So, I went back and looked at some of the stuff I wrote after the 2020 Election. Immediately following the results and Joe Biden being announced as the winner, I was pretty goofy. I speculated about whether or not Donald Trump would go to jail for the crimes he committed in Office (I said no), and also threw in Andrew Cuomo for good measure (I said he should). I even wrote a piece criticizing Biden’s pick for Secretary of Defense, months before he took Office! Really silly stuff.
Then, after January 6th, things changed. I think I got sadder, to the extent being sad counts as an emotion and to the extent I actually have emotions. I don’t think I’ve ever really left that moment. As I watched a would-be dictator sic his supporters on the meeting place of the legislature as they tried to hand over power to Trump’s successor, alarm bells went off: “Wow. ‘It’ really can happen here.”
The morning of January 6th I was a registered Republican, because I am a stupid person. Throughout the Trump Presidency I convinced myself that eventually the GOP would revert back to normal and there would be someone in there that I could get behind. I still like Jeb. Part of me can’t quit Nikki Haley. But deep down, I know there’s no going back. I do not think all registered Republicans are stupid (not by a long shot), but it probably never made sense for me. So, I will own my own stupidity on a Friday in October.
After the first Republican stood up to contest the counting of votes, I logged onto the Colorado Secretary of State’s website and changed my Party affiliation. I took a video because I knew some of my persnickety liberal friends wouldn’t believe me:
It’s just funny, because January 6th does not feel that long ago at all, but that video very much feels like it happened in a tiny room in the distant past. I don’t believe any of the goofy stuff, like, “Donald Trump and January 6th changed me,” but I do think both of those “events” allowed me to stop lying to myself.
That’s because the people who are rising to power in Donald Trump’s Republican Party (and it is his) are the initial hints of a proto/crypto/Frodo-Fascist movement that feels alien to me.
So, I want to say this very clearly: The GOP is not going to concede the election next month if Donald Trump loses. And who knows what will happen if Kamala wins, even in a landslide. I’m not sure when I realized that, but it was definitely after January 6, 2021.
I want to go back to something Timothy Snyder said after that day. He has a great piece in the New York Times, and it is sobering to re-read. But this part sticks out to me the most:
The lie outlasts the liar. The idea that Germany lost the First World War in 1918 because of a Jewish “stab in the back” was 15 years old when Hitler came to power. How will Trump’s myth of victimhood function in American life 15 years from now? And to whose benefit?
On Jan. 7, Trump called for a peaceful transition of power, implicitly conceding that his putsch had failed. Even then, though, he repeated and even amplified his electoral fiction: It was now a sacred cause for which people had sacrificed. Trump’s imagined stab in the back will live on chiefly thanks to its endorsement by members of Congress. In November and December 2020, Republicans repeated it, giving it a life it would not otherwise have had. In retrospect, it now seems as though the last shaky compromise between the gamers and the breakers was the idea that Trump should have every chance to prove that wrong had been done to him. That position implicitly endorsed the big lie for Trump supporters who were inclined to believe it. It failed to restrain Trump, whose big lie only grew bigger.
The reason Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party today is because not enough of its members stood up to say the bleeding obvious: Donald Trump lost the 2020 Election, fair and square. Trump bulldozed through the GOP field because none of his competitors could bring themselves to say that (save Mike Pence), and they couldn’t bring themselves to say it because conservative media is positively Trumpian and will remain so as long as it is profitable (and they are partly funded by Russia, who wants Trump in Office).
We are back here almost four years later wondering if this guy will break democracy again because no one on his side acknowledged what January 6th actually was: An attempt to essentially end the American experiment. And we almost did it to appease a fat ex-game show host with a crush on his daughter. Sad.
Jack Smith’s brief detailing Trump’s activities on January 6th is startling. But what stands out to me the most is related to a line that Smith has repeated throughout this whole process: Trump knew he lost, and we will prove that he knew he lost.
