are. Lies are broken contracts, in which words misrepresent what the speaker knows; they aim to delude, exploit and divide. The liar may get stronger, but the social fabric gets weaker. That strength is precarious, so lies have be piled atop lies to keep accountability at a distance.Of course, politicians of all stripes are notoriously shifty, and the Republican party had no great reputation for honesty previously. Many of their campaigns long before Trump could politely be called misleading. But after 2016, they clustered around the gaslighter-in-chief like bugs around a streetlight. I often think of what Trump did as disinhibition: the pallid, bashful untruths of yore were replaced by baldfaced outrages. They lost any compunction about openly contradicting themselves, and did so often, never more than with the insurrection of 6 January.As the mob was smashing its way into the building, congressman Jim Jordan had been on the house floor accusing election officials in six states of corruption. A week later he declared: “I’ve never said that this election was stolen.” But, as CNN noted: “Jordan claimed in October that Democrats were working to steal the election and spoke at a Stop the Steal rally in Pennsylvania two days after the election. In December, he said he didn’t know how he could be convinced that ‘Trump didn’t actually win’ the election.”During the hours when the mob rampaged through the US Capitol building, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy called up Trump, reportedly furious. “The president bears responsibility for the attack,” he said shortly thereafter. Then he devoted himself to winning back Trump’s favour and playing down what had happened. “Pressed on whether he regretted working to overturn President Biden’s 2020 victory, Mr McCarthy took the position that he did no such thing,” the New York Times reported in April.Then he worked hard to sabotage the investigation into what had happened, by trying to put two congressmen most loyal to the big lie, Jim Banks and the ever-disruptive champion shouter Jim Jordan, on the committee. The house majority leader, Nancy Pelosi, blocked their appointment. Banks was later caught sending out letters, seeking information from government agencies, claiming he was the ranking Republican on the 6 January committee, of which he was never in fact a member.By September, McCarthy was full team cover-up: the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell noted that McCarthy “threatened to retaliate against any telecommunications company that complied with the records requests” of the congressional committee investigating the 6 January insurrection. That’s not technically lying, but it’s certainly an attempt to prevent the truth from being known. There’s a lot to cover up, especially if you don’t want the committee to find out the extent to which Congress itself was involved in the attack on Congress.The politicians who fled in fear thereafter threw themselves into denying the threat and protecting its chief instigator. No one did so more slavishly than the then vice-president, Mike Pence, who was pressured before and during 6 January to violate the law and exercise a power he did not possess to change the election outcome. “If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency,” Trump had tweeted early that day; and then, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution”. At Trump’s instigation, the mob was chanting: “Hang Mike Pence!”Pence trivialised the event when he told the Christian Broadcasting Network: “I’m not going to allow the Democrats to use one tragic day in January to distract attention from their failed agenda and the failed policies of the Biden administration.” Capitol police officer Aquilino Gonnell, who was seriously injured defending the politicians, told NPR: “That one day in January almost cost my life. And we did everything possible to prevent him [Pence] from being hanged and killed in front of his daughter and his wife. And now he’s telling us that that one day in January doesn’t mean anything. It’s pathetic. It’s a disgrace.”One of the first lies to explode out of the insurrection was that somehow the attack on the Capitol was the work of Antifa. The very idea of Antifa, as they used it, was an older lie, a transformation of scattered individuals and impromptu groups of antifascists into a cohesive sinister gang that could be blamed for pretty much anything, anywhere. The New York Times described how on 6 January the right was claiming that the insurrection had been led by Antifa, not Trump supporters.By the end of the day, Fox was promoting it, the claim was all over Twitter, and: “Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida had stood on the ransacked House floor and claimed that many rioters ‘were members of the violent terrorist group antifa’.” The claim, the Times added, “has hardened into gospel among hard-line Trump supporters, by voters and sanctified by elected officials in the party”That is, they took the position that the riot, which at the time Republican legislators begged the president to stop, was instead a riot by an essentially imaginary leftwing organisation with no conceivable motive to prevent the confirmation of Biden’s victory. Now the investigation is closing in on the role that many in Congress played in the attack on Congress. Having fled their own mobs, they are now trying to flee the truth, and relying on the fact that a significant portion of the country prefers the lies.The Republicans who helped the failed coup along and then dismissed its import are preparing to do it better next time. The Democratic senator Brian Schatz tweeted on Tuesday: “They are organizing the next one, not as a secret conspiracy, but as a central organizing principle for the next election.” The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said: “Donald Trump has infected, and that’s the appropriate word, the Republican party with his big lie and with his desire to stop democracy. We have no choice but to move forward,” by which he meant overturn the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation. 6 January was one confrontation; there’s another one coming. The lies may implode at some point, but the liars have to be defeated.
      Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses
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      How the Capitol attack still divides the United States

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      A year ago today, rioters stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC after Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to march on Congress to protest against the election result

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      A year ago today, Donald Trump made a speech to his supporters contesting the election result and encouraging them to march on Congress. The riot that ensued was unlike anything seen before in American politics. Many hoped a line would subsequently be drawn in the sand and that politicians would come together in solidarity to ensure that nothing of the sort could happen again. But as the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, tells Nosheen Iqbal, that is not what has happened in the weeks and month since the attack. Instead, two distinct narratives have evolved: on the one hand, those who are being led by the mountains of documentary evidence and on the other, those sympathetic to the former president downplaying the events of 6 January and falsely blaming leftwing agitators. The reporter Nick Robins-Early describes the huge investigation being carried out by the FBI to bring charges against hundreds of people. He says that one of the big unanswered questions at the heart of that investigation is how much planning and coordination went into the insurrection. More

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      Seattle police faked radio chatter about Proud Boys during 2020 racial justice protests – watchdog

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      Seattle police faked Proud Boys threat during race protests, says watchdogInvestigation finds police used an ‘improper ruse’ and exacerbated an already volatile situation, but consequences are unlikely Seattle police exchanged detailed fake radio transmissions about a nonexistent group of menacing right-wing extremists at a crucial moment during the 2020 racial justice protests, an investigation by the city’s police watchdog group shows.Seattle protesters seek recompense for injury and death linked to police actionRead moreThe radio chatter about members of the Proud Boys marching around downtown Seattle, some possibly carrying guns and then heading to confront protesters on Capitol Hill was an improper “ruse”, or dishonest ploy, that exacerbated a volatile situation, the Seattle Times reported. That’s according to findings released Wednesday by the city’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA).The Proud Boys is a far-right extremist group with a reputation for street violence with several members, including one from a Seattle suburb, charged with terrorism over alleged actions related to the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.The ruse happened 8 June 2020, hours after the police department abandoned its East Precinct and as protesters were starting to set up the temporary zone that was later called the Capitol Hill Organized Protest or CHOP.The officers who participated described a group gathering by City Hall and delivered reports such as, “It looks like a few of them might be open carrying,” and: “Hearing from the Proud Boys group. They may be looking for somewhere else for confrontation.”Social media posts warning about the Proud Boys group by people monitoring police radio transmissions caused alarm in the protest zone.Though some people in the zone may have brought guns regardless of the chatter, the ruse “improperly added fuel to the fire,” Andrew Myerberg, director of the Office of Police Accountability, concluded.The 8 June radio chatter was part of an approved “misinformation effort” that police leaders knew about, according to Wednesday’s closed-case summary by Myerberg, which is now under review by police department leaders for disciplinary rulings. Fabricating the group of Proud Boys violated department policies, Myerberg determined.It appears unlikely, however, that anyone will face punitive actions. The two employees who ordered and supervised the misinformation effort and who Myerberg sustained allegations of policy violations against have left the department, according to the case summary.Myerberg didn’t sustain allegations of policy violations against four officers identified as having taken part in the chatter. The officers used poor judgment, but their supervisors were mostly to blame for failing to provide adequate supervision, Myerberg determined.The Proud Boys ruse was deployed at an extremely tense moment. The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in late May had sparked large-scale protests in Seattle, with the police barricading streets around the East Precinct and deploying tear gas.There was no investigation into the hoax until late 2020, when Converge Media journalist Omari Salisbury asked OPA for body camera video from the officers who had supposedly tailed the Proud Boys group. OPA couldn’t locate any relevant video and launched an investigation.OPA contacted the department’s operations center and intelligence unit and learned there had been a miscommunication effort approved, ordered and led by a captain who later became an assistant chief and then left the department.TopicsSeattleBlack Lives Matter movementUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack: Biden to stress Trump’s ‘singular responsibility’ on anniversary

