Latino lawmakers recall Jan. 6 terror: ‘I’m not white, I’m going to be a target’

California Rep. Jimmy Gomez said the halls of Congress had already been hostile before the previous president incited his white insurrectionist supporters to violently storm the U.S. Capitol to try to overturn the 2020 election one year ago today.

The Oversight and Reform vice-chair told Newsweek that the House was amid a vote on the Build Back Better bill last November when he was verbally accosted in an elevator by an unmasked Republican legislator. "You people are ruining the fucking country,” he said Texas Rep. Roger Williams told him. “Gomez, who is Mexican-American, was taken aback,” Newsweek reported. Williams would later vote to overturn democracy and against the impeachment of the disgraced former president.

“Every member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) inside the building during the attack who spoke with Newsweek thought it would be the last day of their life,” the report said leading into the one-year anniversary of the insurrection. Gomez said that even as he considered ways to look like less of a target to the insurrectionists—such as removing his Congressional pin and jacket—he could not allow himself to just run away. “So he began helping lawmakers who were older and couldn't move as quickly as he could,” the report continued.

California’s Nanette Baragán told Newsweek that she had similar intuition to hide her pin. But other things could not be so easily hidden.

"The part that is not often spoken of is the fear members of Congress of color had," she said in the report. "When you're a person of color and a member of Congress, the thought on that day was ‘hide your pin, I'm not white, I'm going to be a target.’ That was something that was really real."

It wasn’t just members of the Hispanic Caucus, either. “One year after Jan. 6, Sarah Groh, Representative Ayanna Pressley’s chief of staff, still does not know what happened to the panic buttons torn from their office,” Boston Globe’s Jazmine Ulloa tweeted earlier this week. “It’s one of many details still under investigation, and a memory that continues to haunt her.”

Ulloa writes in her piece that the U.S. Capitol is also a workplace for janitors and food service workers. Some of these workers, notably Black janitors, had to clean up the mess created by white insurrectionists.

For Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar, the insurrection brought back terrible memories of the white supremacist mass shooting that shook El Paso in 2019. In tweets immediately after the insurrection, she wrote that the terrorists “not only breached the Capitol and got into Statuary Hall, but they were banging on the locked doors of the House Chamber as we were told by Capitol Police to get down on our knees.” 

In his House testimony last July, U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell recalled how he also had his life threatened by racist insurrectionists.

“I was at the front line and apparently, even through my mask, they saw my skin color and said, ‘You’re not even an American,’” the Latino U.S. military veteran told legislators. Naturalized as an American citizen more than two decades ago, Gonell said insurrectionists “called me traitor, a disgrace and that I, an Army veteran and a police officer, should be executed.”

"This wasn't a group of tourists. This was an armed insurrection,” President Biden said during stirring remarks on Thursday. “They weren't looking to uphold an election. They were here to overturn one."

In a statement Thursday, Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego said that “if we want to keep our democracy intact, then we must bring to justice those responsible for Jan. 6th, including everyone from those who laid siege to the building to those who sat idle in the White House or in Congress as their plans came to fruition. He urged the passage of pro-democracy legislation including the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. “To do so is not a partisan or political issue—it is the bare minimum we must do if we want to keep our democracy.”

Assassination, secession, insurrection: The crimes of John Wilkes Booth, Jefferson Davis, and Trump

Donald Trump broke new ground as the first president—the first American, period—to be impeached twice. However, thinking of him solely in those terms fails by a long shot to capture how truly historic his crimes were. Forget the number of impeachments—and certainly don’t be distracted by pathetic, partisan scoundrels voting to acquit—The Man Who Lost The Popular Vote (Twice) is the only president to incite a violent insurrection aimed at overthrowing our democracy—and get away with it.

But reading those words doesn’t fully and accurately describe the vile nature of what Trump wrought on Jan. 6. In this case, to paraphrase the woman who should’ve been the 45th president, it takes a video.

Senate Republicans acquitted Donald Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors twice. So make them pay: Donate $1 right now to each of the Democratic nominee funds targeting vulnerable Senate Republicans in 2022.

Although it’s difficult, I encourage anyone who hasn’t yet done so to watch the compilation of footage the House managers presented on the first day of the impeachment trial. It left me shaking with rage. Those thugs wanted not just to defile a building, but to defile our Constitution. They sought to overturn an election in which many hadn’t even bothered themselves to vote.

What was their purpose? In their own words, as they screamed while storming the Capitol: “Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!” Those were the exact same words they had chanted shortly beforehand during the speech their leader gave at the Ellipse. He told them to fight for him, and they told him they would. And then they did.

“These defendants themselves told you exactly why they were here” pic.twitter.com/6HVsD8Kl0M

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) February 10, 2021

Many of those fighting for Trump were motivated by a white Christian nationalist ideology of hate—hatred of liberals, Jews, African Americans, and other people of color. Most of that Trumpist mob stands diametrically opposed to the ideals that really do make America great—particularly the simple notion laid down in the Declaration of Independence that, after nearly 250 years, we’ve still yet to fully realize: All of us are created equal. The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was but another battle in our country’s long-running race war.

As Rev. William Barber explained just a few days ago: “White supremacy, though it may be targeted at Black people, is ultimately against democracy itself.” He added: “This kind of mob violence, in reaction to Black, brown and white people coming together and voting to move the nation forward in progressive ways, has always been the backlash.”

