The Select House Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack is necessary, will produce valuable evidence for future scholars and will little impact on American public opinion or politics. The all but official Republican Party position on those events is essentially that it wasn’t a very big thing and that we shouldn’t focus too much attention on it. Additionally, Donald Trump and those who were around him during the period leading up to the insurrection are doing whatever they can to avoid complying with the investigation.

Efforts by those involved to avoid having to testify, and Republican support for that position is the kind of cover-up to which we should be accustomed. In many American scandals, beginning with Watergate, it is often said that the cover-up is worse than the initial crime. Given the dire nature of what occurred on January 6th, and that those events were the culmination of a four year assault on American democracy, that is not yet true here. However, the cover-up is beginning to take on a different strain, one that may indeed have devastating longer term impacts.

This first became evident a few weeks ago when Donald Trump issued a statement that included his view that “the real insurrection happened on November 3rd, the Presidential Election, not on January 6th—which was a day of protesting the Fake Election results.” It is easy to write this off as more ravings from a defeated and angry man planning his political comeback, but this comment is considerably more nefarious and deserves some attention.

Trump’s point that the election-the one in which Trump lost decisively-rather than the assault on the Capitol, is the problem. In other words, in Trump’s addled authoritarian mind, it is the election itself that threatens to destroy America. The second part of the comment does not just minimize the harm done by the protestors, but suggests that they were the ones legitimately and patriotically exercising their rights. This is nothing short than an endorsement of mob rule over free and fair elections.

These comments come at a time when Donald Trump is reported to be preparing to run for President in 2024, confirming what many people expected. Recent polls confirm the anecdotal evidence that Trump is very likely to win the Republican nomination if he runs, thus leading to another general election showdown with President Biden or another Democrat. Although we cannot know who would win that election, we know that it would likely to be close and that there is a good chance Trump would lose.

Given that context, recent comments by Trump and his supporters must be seen as yet another attempt to preemptively undermine the legitimacy of the 2024 election, just as Trump did in 2016 and 2020. The difference is this time he is also making it clear that mob violence is what Trump expects from his supporters if he loses. This is essentially laying a clear foundation for further attacks on America’s already teetering democratic institutions and creating the framework and rationale for Trump’s strongman regime.

The January 6th insurrection was probably the most dramatic, visibly stark and perhaps even frightening episode in the Trumpist authoritarian movement, but it also is part of pattern that is all too familiar. Trump does or says something outrageous or offensive, the pundits discuss how this is one step too far, even some Republicans join in, then the Republicans move away from this position and soon whatever Trump did or said just reinforces existing partisan divisions. This was true of everything from Trump’s early attacks on John McCain in 2015 to his offensive statements from October of 2016 about how he grabs women, to his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to his murderous policies around Covid, to his refusal to accept defeat through to the insurrection.

The American political establishment still experiencing a hangover of certainty and righteousness falls for it every time. The authoritarian movement understands this dynamic and knows that they can, through their propaganda outlets, reframe anything, including a siege of the Capitol, in a way that not only insulates them from blame but helps energize their base. The architects of the Trump-led authoritarian also know that as long as the political elite remains Pollyannish about the strength of American political institutions, the right wing does not need a majority just a solid and fanatic minority of about thirty percent of the people.

As the House Committee investigating the insurrection struggles to find witnesses who will participate and earnestly issues reports, Donald Trump is telegraphing his political strategy and making it clear that mob rule and violence figure more prominently than Democratic elections. It is not clear what the Committee can do about this, but the rest of us cannot ignore how the threat of violence from Trump’s loyal followers has only become stronger since January 6th.

Photo: cc/Geoff Livingston

Lincoln Mitchell