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      Capitol attack: Biden to stress Trump’s ‘singular responsibility’ on anniversaryPresident will lead sombre commemorations in Washington of deadly assault on US democracy It was a day that shook America. Joe Biden will lead sombre commemorations on Thursday to mark one year since the US Capitol insurrection that left five people dead and the nation’s democracy wounded, and is expected to lay out the “singular responsibility” that Donald Trump has for the “chaos and carnage” of that day.In a speech, Biden will directly address the former president’s role in the attack and his attempts since to distract from or downplay events, the White House said.Biden has been “clear-eyed” about the “threat the former president represents to our democracy”, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in a briefing on Wednesday. Biden has repeatedly stated that Trump “abused his office, undermined the constitution and ignored his oath to the American people in an effort to amass more power for himself and his allies”, Psaki said.“President Biden will lay out the significance of what happened at the Capitol and the singular responsibility President Trump has for the chaos and the carnage that we saw,” she added. “He will forcibly push back on the lies spread by the former president in an attempt to mislead the American people and his own supporters, as well as distract from his role in what happened.”The president is also set to praise the bravery of outnumbered police officers on the scene and outline the unfinished work that America needs to do to heal, the White House said.More than 1,000 US public figures aided Trump’s effort to overturn electionRead moreDefeated in the 2020 presidential election, Trump incited his supporters to storm the Capitol and interrupt certification of Biden’s victory. Scores of police were beaten and bloodied and congressional offices were ransacked in the worst ever domestic attack on the seat of US government.Trump this week cancelled his own anniversary event – a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that had been scheduled for the evening of 6 January – reportedly at the urging of advisers.A year on from the attack, polls show Americans are still divided in their perceptions of what unfolded and why. The anniversary offers Biden, who promised to bring the nation together, an opportunity to reassert a fact-based account. He and and Vice-President Kamala Harris will speak on Thursday morning at the US Capitol.“The president is going to speak to the truth of what happened, not the lies that some have spread since, and the peril it has posed to the rule of law and our system of democratic governance,” Psaki told reporters on Tuesday.Biden will put an extra spotlight on the role of Capitol police and others on the scene, Psaki said. “Because of their efforts, our democracy withstood an attack from a mob, and the will of more than 150 million people who voted in the presidential election was ultimately registered by Congress.”Psaki was asked at the press briefing what the president’s message will be to the many Republicans who believe Biden stole the election from Trump, despite overwhelming contrary evidence.“What he’s going to continue to do is speak to everyone in the country. Those who didn’t vote for him, those who may not believe he is the legitimate president, about what he wants to do to make their lives better,” the spokesperson replied.Other events at the Capitol on Thursday will include a moment of reflection with staff on the House of Representatives floor, a moment of silence on the House floor, a conversation with the presidential historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham, testimonials from members of Congress and a prayer vigil.Four people died on the day of the riot and one Capitol police officer died the day after. Four officers have since taken their own lives. The crowd called for the then vice-president, Mike Pence, presiding over the electoral college vote count, to be hanged.But Trump, fellow Republicans and rightwing media personalities have pushed false and misleading accounts to downplay the attack, calling it a non-violent protest or blaming leftwing activists. Even Pence has dismissed it as “just one day in January”.Congressional Republicans are expected to keep a low profile or stay away from Thursday’s events. Trump had been expected to create a split-screen moment by pushing his counter-narrative at a televised press conference, but he abruptly scrapped the plan on Tuesday.In a statement, the former president criticised a House select committee investigating the 6 January insurrection, which continues its work and on Tuesday issued a letter seeking the cooperation of the Fox New host Sean Hannity, who exchanged messages with Trump and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in the days leading up to the attack.Trump said that he was cancelling his conference “in light of the total bias and dishonesty of the January 6th Unselect Committee of Democrats, two failed Republicans, and the Fake News Media”, and would address the issue instead at a rally in Arizona on 15 January.The ex-president was reportedly talked out of holding a press conference by allies. Senator Lindsey Graham told the Axios website that he discussed the subject with Trump over a weekend golf match in West Palm Beach, Florida, arguing that “there could be peril in doing a news conference … Best to focus on election reform instead.”Separate from the House investigation, the justice department is leading the prosecution of rioters who invaded the Capitol. More than 700 people have been charged so far in one of the biggest criminal investigations in American history. More than 30 have received jail sentences.Trump was kicked off Twitter after the Capitol attack for statements encouraging violence. He was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate, leaving the way open for him to seek the White House again in 2024.A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that 72% of Republicans say Trump does not really bear responsibility for what happened, 58% of Republicans believe Biden’s election was not legitimate and 40% of Republicans and independents say violence against the government is sometimes justified.