Barber is right on all counts. White supremacy’s centuries-long opposition to true democracy in America is also the through-line that connects what Trump has done since Election Day and on Jan. 6 to his true historical forebears in our history. Not the other impeached presidents, whose crimes—some more serious than others—differed from those of Trump not merely by a matter of degree, but in their very nature. Even Richard Nixon, as dangerous to the rule of law as his actions were, didn’t encourage a violent coup. That’s how execrable Trump is; Tricky Dick comes out ahead by comparison.

Instead, Trump’s true forebears are the violent white supremacists who rejected our democracy to preserve their perverted racial hierarchy: the Southern Confederates. It’s no coincidence that on Jan. 6 we saw a good number of Confederate flags unfurled at the Capitol on behalf of the Insurrectionist-in-Chief. As many, including Penn State history professor emeritus William Blair, have noted: “The Confederate flag made it deeper into Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, than it did during the Civil War.“

As for that blood-soaked, intra-American conflict—after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, 11 Southern states refused to accept the results because they feared it would lead to the end of slavery. They seceded from the Union and backed that action with violence. Led by their president, Jefferson Davis, they aimed to achieve through the shedding of blood what they could not at the ballot box: to protect their vision of a white-dominated society in which African Americans were nothing more than property.

Some, of course, will insist the Civil War began for other reasons, like “states’ rights,” choosing to skip right past the words uttered, just after President Lincoln’s inauguration, by Alexander Stephens, who would soon be elected vice president of the Confederacy. Stephens described the government created by secessionists thusly: “Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

In the speech he gave at his 1861 inauguration, Lincoln accurately diagnosed secession as standing in direct opposition to democracy.

Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.

Davis, Stephens, and the rest of the Confederates spent four long years in rebellion against democracy and racial equality. In 1865, Lincoln was sworn in for a second term. On the ballot the previous year had been his vision, laid out at Gettysburg, of a war fought so that our country might become what it had long claimed to be, namely a nation built on the promise of liberty and equality for every American. Lincoln’s vision won the election. He planned to lead the Union to final victory and, hopefully, bring that vision to life. Instead, John Wilkes Booth shot the 16th president to death.

Why did Booth commit that violent act, one that sought to remove a democratically elected president? Look at his own written words: “This country was formed for the white, not for the black man. And looking upon African Slavery from the same stand-point held by the noble framers of our constitution. I for one, have ever considered (it) one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us,) that God has ever bestowed upon a favored nation.”

As author and Washington College historian Adam Goodheart explains, Booth was “motivated by politics and he was especially motivated by racism, by Lincoln’s actions to emancipate the slaves and, more immediately, by some of Lincoln’s statements that he took as meaning African Americans would get full citizenship.” When Booth opened fire, his gun was aimed at not just one man, but at the notion of a multiracial, egalitarian democracy itself.

Trump may not have pulled a trigger, bashed a window, or attacked any police officers while wearing a flag cape, but he shares the same ideology, motive, and mindset as his anti-democratic, white supremacist forebears. They didn’t like the result of an election, and were ready and willing to use violence to undo it. Secession, assassination, insurrection. These are three sides of a single triangle.

I hope, for the sake of our country and the world, we never have another president like Donald Trump. I hope we as a people—or at least enough of us—have learned that we cannot elect an unprincipled demagogue as our leader.

A person without principle will never respect, let alone cherish, the Constitution or the democratic process. A person without principle can only see those things as a means to gain or maintain a hold on power. A person without principle believes the end always justifies the means.

That’s who Trump is: a person without principle. That’s why he lied for two months after Election Day, why he called for his MAGA minions to come to Washington on the day Joe Biden’s victory was to be formally certified in Congress, and why he incited an insurrection on that day to prevent that certification from taking place. His forces sought nothing less than the destruction of American democracy.

For those crimes, Trump was impeached, yes. But those crimes are far worse than those committed by any other president. Regardless of the verdict, those crimes will appear in the first sentence of his obituary. They are what he will be remembered for, despite the cowardice of his GOP enablers. Forever.

Ian Reifowitz is the author of  The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)

This week on The Brief: Impeachment, the future of the Republican Party, and Biden’s performance

This week, hosts Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld talked all things “(im)peach-y,” why Republican senators seem poised to once again protect Trump, and the tasks facing Joe Biden. For this episode, they were joined by political historian Kathleen Frydl, who talked about the potential for a transformative Biden presidency; and Joan McCarter, Daily Kos staff writer, who shared her thoughts on the difficulties the Senate faces with competing priorities thanks to the impeachment and senators’ regular work, as well as on Biden’s first few weeks in office.

The big event looming over this whole week is Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. With Republican senators once again lining up to stymie impeachment and protect Trump from facing real accountability, Markos wondered if they would “go down with this ship,” anticipating a kind of collapse of the Republican Party. Kerry replied:

It’s a level of stupidity that, frankly, is jaw-dropping. But on top of that, the betrayal of the country that they’re getting ready to pardon is just … this guy has not only been impeached once, and now twice, but in the last impeachment ... in Adam Schiff’s closing arguments, he predicted that Trump was a menace. And that if you didn’t teach him a lesson, if you didn’t convict him, this was going to be a disaster for the country. And then what did [Trump] bring to the country? Disaster. Like, the first president-inspired attack on the homeland, on the seat of national government, right? It’s never been done before. And now, apparently, 45 of them have already voted to set up this whole argument that supposedly you can’t convict a former president, a former official—which isn’t true.

Trump is costing Republicans all the “growth demographics,” Markos noted, as they are falling out of favor with young people, suburban white women, and people of color. Kerry mentioned the fact that the party at large will face inertia without a different strategy that relies on something other than voter suppression.

