Flags in Washington, D.C. are flying at half-staff on Jan. 6, 2022: Glynn Wilson

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Jan. 6, 2022) — Not long after the sun came up on Jan. 6, 2021, while we got ready to watch Congress affirm the Electoral College results showing Joe Biden the winner in the presidential election of 2020, we found out that two Democrats had the votes to win both U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia, guaranteeing them majority control in the Senate.

The Rev. Raphael Warnock has beaten Senator Kelly Loeffler by about 2 percentage points, and Jon Ossoff was leading by 16,000 votes.

“The apparent victories will give Democrats control of both the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time in 10 years,” we reported.

But the morning calm with our view of the Great Smoky Mountains was not to last.

Dozens of Republicans in the House and 11 senators said they planned to vote against certifying Biden’s victory in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. So there was going to be as much as 12 hours of debate that Wednesday. At the same time dozens of right-wing nut job Trump supporters were gathering in the streets and parks of the nation’s capital to protest Biden’s election victory along with their deposed leader, Heir Trump.

We now know what happened on that day of infamy one year ago as 8,000 Trump supporters first gathered for a “Stop the Steal” rally on the National Mall by the White House, then marched up Capitol Hill with insurrection in mind, carrying Trump and Confederate flags — armed with bear spray, Molotov cocktails and hate in their hearts.

They claimed the election was stolen because that’s what their leader, the president of the United States, told them and it was broadcast all over national television on every channel and shared all over social media too. Many of them are still claiming that. And in coded language, like Nixon’s Southern Strategy, what they are complaining about is this: African Americans who in their eyes should not have the right to vote joined with other Democrats, independents and college educated Republicans and simply out-voted the Trumpsters in cities all over the country, especially in key battleground states like Atlanta, Georgia.

That’s what this was really all about. Nobody with any sense in the Republican Party really believes there was actual voting fraud on a scale to change the outcome. Forget Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gaetz. They are just exploiting the ignorance and fear for political purposes. Republican officials in state after state say this was one of the most honest elections in American history.

What really happened is that Democrats, independents and college educated Republicans came together in an amazingly altruistic show of force and beat back the white nationalism of Steve Bannon and Donald Trump.

What really happened on Capitol Hill is that there were police officers and members of the military and even the leadership of the Capitol Police force tasked with protecting members of Congress who were in on the insurrection, on Trump’s side politically and asked to “stand down” by their commander-in-chief. It was an inside job and everybody up here knows it, although that truth is just too horrible a truth to tell the American people on the CBS Evening News.

Before the sun came up on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, I was gathering my thoughts for what to say in this space on this day, sharing links from The New York Times and The Washington Post on Facebook.

President Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver an address to the nation from the Capitol’s Statuary Hall at 9 a.m.

According to advance reporting, the legitimately election president (thank you Democrats, independents and college educated Republicans) plans to call on the people of this country to recommit themselves to a “peaceful democracy,” warning that it remains at risk “a year after a mob of President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol to stop Congress from ratifying his election defeat,” according to The Times, the national newspaper of record (disclaimer: I used to report and write for The Times).

Biden will offer a striking portrait of the fragility of the two-century-old American system, according to advance excerpts released by the White House. Rather than reaffirming the durability of the union, as presidents typically do, he will emphasize the dangers of its collapse.

“At this moment we must decide what kind of nation we are going to be,” Mr. Biden plans to say, according to the excerpts. “Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm? Are we going to be a nation where we allow partisan election officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people? Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth but in the shadow of lies? We cannot allow ourselves to be that kind of nation.”

We will watch and cover that speech from here.

On Wednesday, the day before the anniversary, Facing criticism from Democrats and a few Republicans to hold former President Donald J. Trump accountable for his role in inspiring the riot at the Capitol, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland vowed on Wednesday that the Justice Department would pursue wrongdoing “at any level,” saying he would defend democratic institutions from attack and threats of violence.

“The Justice Department remains committed to holding all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy,” Mr. Garland said in a speech to commemorate the anniversary of the riot, “when Mr. Trump’s supporters ransacked the Capitol in a bid to stop the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s election victory.”

The remarks, delivered at the department’s headquarters, come as Mr. Garland is under pressure from Democrats to more aggressively investigate any role that Mr. Trump and his allies may have played in encouraging the violence. The attorney general also obliquely addressed critics who have urged him to disclose more about the department’s inquiry, including whether investigators are scrutinizing Mr. Trump.

The United States Department of Justice better get busy in this investigation, or the Republicans will retake power in the midterms of 2022, cancel the House investigation and make a bid to return to power in the White House in 2024.

Steve Bannon and Donald Trump better be on trial for insurrection or convicted and in prison, with Trump found guilty of inciting this insurrection and prohibited from ever running for public office again, by November 2022 — or this American experiment in democracy may well be over for good.

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