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpWashington DCnewsReuse this content More

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      Merrick Garland vows to pursue all those responsible for 6 January attack

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      Merrick Garland vows to pursue all those responsible for 6 January attackAttorney general says justice department has ‘no higher priority’ and promises further actions over ‘assault on our democracy’ The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, on Wednesday vowed that the justice department would hold accountable all those responsible for the deadly 6 January attack, whether they were physically present at the Capitol or not.Garland’s remarks come as he faces growing calls from lawmakers, legal experts and former elected officials to intensify the department’s investigation into the events of Capitol assault, and in particular to prosecute those who helped orchestrate the failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, including Donald Trump and his associates.More than 1,000 US public figures aided Trump’s effort to overturn electionRead moreIn a solemn speech on the eve of the first anniversary of the assault on the seat of government, Garland said it did not matter whether the perpetrators had been present at the Capitol riot or committed other crimes that wrought chaos on that day.“The justice department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law – whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy,” Garland said in his address, delivered from the justice department’s Great Hall in Washington. “We will follow the facts wherever they lead.”Garland recounted in detail the brutality of the day, contesting a rightwing revisionist narrative that the attack was not violent. Officers had been assaulted with pipes and poles, beaten and shocked with stun guns, he said. One officer had been dragged down the stairs by rioters, while lawmakers and the vice-president fled for their lives.“As a consequence, proceedings in both chambers were disrupted for hours – interfering with a fundamental element of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next,” he said. “Those involved must be held accountable, and there is no higher priority for us at the Department of Justice.”Garland did not mention Trump by name, and in keeping with the justice department’s longstanding rule not to comment on ongoing investigations, he did not detail any possible leads the department was pursuing related to the former US president, his family or his allies.But the carefully crafted speech seemed designed to address concerns about the focus of the investigation. Garland said he understood the intense public interest in the case and promised that the actions taken by the department so far “will not be our last”.The department’s work so far, he explained, was laying the foundation for more serious and complicated cases. “In complex cases, initial charges are often less severe than later charged offenses,” he said. “This is purposeful as investigators methodically collect and sift through more evidence.“There cannot be different rules for the powerful and the powerless,” he added.The investigation into the events of 6 January was one of the “largest, most complex and most resource-intensive investigations” in the nation’s history, Garland said.To date, he said, investigators had issued 5,000 subpoenas and search warrants, seized 2,000 devices, viewed 20,000 hours of video footage, searched 15 terabytes of data and received 300,000 tips from the public. More than 700 people in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia have been charged for their roles in the insurrection, which left 140 law enforcement officers injured. Five officers who defended the Capitol that day have since died.Reading their names aloud, Garland asked for a moment of silence to remember the fallen officers.On Thursday, Democratic leaders in Congress will host a day of remembrance events, beginning with speeches from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the US Capitol.Previewing his speech, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said Biden would acknowledge “the singular responsibility President Trump has for the chaos and carnage” of 6 January.“The president is going to speak to the truth of what happened, not the lies that some have spread since, and the peril it posed to the rule of law and our system of democratic governance,” Psaki said, adding that Biden was “clear-eyed about the threat the former president represents to our democracy and how the former president constantly works to undermine basic American values and rule of law”.Garland’s remarks extended beyond the events of 6 January. He lamented a rise in violence that has touched nearly every aspect of American life. He pointed to attacks on elections officials, airline crews, teachers, journalists, police officers, judges and members of Congress.