The pair were first joined by Kathleen Frydl to talk about the potential of the Biden administration and what it would take for Biden to deliver a great and potentially historic presidency. Frydl believes there is great promise for this new presidency and laid out the groundwork for what Biden must do to deliver for the country:

This presidency does have the potential to be a great, a historic presidency … but the task before Joe Biden echoes the task that Franklin Roosevelt faced, which is restoring confidence and legitimacy in government and making the federal government, especially, work on behalf of ordinary Americans. That’s a task that we have drifted away from, and it’s something that Franklin Roosevelt really presented to the American people and really forged an entire Democratic coalition on that precedent.

She also praised Biden’s leadership style, which she indicated has been less about his personal appeal or charisma and focused on “depersonalizing” his political persona—which he is likely bringing with him to the White House. Prior to Trump, Frydl believes, “we were engaged in a very performative political culture,” and a return to substance, policy, and regulation could benefit us. Because Biden centers policy and his Cabinet members, there’s a much better chance they will accomplish their goals and help everyday Americans.

On the future of the Republican Party, she had this to say:

Since 1968, the Republican Party has forged their presidential coalition—so, their national coalition—on a politics of whiteness … I’m talking about a party that’s dedicated to preserving the mechanisms of institutionalized racism … but the political destiny that awaits this country is quite different from the politics of whiteness.

What’s more, Frydl wondered if we will continue living in a country that is predicated on a two-party system, noting the extent to which whiteness is a unifying force in American politics and that, even if its power wanes, new power structures and factional lines will emerge to complement or replace it—especially in the Republican Party—long after Trump is gone. As she explained, “Republicans can’t win with Donald Trump, but they can’t win without him either. He was their Faustian bargain.”

Next, McCarter joined the show and offered her insights into how quickly the U.S. Senate can get its work done with impeachment looming over their heads, how Biden has been doing on the job so far, and if we will see additional financial regulations enacted in the coming years.

McCarter believes that the Senate’s work will still move quickly, especially now that Democrats have captured both the House and the Senate. Despite everything, she believes Biden has done well. As she said,

[He is] trying to get this government up and running [when] … Trump trashed absolutely everything—and the people who are left are downhearted, they are exhausted, they are depressed. They’ve got a lot of building-up of morale to do just to get the government functioning again … They want to get a lot of Obama administration back in to try to shore up where they’ve had losses, but they’ve got to weed through a lot of political people that Trump put in. So, that they’re moving this fast and doing this well considering what they’ve inherited—I’m impressed … Joe Biden, so far, is a really good president.

Markos then brought up Wall Street reform and financial services taxation, as this administration seems less likely to take it on directly. With many Elizabeth Warren allies in the administration, “most of the work done will be regulatory,” McCarter said, and corporate reforms remain at the top of the list of the administration’s priorities. This would be achieved through the Department of Justice and the Treasury and would “start to restore Americans’ view of government and what a government can do for them,” Kerry agreed.

You can watch the full episode here:

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Media Matters’ Bobby Lewis talks insurrection, white supremacy, and the media

In the media ecosphere, researchers may be among the most undervalued players in the industry—especially those who focus on “opposition research,” which is the practice of collecting information on opponents. For Bobby Lewis, this means studying, tracking, and analyzing the many strands of conservative misinformation in the U.S. that threaten our multiracial democracy. Since 2016, Lewis has been a researcher at Media Matters, a progressive research and information center that monitors misinformation in the U.S. media. In practice, Lewis’ job requires that he monitor everything from far-right message boards to Fox News and mainstream print outlets.

During the Trump administration, Lewis’ primary focus was the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends, which he says functioned as “an informal morning briefing” for President Donald Trump that influenced countless policy decisions and in turn, dominated almost every media cycle. Lewis’ work monitoring Fox & Friends and other conservative media gave him tremendous insight into the right-wing narratives that were pushed in the days leading up to and following Jan. 6, when on live television, Trump supporters attempted to carry out a coup in the U.S. Capitol and overturn the results of the election. 

The American public is still processing what happened, and the media is grappling with how to accurately report on the people who stormed the Capitol in an attempted coup. While the actions of these Trump supporters were deadly, reporting makes it clear that it could have been worse. As we headed into Inauguration Day, Prism spoke to Lewis about the language and framing journalists should consider when covering these events, the historical precedence for racial terrorism, and what to expect from the Republican Party post-Trump. Our interview has been condensed and edited. [This interview was conduced before Inauguration Day.]

Tina Vasquez: Many media outlets still seem to be grappling with what language to use to describe the events of Jan. 6. As a researcher, how are you thinking about it or articulating what we saw at the Capitol?

Bobby Lewis: “Insurrection” is an appropriate term for what happened, as is “attempted coup.” Simply put, a group of pro-Trump extremists attacked the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying an election that Trump fairly lost. Insurrectionists fought police officers to gain control of the building—even murdering one of them—and planted bombs at the Republican and Democratic national committees. Regardless of any other variables, there’s no question that an insurrection against the federal government took place on Jan. 6. As researchers, we watched it unfold on live TV, and more videos are still all over social media. But if you were watching right-wing media, the attempt to downplay insurrection began immediately. Fox’s news division said, “[I]t’s not like it’s a siege,” there was “no vandalism” (aside from all the vandalism), and the “peaceful” gathering was “a huge victory” for the insurrectionists.

Vasquez: As a journalist, I’m really struggling with the mainstream media's continued assertion that Trump supporters descended on the Capitol because they believed their president when he said the election was stolen. That may be true in many instances, but it also seems clear that so many of Trump's supporters simply did not like the results of the election. But perhaps neither of these narratives are accurate or helpful. What is the most responsible way to report on why these people invaded the Capitol?