Smith’s brief lays out that evidence on multiple pages. On page 149, he provides evidence of Trump giving up the game on his election fraud claims. When Trump was presented with evidence that there had been no fraud in Biden’s victory, Trump said, “The details don’t matter.” He just wanted to challenge the election anyway:
Trump openly conceded to his family that it doesn’t matter if he actually lost. He just has to stay in power:
Smith also details that Trump’s fellow conspirators knew that their “fake electors” scheme was completely illegal. In fact, one of them stated clearly that they should not take such a case to court because it would be rejected, thus killing the issue:1
That last line is the tell. After the theory is explained to him, Trump is immediately on board with the plan to pressure Pence to try and overturn the election:
And he then says his now infamous line: When Pence refuses to play along with Trump, he gives up the game and tells Pence, “You’re too honest” (page 63). Trump knew he lost.
With this as the framing, Trump’s actions afterwards become even more egregious. At 2:24 P.M., the insurrectionists make their way inside the Capitol and try to disrupt the certification. At that point, Trump was left alone in his dining room and tweeted:
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
This happens shortly thereafter:
That is all a precursor to this moment:
Trump - incensed that Pence would not go along with his plan - is indifferent to potential violence happening to his own Vice President. That is who Donald Trump is at his core: Indifferent to the suffering of anyone who gets in the way of what he wants. We know this, because after he let the events of January 6th happen for hours and hours, he sent out a tweet:
“These are the things that happen.” Six people are dead, hundreds of police officers are injured, some permanently. “These are the things…that happen.”
Any person who votes for this man hates America.
I have done a few pieces lately where I leaned heavily into my Christian swerve, and it still feels relevant here. Christians are called worship the Lord in “Spirit and in Truth” (John 4:23). The reason for this is because although worshipping God is an act of faith, it also has to be done in truth, i.e., adhering to correct doctrine.
“In truth” always speaks to me a lot. The Bible is a book that is fundamentally about Jesus, but within it are lots of other fun easter (no pun intended) eggs. I talked about some of two weeks ago, but the legal stuff is always super interesting to me too:
Anybody who knows about relevant evidence to a case must testify in court (Leviticus 5:1).
One single witness is not enough (Deuteronomy 19:15).
Your relatives shouldn’t testify on your behalf (Deuteronomy 24:16).
You cannot testify falsely (Exodus 20:16).
The last one always sticks out to me. Bearing false witness against a neighbor is forbidden by the Ten Commandments, but Exodus 23:1-3 goes into more detail:
You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit (my emphasis, because it feels pretty relevant here).
In the run-up to the Election, lots of Christians are going to convince themselves that Trump’s lies about the 2020 Election don’t really matter and that January 6th was just a riot that got out of hand. Heck, some Christians probably believe the Election was stolen and that ANTIFA did January 6th, which means they should pray for the gift of discernment.
But I have to bring it back to Jesus: If you are going to engage in these lies (and they are lies), then what will people think of you when you try to tell them the truth? Here is Erick Erickson with a similar point:
I am not voting for Kamala Harris so that I can pretend her lies are true. I am voting for her because her opponent’s lies cost people their lives. Yesterday, Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison for trying to overturn the 2020 Election in Colorado. Her life is over.
She did it because she believes Trump’s lies. Trump is not a smart man, but he is smart enough to know he lost the election in 2020. He just doesn’t care. And he will continue not caring - about the people who are in jail for their actions on January 6th or Tina Peters - because the suffering of others doesn’t concern him.
He is a wicked man and he makes people around him into malicious witnesses. And I am personally hoping that he loses the Election next month, and Jack Smith can get the ball rolling on doing some serious justice.
We are month out from the Election, so there are going to be a lot of Jackals. Buckle up.
CC2 is Trump’s attorney John Eastman, but if you want a full legend:
CC1: Rudy Giuliani
CC2: Eastman
CC3: Sidney Powell
CC4: Jeffrey Clark
CC5: Kenneth Chesebro
CC6: Boris Epshteyn
And Steven Bannon is P1, for a little traitor bonus round.