“These acts and threats of violence are not associated with any one set of partisan or ideological views,” he warned. “But they are permeating so many parts of our national life that they risk becoming normalized and routine if we do not stop them.”The justice department, he promised, would work within the bounds of the first amendment to prosecute all those who made unlawful threats. He also committed the department to using “the enforcement powers we have” to protect voting rights, warning of efforts in some states to audit election results, drive out election officials or allow state lawmakers to overturn the will of voters.“As with violence and threats of violence, the justice department – even the Congress – cannot alone defend the right to vote,” he said. “The responsibility to preserve democracy – and to maintain faith in the legitimacy of its essential processes – lies with every elected official and every American.”TopicsMerrick GarlandUS Capitol attackUS politicsBiden administrationJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      More than 40% in US do not believe Biden legitimately won election – poll

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      More than 40% in US do not believe Biden legitimately won election – pollAxios-Momentive poll also finds majority of Americans fear repeat of Capitol attack in next few years More than 40% of Americans still do not believe that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud, according to a new Axios-Momentive poll.Trump cancels news conference for Capitol attack anniversary – US politics liveRead moreThe poll, released on the eve of the first anniversary of the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, found that 55% of those surveyed believe Biden won the election. That figure has barely changed since Axios’s poll from 2020, published shortly before the insurrection. That poll, published in 2020, found 58% said that they accepted Biden as the legitimate winner of the presidential election.Despite Biden’s inauguration, the attack on the Capitol and the multiple investigations that have debunked the lies pushed by the former president that the election was stolen, the poll suggests that the same level of doubt persists.“It’s dispiriting to see that this shocking thing we all witnessed last year hasn’t changed people’s perceptions,” Laura Wronski, senior manager for research science at Momentive, told Axios.A majority of Americans also said they are expecting a repeat of the deadly 6 January attack in the next few years.The polls, conducted from 1 to 5 January of this year, surveyed nearly 2,700 adults, and found nearly 57% – about half of Republicans and seven in 10 Democrats – believe that events similar to the attack are likely to occur again.In addition, nearly two-thirds or 63% said that the 6 January attack has at least temporarily changed the way they think about their democratic government. A third said that those changes are temporary. Nearly as many, 31%, said that those changes are permanent.About 37% of those surveyed said they had lost faith in American democracy, while 10% said they had never had faith in the system. Another 49% said they do have faith. Among those surveyed who said they have lost faith, 47% said they were Republicans while 28% were Democrats.Fifty-eight per cent of Americans said they supported the investigative work of the House select committee investigating the riot. Among those, 88% are Democrats, 58% are independents and 32% are Republicans.Just slightly more than half of American adults, 51%, said individuals associated with the insurrection should face criminal penalties if they refuse to comply with subpoenas.Republicans have also been revealed to be three or four more times as likely as Democrats to say voter fraud is a problem in their state, despite such claims being thoroughly debunked.Wronski said she believes the results of the poll shows either “Biden hasn’t done enough” to push back against disinformation, or “it shows that he never had a chance”.She added: “The partisan division is still the story.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      A year after the Capitol attack, what has the US actually learned? | Cas Mudde

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      A year after the Capitol attack, what has the US actually learned?Cas MuddeThe government is finally taking the threat of far-right militia groups seriously. But the larger threat are the Republican legislators who continue to recklessly undermine democracy One year ago, he was frantically barricading the doors to the House gallery to keep out the violent mob. Today, he calls the insurrection a “bold-faced lie” and likens the event to “a normal tourist visit”. The story of Andrew Clyde, who represents part of my – heavily gerrymandered – liberal college town in the House of Representatives, is the story of the Republican party in 2021. It shows a party that had the opportunity to break with the anti-democratic course under Donald Trump, but was too weak in ideology and leadership to do so, thereby presenting a fundamental threat to US democracy in 2022 and beyond.The risk of a coup in the next US election is greater now than it ever was under Trump | Laurence H