As the nation commemorates the insurrection of January 6th, it is important to remember that this incident was not a once in a lifetime event. As one reads history it is evident that insurrectionist tendencies is actually in the lifeblood of the nation.
What made January 6th unique was not simply the violent attack on the capital by American citizens and how much then President Trump relished the violence ignited on his behalf but also how close it came to being successful because of 147 elected Republican officials who were willing to overturn the election.
The January 6th insurrection was essentially a two prong event. While a lot of focus is aimed at the rioters who decimated the Capital and Donald Trump who instigated the violence, relatively little attention is paid to the 147 officials who voted to undermine the nation as well as those in the upper echelons of society who supported the overturning of the election including Ginny Thomas the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Julie Jenkins Fancelli the heir to Publix Supermarket.
The existence of officials and high profile figures with ties to anti-American sentiments is not without precedent.
For example MSNBC’s Rachael Maddows podcast called Ultra, highlights Minnesota Republican Senator Ernest Lundeen’s ties with Nazis including having speeches written for him by George Sylvester Viereck a Nazi sympathizer who spread pro Nazi and anti-Semitic propaganda not only to Lundeen but other congressional figures as well.
The United States has always had its share of pro-authoritarian figures from Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh to Fr. Charles Coughlin the Roman Catholic priest whose anti-Semitic rants led to the creation of the Christian Front, a right wing anti-Semitic organization which allegedly was partially funded through the Nazi government. FBI files show the Christian Front was planning to overthrow the US government by assassinating members of congress, bombing government buildings which in their mind would lead to an enactment of emergency powers and use of the military thereby replacing a democratic government with an authoritarian one. The FBI believed that the Christian Front was going to implement this plan on January 20th, 1940 and subsequently arrested 17 of them on charges of sedition. Unfortunately, the trial which was held in Brooklyn New York ended in them all getting off.
America also experienced the German American Bund which filled Madison Square Garden with over 20000 Nazi supporters and established training camps in Sussex County, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
George Santayana said “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. “While it is important to commemorate the insurrection of January 6th, it is equally important to remember the history of other events which had as its goal the overthrow of the government such as the Shays Rebellion.
As the nation dealt with Nazi sympathizers during the 1940’s and in many ways is still dealing with them today as Charlottesville revealed, Americans must now be leary of high profile individuals such as Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk who now seemingly have Anti-American sentiments through their sympathy for leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban. The nation must be on guard for those so-called militia organizations such as the Proud Boys who have decided to enter the world of electoral politics.
America clearly escaped a tragic fall on January 6th, 2021. Nonetheless, constant shocks to any system will eventually have catastrophic consequences unless the system is strengthened. One of the ways of strengthening the system is by holding those individuals accountable for their complicity in aiding and abetting those who seek to destroy the nation. If this aspect of strengthening the system is not enforced the American democratic system will be in danger of incurring a fatal blow from which it may not recover.
The threat to American democracy is not over. The question is when will the next attack occur and in what form. The attack does not have to be violent in nature. Hitler came to power peacefully through appointment by Germany’s President Paul Von Hindenburg and Mussolini came to power through Italy’s King Emmanuel. In the United States the Supreme Court is presently wrestling with the “Independent State Legislature” theory in Moore vs. Harper which theoretically could lead to states having the authority to throw out the will of the people.
Democracy is messy and ironically carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Commemorating January 6th, must not only be about the events of that day but also as a teaching moment about the importance of the democratic system and how to strengthen it so that it remains resilient against those who would overthrow the nation.