The Jan. 6 Insurrection Succeeded

In 2024, Donald Trump vowed to be America’s “retribution.” He didn’t hide what he planned to do. He bragged about it. And voters elected him anyway.

There is something I haven’t wanted to say out loud for a long time.

The Jan. 6 insurrection succeeded.

Not immediately. Not completely. Not in the way its architects hoped on the afternoon they watched a mob tear through the Capitol looking for members of Congress to kill. But in every way that ultimately matters — politically, legally, historically — the people who plotted to destroy American democracy on January 6, 2021, got what they desired. Donald Trump is back in the White House. His insurrectionists were pardoned. And a Supreme Court he stacked now holds that a president cannot be prosecuted for the acts of a president.

It worked. And we need to say so clearly before we can figure out what comes next.

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Let me tell you what happened that day. Because the right-wing fan fiction has now metastasized into the marrow of our nation — albeit with deeply contradictory lore, ranging from crackpots insisting it was a false-flag operation run by Antifa and federal agents to Trump declaring that it was merely “a day of love.”

So we need to be blunt about the facts.

On Jan. 6, 2021, a horde of thousands — organized in part by the Proud Boys and other extremist groups, summoned to Washington by Donald Trump himself, and directed toward the Capitol by Trump in a speech that told them to “fight like hell” — overwhelmed Capitol Police and breached the building while Congress was certifying the 2020 election results. They came with weapons. They came with zip ties. They beat officers with flagpoles, fire extinguishers, and their fists.

Five officers died in connection with the attack — including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who suffered a stroke after being attacked, and four officers who later died by suicide. More than 140 others were injured. So much for “Back the Blue.”

The mob chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.” Some of them were looking for Nancy Pelosi. Others left notes for the lawmakers they were hunting. This wasn’t spontaneous. It was planned.

Trump hadn’t arrived at Jan. 6 by accident. For months, he had filed and lost 61 of 62 post-election lawsuits — including before judges he had personally appointed, who found no evidence of fraud sufficient to change any outcome. He summoned GOP elected officials in Michigan and Pennsylvania. He called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and ordered him to “find 11,780 votes.” He pressured Pence to abandon his constitutional duty and refuse to certify the results.

The insurrection was not a riot that got out of hand. It was the tactical finale of a multi-front attempt to overturn a free and fair election.