Tribe Read moreClyde is illustrative of another ongoing development, the slow but steady takeover of the Republican party by new, and often relatively young, Trump supporters. In 2015, when his massive gun store on the outskirts of town was still flying the old flag of Georgia, which includes the Confederate flag, he was a lone, open supporter of then-presidential candidate Trump, with several large pro-Trump and anti-“fake news” signs adorning his gun store. Five years later, Clyde was elected to the House of Representatives as part of a wave of Trump-supporting novices, mostly replacing Republicans who had supported President Trump more strategically than ideologically.With his 180-degree turn about the 6 January insurrection, Clyde is back in line with the majority of the Republican base, as a recent UMass poll shows. After initial shock, and broad condemnation, Republicans have embraced the people who stormed the Capitol last year, primarily referring to the event as a “protest” (80%) and to the insurrectionists as “protesters” (62%), while blaming the Democratic party (30%), the Capitol police (23%), and the inevitable antifa (20%) for what happened. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of Republicans (75%) believe the country should “move on” from 6 January, rather than learn from it. And although most don’t care either way, one-third of Republicans say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who refuses to denounce the insurrection.The increased anti-democratic threat of the Republican party can also be seen in the tidal wave of voting restrictions proposed and passed in 2021. The Brennan Center for Justice counted a stunning 440 bills “with provisions that restrict voting access” introduced across all but one of the 50 US states, the highest number since the Center started tracking them 10 years ago. A total of 34 such laws were passed in 19 different states last year, and 88 bills in nine states are being carried over to the 2022 legislative term. Worryingly, Trump-backed Republicans who claim the 2020 election was stolen are running for secretary of state in various places where Trump unsuccessfully challenged the results.At the same time, the situation of the non-Republican far right is a bit less clear. While some experts warn that the militia movement, in particular, has turned toward more violent extremism, the violent fringes of the far right are also confronted by a much more vigilant state. This is particularly true for groups linked to the 6 January attacks, such as the Oath Keepers, which has faced increasing public and state scrutiny after 21 of its members were alleged to have participated in the attacks. Similarly, Proud Boys leaders are facing trial over the event, and some have agreed to cooperate with authorities in their investigations.After decades of the US government ignoring or downplaying the threat of far-right violence, President Biden has made “domestic violent extremism” a key concern of his new administration, regularly singling out white supremacists as “the most lethal terrorist threat in the homeland”. Partly in response to reports that former military personnel were prominently involved in the 6 January attack, the Pentagon has acknowledged “the threat from domestic extremists, particularly those who espouse white supremacist or white nationalist ideologies,” to the military and the country at large.This is not to say that the state is in control of the violent far right. While more than 700 suspected insurrectionists have been arrested, only some 50-plus have been convicted so far, mostly facing fines and probation, after judges rebuffed the DoJ. And media reports found that both the military and law enforcement have struggled to rid themselves of far-right ideas and supporters. But potentially violent far-right individuals and groups are now surveilled much more than they have been since 9/11 – we’re in a moment perhaps more similar to the short period after the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, still the most deadly domestic terrorist attack in US history.In short, a year after the Capitol attack, US democracy is in a different but still fragile place. Most importantly, the extremists are no longer in the White House, encouraging and protecting the far-right mob. In fact, the state is more aware of and vigilant towards the far-right threat than ever before this century. The threat of far-right direct violence is probably less severe than before – not because the movement is weaker, but because the state is stronger.At the same time, the Republican party has become increasingly united and naked in its extremism, which denies both the anti-democratic character of the 6 January attack and the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency, and is passing an unprecedented number of voter restriction bills in preparation for the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential elections. As long as the White House mainly focuses on fighting “domestic violent extremism”, and largely ignores or minimizes the much more lethal threat to US democracy posed by non-violent extremists, the US will continue to move closer and closer to an authoritarian future.
      Cas Mudde is Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, the author of The Far Right Today (2019), and host of the podcast Radikaal. He is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsRepublicansThe far rightJoe BidenBiden administrationTrump administrationcommentReuse this content More