Lewis: The first thing to keep in mind is that as we all saw, an insurrection took place. Every individual on the National Mall that day isn’t guilty of trying to overthrow democracy, but there were more than enough bad actors to mount a serious, violent attack on Congress, which came seconds from meeting its targets face-to-face with weapons and zip ties. That’s the most important thing that happened that afternoon. Attacking Congress is attacking our democracy, and given the United States’ rich history of violent white supremacists overthrowing democracy, we should remain focused on that threat above all else.

Those who attended the rallies on the National Mall were deluded by right-wing media and the president into believing the election was stolen and Trump actually won. At a minimum, the prevalence of those false claims created a space that allowed the rally and the violence to happen. In either case, it’s another symptom of our country’s depressingly vast information crisis, where tens of millions of Americans believe that our sources for information about the world are “fake news,” a belief that is ironically often based on exaggerated or false claims from unreliable sources they loyally trust.

Vasquez: Broadly, the media tends to convey surprise when right-wing movements have a show of force and there is little articulation of how it was a clear escalation of the rhetoric and conduct that’s been building over the last few years or that there is historical precedent for how white people behave in this country. We've heard that the Capitol was "unprepared" for what happened. Tell me what you know about how openly that week's events were being planned.

Lewis: The attack on the Capitol was, at least in part, planned in public. For weeks, far-right users on Parler and Telegram were openly brimming with violent fantasies about Jan. 6 in Washington. We shouldn’t forget the role of the mainstream social media platforms either. While Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg claimed that the insurrectionist attacks were “largely” not organized on Facebook, our research found at least 70 “Stop the Steal” affiliated groups on that site—importantly, 46 of these were private groups, a type of group that Facebook has struggled to regulate before.

The “Stop the Steal” movement, led by far-right personality Ali Alexander—and reportedly organized with help from GOP Reps. Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, and Paul Gosar—attracted many extremists to the protest that would become an insurrection. Infowars’ Alex Jones heavily promoted and raised funds for the Jan. 6 event with violent rhetoric. There were plenty of warning signs that the police missed, accidentally or otherwise—an open question, with investigations underway into over a dozen officers—but it is clear that the Capitol Police force, like the rest of the government, doesn’t take the right-wing extremist threat as seriously as it should.

Immediately, the insurrection was an obvious escalation of Trump’s countless lies about voter fraud, which were reliably fed to him by Fox News, Newsmax, One America News, and others for months, even before the November election. In fact, right-wing media outlets have been lying about voter fraud and fearmongering about civil war for many years, so the groundwork for a violent rebellion has arguably been building on the right for a very long time. The precursors to insurrection fell together, more or less right in front of our eyes.

Vasquez: So this is an escalation of what we’ve seen over the last four years, but there is also historical precedence for this. I’ve been thinking about the Wilmington, North Carolina, insurrection.

Lewis: We do need to put the insurrection in a proper historical context. As Adam Serwer pointed out in The Atlantic, true democracy in the United States is not 244 years old—it’s only 55 years old, dating to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which guaranteed the vote (at least officially) to all Americans regardless of skin color. Prior to that we had Jim Crow, a system of racist governments throughout the South that established itself on the ashes of our brief attempts to enfranchise Black men (but not women) after the Civil War. The federal government eventually lost interest in protecting Reconstruction governments, and in time they were all destroyed by white supremacist terrorism.

The era of our true democracy has culminated so far in a multiracial coalition electing the first Black president, Barack Obama—and then an overwhelmingly white coalition electing the man who built a political career on saying Obama was not American. And on the day of the insurrection, this latter coalition stormed the Capitol in a violent attempt to keep its aggrieved leader in office. The insurrection was an expression of the systemically racist history of the country, much of which we also saw in racist coverage of Black Lives Matter protests. American white supremacy always strikes back after Black political achievement, and we already surrendered democracy to racist revanchism once before. It cannot happen again.

Vasquez: Over the course of the Trump administration, the media has reported on Trump supporters as if they are generally "working class" people with "economic anxieties," rather than racists who were moved by Trump’s rhetoric. The use of class status to elide a discussion of race is common, but as recent reporting has shown us, the insurrectionists came from all of the country and some were affluent—a fact mainstream media continues to appear surprised by. What are the characteristics of Trump supporters that you think are worth noting, what are the similarities his followers actually have?

Lewis: The most notable aspect of Trump support is a sense of grievance and anger over anything they feel has been taken from them. Since Trump himself is a perpetual victim, he cultivates this attitude in his followers as an us versus them ethos in which he and his followers are fighting alone for good and everyone else—the establishment, the media, Democratic voters, anyone who gets in Trump’s way—is the enemy of the people. Conservative media focus this hatred into political action, sometimes in ways that betray their poorest supporters, such as lying that Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy improved wages. Clearly, this sort of grievance knows no economic boundaries. Accordingly, there are extremely poor and extremely wealthy Trump supporters, and they all agree that some often intangible thing has been taken from them and that whatever the problem is, Trump will make it “great again.” 

Journalists should strongly resist the trap of assuming that Trump supporters, especially violent ones, are necessarily poor or uneducated. It strikes me as a holdover from the early days of Trumpism, when few in the media seemed to grasp the full picture of what was coming. It lends an embarrassing amount of accuracy to the Trumpist complaint that the media “doesn’t understand” them. And it’s a baffling mistake to make when we know Trump and his allies have had the support of a lot of the conservative intelligentsia and received plenty of donations from wealthy Americans. Also, the kind of tactical gear we saw on display in the Capitol attack is not cheap, much like highly customized AR-15s often seen at right-wing demonstrations. Lazy stereotyping helps nobody, and it actually hinders efforts to fully understand the white supremacist threat.

Vasquez: Leading up to the attempted coup, what were the most marked ways that right-wing media outlets fanned the flames of insurrection?

Lewis: Evidence has always shown that the results of the 2020 election were secure and accurate; there was never any credible reason to entertain the countless fraud claims. Yet in the run-up to Jan. 6, right-wing media kept pushing and entertaining “rigged election” claims in ways big and small, even down to refusing to refer to now-President Biden as “president-elect.” A violent attempt to overthrow the election may have found less popular support if right-wing media hadn’t poisoned the discourse with months, years, and even decades of baseless lies that widespread voter fraud steals elections, while also telling the audience that certifying the 2020 election is “the most dangerous assault on the very nature of America, certainly in our lifetime, and maybe since the previous Civil War.”

Vasquez: What did you find notable about right-wing media outlets' coverage or reframing of the coup? What are the narratives that Americans should be aware of, and how can they push back on them?

Lewis: It was remarkable how quickly false claims spread that “antifa” was responsible for the Capitol attack. Before the mob had even left the building, people across social media began posting videos from Capitol Hill claiming that “antifa” went undercover as Trump supporters to start violence. Conservatives quote-tweeted coverage with assumptions or claims that antifa was responsible, and tried to match people in photos from the Capitol with people in photos from anti-fascist protests. The claim peaked with a Washington Times article “reporting” that facial recognition had proved “antifa” involvement, a false claim which was retracted, but not until after it spread through right-wing media and made it to Congress, thanks to Rep. Matt Gaetz.

If we don’t indulge further right-wing lies about George Soros or “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” it’s unclear who would execute this B-movie “antifa” infiltration plot, or to what end. Unfortunately, it’s easier to share lies than report the truth, and once the lie has spread, truth plays catch-up forever.

Another narrative Americans should be wary of is the suggestion that the country should just move on, couched in vague appeals to “unity” that deliberately avoid a full reckoning of the insurrection. Fox & Friends, perhaps the president’s favorite TV show, said that Trump should not be impeached because his supporters are “ready to explode” and a second impeachment could inflame them further. Republican officials, including some who encouraged the insurrection, similarly call for “unity” as a response to impeachment. But there can be no “unity” without consequences for those who endangered the republic. And history has shown us, over and over again, that a failed insurrection with no consequences is a trial run for eventual success.

Vasquez: The events of Jan. 6 and everything we’ve learned in the days since have really shown some of these right-wing movements for what they are. It’s never been about patriotism or religion or freedom of speech, but rather a white supremacist power grab. Could this in any way be a moment of opportunity for progressive movements?

Lewis: Particularly at this moment, I think the most important thing people can do is demand that responsibility be taken not only for the violence on Capitol Hill, but also for the Trump and right-wing media-driven voter fraud lies that built the permissive environment for the insurrection. Dozens of corporations have suspended or eliminated contributions to members of Congress who voted against certifying the election; hundreds of business leaders denounced the insurrection; Trump’s approval is near record lows—society in this moment, including some critical levers of political power, is uniquely hostile to the revanchist conservatism that led to the insurrection. Fox News is still one of Trump’s most powerful allies, but as the Trumpist push against the election grew more extreme, the network lost viewers to right-wing rivals Newsmax and OAN, and Fox may have begun to get on the bad side of its biggest remaining advertiser—because he doesn’t think Fox supports Trump enough. With corporations eager to distance themselves from the insurrection, perhaps even Fox News’ cable fees could be imperiled by the network’s strong push to undermine the 2020 election. People of conscience should press the advantage and demand consequences for the attack on democracy before this unique moment passes.

Vasquez: There is no denying that the Trump administration has been a goldmine for mainstream and cable news and the journalists who cover Trump closely. What are the ways in which mainstream and cable news networks are responsible for normalizing Trump's rhetoric and underplaying how dangerous and violent it is?

Lewis: It was well-documented that CNN gave enormous amounts of free airtime to the Trump campaign in 2016, back when the network was obsessed with the spectacle of a game show host running for president. CNN also developed a terrible habit of hiring former Trump officials to provide commentary, even though they were contractually forbidden from criticizing Trump and many of them abruptly quit or got fired in disgrace. Les Moonves, the former CEO of CBS who later lost his job for being a sexual predator, said Trump’s run for president “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” Although those days have passed and in some ways coverage of Trump got much better, some normalizing trends unfortunately remained for the duration of Trump’s presidency.

For one, there is absolutely no need to invite a government official on a show when the network knows the official is just going to lie to the audience. Mainstream media outlets do have a critical “truth-telling” role, but telling the truth does not require platforming a liar, even if the liar has a prestigious job like White House press secretary. Continuing to have them on air, even if the interviews are contentious and filled with fact checks, does harm by treating a violently abnormal administration as normal.

A related scourge is mainstream media companies paying contributors or writers to represent conservative viewpoints with lies and misdirection. Showcasing a variety of viewpoints is one thing, but it is antithetical to the mission of a news organization to pay someone like conservative columnist Bret Stephens to mask vapid concern trolling as principled conservative arguments. Even in an opinion vertical, it’s unacceptable—not to mention the fact that Stephens has repeatedly embarrassed The New York Times with his terrible columns and petulant, entitled behavior. News staffers have likely been fired with cause for much less.

I am also concerned that, in time, Trump officials will get to become well-paid media contributors and consulting executives despite the current popular scorn toward them. It may seem unthinkable amid the current level of popular and corporate outrage, but many former George W. Bush administration officials found comfortable gigs despite their various roles in launching or supporting the Iraq War, which was also based on lies in the media. Some former Trump officials, like John Bolton, are already collecting checks thanks to their time with President Trump. They should never work in or near politics again.

Vasquez: Among journalists, there has been a lot of talk about the words we need to be using in reporting to describe the perpetrators of the attempted coup—white supremacists, domestic terrorists, insurrectionists, etc. As someone who studies media and right-wing movements, what framing do you think is important for journalists to use right now? 

Lewis: It’s important to remember that white supremacy was a central force in the insurrection, much like it is with Trumpism. White supremacy has always been the biggest threat to multiracial democracy, and the federal government often releases assessments to this effect. 9/11 notwithstanding, white supremacist terrorism has killed more Americans than any other kind by far. But people, often conservatives, resist the need to talk about white supremacy, which only helps the white supremacists. Relatedly, it’s equally important to keep our focus on the fact that this was an attack on multiracial democracy, which is still quite young and fragile.

We can also never forget that right-wing media misinformation got us to this point. Whether one goes back to the “rigged election” lies of the 2020 election, the countless lies and misdirection that defended Trump’s other disgraces, or the more mundane “voter fraud” lies of the Bush/Obama era, conservative media have been misleading their audience about the fundamental workings of politics for years. Conservative media poisoned people’s minds with lies about the world, and then kept them from learning the truth by smearing truth-tellers with more misinformation. Trump, conservative media’s biggest fan, amplified these tendencies. Why would a die-hard Trump supporter believe that the election was fair, just because “fake news CNN” and its “deep state” sources said so? Or why would a staunch Republican believe humans cause climate change just because the liberal New York Times and the left-wing intelligentsia say so? The insurrection was, in some ways, an outgrowth of a larger information crisis that sits largely (but not entirely) at the feet of right-wing media.

Vasquez: What do you want Americans to be on the lookout for ahead of Inauguration Day? What are you anticipating will happen, and how do you recommend the media covers whatever happens?

Lewis: Unfortunately, Americans should be on the lookout for people in their communities planning or discussing political violence. The FBI is expecting armed protests at all 50 state legislatures, and again at the U.S. Capitol in the lead-up to the inauguration—if true, it potentially poses a nationwide threat. Americans do have a right to protest, even to protest based on malicious lies, but we must be vigilant for overly apocalyptic rhetoric, calls for and suggestions of violence, and stockpiling of weapons. If there is a protest in your area, consider who’s organizing it and who is scheduled to appear—any person or group who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, or helped organize or finance those events, should be a red flag. 

As someone who is from D.C. and who works in media, I unfortunately expect there to be violence around Inauguration Day. With any luck, my expectations will be incorrect. Violent far-right actors can often be all talk, but as we recently saw, things turn deadly when they decide they’re not bluffing. And with concurrent armed protests reportedly planned nationwide, there are many more situations that could potentially spiral out of control.

Whatever happens, the media should remember that our democracy itself came under attack on the Jan. 6, and it appears to remain gravely threatened by the possibility of more insurrection. Protest is an American right, but insurrection is not—and it’s not an “unfair bias” for the media to be forcefully direct about who enables attacks on our democracy. Telling that truth will be extremely unpopular, and will likely result in death threats, potentially even actual violence—but with the stakes so high, there is no other option.

Vasquez: You’ve talked about the role of conservatives and conservative media in how we got here, but I’m curious where you see the Republican Party going post-Trump. Actually, where do you think all of this is going?

Lewis: I think people need to begin considering the idea that modern, mainstream U.S. conservatism is fundamentally a racist movement. It can be a difficult and scary concept to think about given that it represents roughly half of the politically active adults in this country—and I’m not calling every conservative a racist or a terrorist—but for the past 50 years, the violent forces that would undo racial democracy have found a mainstream political home in Republican politics and nowhere else. From Lee Atwater’s Southern strategy to Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” white supremacy has been a strong and consistent undercurrent on the right for half a century—like it used to be for the Democrats prior to 1965. Again, we see this reflected in conservative media coverage like that attacking President Obama as a Kenyan Muslim and calling Black Lives Matter activists “thugs” and “terrorists.” The clear racism in this media coverage is only clearer when juxtaposed with coverage of the “protesters” at the Capitol.

I’ve believed for all of my adult life that Republicans need an honest reckoning with how they became the party of white supremacy. Similarly, conservative media must think critically about the ways in which their coverage—including the false “voter fraud” obsession—has reinforced white supremacy. But even after the Republican president inspired a white supremacist attack on the Capitol, fed by reckless lies in right-wing media, it seems like that reckoning will never come—and the white supremacists will complete their takeover of the party.

Tina Vasquez is a senior reporter for Prism. She covers gender justice, workers’ rights, and immigration. Follow her on Twitter @TheTinaVasquez.

Prism is a BIPOC-led nonprofit news outlet that centers the people, places and issues currently underreported by our national media. Through our original reporting, analysis, and commentary, we challenge dominant, toxic narratives perpetuated by the mainstream press and work to build a full and accurate record of what’s happening in our democracy. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Rep. Cori Bush needs just 30 seconds to slam the door shut on Donald Trump’s presidency

Newly elected Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri came into office on the mandate that she is fighting for Black lives. She has been very clear that she intends to do everything in her power to help save the lives of millions of Americans mistreated by a racist and unequal justice system. Bush is also very aware that there is a history of white supremacy in our country that is deeply embedded in the institution she is now hoping to reform. Bush, like every Black person who has risen into a politically powerful position before her, is now faced with the tangible political and physical violence that always accompanies the threat she poses to white supremacists and their anxieties.

On Wednesday, in a room filled with Republican white supremacists who want to bullshit America into believing they have some claim to the concept of “unity,” Bush delivered a short, powerful, and pitch perfect reason why she would be voting to impeach Donald Trump. This will be the second time Donald Trump is impeached during his presidency, and considering his actions over the last four years, the only surprising thing is that Donald Trump will have only been impeached twice.

This is the entire 30-second speech Bush gave. One might consider it the Gettysburg Address of impeachment speeches:

Madam Speaker, St. Louis and I we rise in support of the article of impeachment against Donald J Trump. If we fail to remove a white supremacist president who incited a white supremacist insurrection, it’s communities like Missouri’s First District that suffer the most. The 117th Congress must understand that we have a mandate to legislate in defense of Black lives. The first step in that process is to root out white supremacy starting with impeaching the white supremacist in chief. Thank you and I yield back.

Fin.

Rep. Bush’s speech was cheered by Democratic representatives in the chamber and booed by … some others.

What does it mean when they boo the Black congresswoman denouncing white supremacy?

— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) January 13, 2021

Fin, part deux.

Hillary Clinton gets brutally honest about what our nation needs to do if we want to heal post-Trump

Less than one week after a group of pro-Trump insurgents rioted and stormed the U.S. Capitol, former U.S. secretary of state and 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton published a smart, somber analysis in The Washington Post. Surprising few, Clinton calls for Donald Trump to be impeached. She discusses the grief, horror, and trauma that comes with an insurgency at the Capitol. But she also discusses the white supremacy that enabled Trump—who wasn’t surprised by the violent riot in Washington, D.C. last week—and, perhaps most importantly, what President-elect Joe Biden must prioritize as president. 

Let’s discuss her op-ed below.

Clinton (accurately) points out that Trump ran for office “on a vision of America where whiteness is valued at the expense of everything else.” During his time in the White House, he emboldened white supremacists and conspiracy theorists and sowed a deep mistrust in some of the nation’s fundamental values, like a free and fair election, for example. Most recently, Clinton argues, when it came to the riotous attack on the Capitol, “Trump left no doubt about his wishes, in the lead-up to Jan. 6 and with his incendiary words before his mob descended.”

The obvious answer most Democrats, progressives, moderates, and even some Republicans agree on? We need to prosecute the domestic terrorists who attacked the Capitol. But as Clinton points out, it’s not actually enough to merely “scrutinize — and prosecute“ them. According to Clinton, “We all need to do some soul-searching of our own.”

Clinton points out that many, many people in this nation were not in the least bit surprised by what happened last Wednesday. Who? Many people of color. Why? Because, as Clinton puts it, “a violent mob waving Confederate flags and hanging nooses is a familiar sight in American history.” In bringing us through recent horrors, Clinton references police violence during Black Lives Matter protests and stresses the fact that if we want unity and some degree of healing, that process “starts with recognizing that this is indeed part of who we are.”

In practical terms, Clinton outlines a few key starting points. She wants to see social media platforms held accountable in efforts to stop the spread of violent speech, new state and federal laws to hold white supremacists accountable, and tracking the insurgents who stormed the Capitol. 

In the biggest, most immediate picture, Clinton wants to see Trump impeached and believes the Congress members who enabled him should resign immediately. Unsurprisingly, she also argues that “those who conspired with the domestic terrorists should be expelled immediately.”

There are currently 159 House members and 24 senators who are on record supporting impeachment and removal. Regardless of where your members of Congress stand, please send them a letter.

Immigrant rights groups demand ‘immediate impeachment’ of Trump for inciting violent mob

More than a dozen organizations including leading immigrant rights advocacy groups are calling for the “immediate impeachment, removal, and prosecution” of Donald Trump following his incitement of a violent mob that sacked the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. Following the white seditionist siege, five people, including a Capitol police officer, are dead.

“Donald Trump incited today’s violent attack on our democracy,” organizations including the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) and Presente said in the statement. “Every moment that he remains in office is a severe danger to our country. Congress must respond decisively and immediately. We call on Congress to immediately certify the election, impeach and remove Trump, and refer him for prosecution.”

The organizations also call for legislators who aided Trump in inciting this violent seditionist mob, including Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Missouri (though he actually lives in Virginia) Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, to be punished by Congress. “Further, all members of Congress who joined Trump in inciting today’s violent coup attempt based on baseless, provable lies must be held accountable through censure, expulsion, or other means,” the organizations continue.

“As of Friday morning, 159 House Democrats and 22 Senate Democrats have issued statements supporting impeachment,” Daily Kos’ Joan McCarter writes. “A Republican, Sen. Ben Sasse, is also on board, saying that he will ‘definitely consider whatever articles [the House] might move because I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office. … What he did was wicked.’”

Yet Vice President Mike Pence, who has the power to begin the process to remove Trump from office using the 25th Amendment, is nowhere to be found. But that’s because Pence is also a soulless charlatan who cast away the couple of convictions he may have had to become a starry-eyed sidekick to a reality show host authoritarian.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that the House “may be prepared” to go ahead with impeachment if Pence doesn’t act first, but his inaction as Donald Trump continues to remain an ongoing threat to democratic values has made it clear the House must go ahead and act first—and now. “We cannot wait one day longer,” tweeted Faith for Black Lives, another one of the leading organizations to have signed the letter. “Congress must act TODAY.”

The Pentagon wants to ban the Confederate flag on military bases—but Mark Esper might intervene

Politico reports that top military leaders are "pressuring" Defense Secretary Mark Esper to ban Confederate flags on military bases, and that those officials discussed such a ban at a top-level meeting yesterday. The premise here is that the Pentagon wants Mark Esper to go directly against Dear Dumb Leader, Donald Trump, who most specifically has been campaigning against Confederate flag bans, against renaming military bases to strip the names of Confederate leaders, and against removing statutes of Confederate-traitors-and-the-horses-they-rode-in-on.

Let's all put on our pundit hats and take a guess where Mark Esper is going to come down on this, shall we?

The facts are these: Mark Esper has supported Trump through every rotten thing Trump has done to the military. He stood by while Trump pardoned war criminals and removed top brass who opposed it. He enabled Trump's reach-down to punish a military official who provided damning testimony during the congressional impeachment investigation against Trump. He followed orders to dispatch troops in preparation to sweep Black Lives Matters demonstrators from Washington, D.C. streets by force, if necessary. Mark Esper remains defense secretary right now because he has methodically made sure to keep on Donald Trump's good side, even if keeping on Trump's good side means standing aside while Trump does grotesquely corrupt or anti-American things.

So if the joint chiefs and other top officials are requesting Esper do the obviously decent thing here, but Donald Trump's ever-frothing Twitter feed is absolutely purple-faced with rage against anyone who would dare do such a thing, one would have to be a bit dense to presume Esper was suddenly going to decide the nationwide symbol of slack-jawed white supremacy needed to be given the boot.

Oh, and while the Marine Corps, for example, tried to ban Confederate flags on their own authority, Esper put those policies on hold, ostensibly in preparation for a "department-wide" policy on the matter.

Politico's report also suggests a potential dodge for Esper. Esper could unveil a new policy prohibiting "racially or socially divisive symbols" in general, and the Confederate flag might be counted as one of those "divisive" symbols, perhaps without mentioning it (thus leading individual commands to make the decision without Esper having to do something brave) or perhaps mentioning it in a long list of other "divisive" symbols (in an attempt to water down the impression that the flag was specifically targeted).

Both of those might be plausible evasions in normal bureaucratic times, but Trump is single-minded about the things he chooses to be single-minded about. Any policy—any policy—that Fox News reports has the effect of banning the Confederate flag will send him into fits, and Esper will be blamed.

So this seems to be yet another situation, as in Trump's pardoning of war criminals or Trump's retaliations against military officers, in which Esper must choose between doing the obviously right and decent thing, and chucking that thing in order to polish Trump's boots. The odds that Esper would have stood by while Trump was a rat bastard all the other times, but this issue is the one he'll break from Dear Leader on, seem kind of low.

The Pentagon wants to ban the Confederate flag on military bases—but Mark Esper might intervene

Politico reports that top military leaders are "pressuring" Defense Secretary Mark Esper to ban Confederate flags on military bases, and that those officials discussed such a ban at a top-level meeting yesterday. The premise here is that the Pentagon wants Mark Esper to go directly against Dear Dumb Leader, Donald Trump, who most specifically has been campaigning against Confederate flag bans, against renaming military bases to strip the names of Confederate leaders, and against removing statutes of Confederate-traitors-and-the-horses-they-rode-in-on.

Let's all put on our pundit hats and take a guess where Mark Esper is going to come down on this, shall we?

The facts are these: Mark Esper has supported Trump through every rotten thing Trump has done to the military. He stood by while Trump pardoned war criminals and removed top brass who opposed it. He enabled Trump's reach-down to punish a military official who provided damning testimony during the congressional impeachment investigation against Trump. He followed orders to dispatch troops in preparation to sweep Black Lives Matters demonstrators from Washington, D.C. streets by force, if necessary. Mark Esper remains defense secretary right now because he has methodically made sure to keep on Donald Trump's good side, even if keeping on Trump's good side means standing aside while Trump does grotesquely corrupt or anti-American things.

So if the joint chiefs and other top officials are requesting Esper do the obviously decent thing here, but Donald Trump's ever-frothing Twitter feed is absolutely purple-faced with rage against anyone who would dare do such a thing, one would have to be a bit dense to presume Esper was suddenly going to decide the nationwide symbol of slack-jawed white supremacy needed to be given the boot.

Oh, and while the Marine Corps, for example, tried to ban Confederate flags on their own authority, Esper put those policies on hold, ostensibly in preparation for a "department-wide" policy on the matter.

Politico's report also suggests a potential dodge for Esper. Esper could unveil a new policy prohibiting "racially or socially divisive symbols" in general, and the Confederate flag might be counted as one of those "divisive" symbols, perhaps without mentioning it (thus leading individual commands to make the decision without Esper having to do something brave) or perhaps mentioning it in a long list of other "divisive" symbols (in an attempt to water down the impression that the flag was specifically targeted).

Both of those might be plausible evasions in normal bureaucratic times, but Trump is single-minded about the things he chooses to be single-minded about. Any policy—any policy—that Fox News reports has the effect of banning the Confederate flag will send him into fits, and Esper will be blamed.

So this seems to be yet another situation, as in Trump's pardoning of war criminals or Trump's retaliations against military officers, in which Esper must choose between doing the obviously right and decent thing, and chucking that thing in order to polish Trump's boots. The odds that Esper would have stood by while Trump was a rat bastard all the other times, but this issue is the one he'll break from Dear Leader on, seem kind of low.