Someone Else's Problem

Ultimately, it just would have been too inconvenient to deal with the January 6th attack.

I live on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Four years ago, my kid had the day off from school. Usually I would have taken her to the playground, but I was worried the teargas might waft in our direction. We stayed indoors instead. We watched Sesame Street instead.

Reuters photo by Leah Millis https://www.reuters.com/pictures/defining-images-jan-6th-capitol-attack-2024-01-05/

Don Moynihan published an excellent piece this morning, “Jan. 6 and the path not taken.” He expressed much of what I wanted to say about this day.

I think it bears repeating though, because I suspect the memory of four years ago is about to become a shibboleth of sorts.

For at least the next two years, all judges who will be appointed to the federal bench will be expected to believe that the January 6th insurrectionists were patriots, peaceful except for the deep state infiltrators, trying to prevent an illegal power grab by the incoming Biden administration. All political appointees to federal agencies will have to hold the same beliefs. History will be rewritten to applaud their actions.

I have a sinking feeling that, after Trump pardons all the January 6th insurrectionists, the next step will be to award Ashli Babbitt a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. (I do not know that he will take such a step. But it seems firmly in-character for him. I would not be the least bit surprised.)

And it stands out to me that the story of how we got from then to now is ultimately a story of powerful people hoping that someone else will do something. This was less a matter of incompetence than inconvenience. The people in power lacked any sense of urgency, assuming that it would surely all just work itself out.

Here’s the key passage from Moynihan’s essay:

In the end, McConnell protected Trump from punishment. It was not just the refusal to vote to convict. After a swift House impeachment, he pushed to delay the Senate trial. He opposed the Senate joining in a Congressional investigation of Jan 6. He endorsed Trump in 2024, although this matters little except to further diminish McConnell’s dignity, as it was clear by this point that the Republican Party was Trump’s and McConnell’s time of influence was at an end.

McConnell saw Trump with complete clarity but suggested he was someone else’s problem: “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former Presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.” [emphasis added]

Mitch McConnell experienced a moment of clarity on January 6th. But then he started to weigh the hassles. Republican Senators did not want to focus on January 6th. Taking a stand against insurrection would mean picking a fight with the insurrectionist caucus. Picking intra-caucus fights is bad for party unity. It doesn’t help win the next election. And Mitch McConnell’s raison d’etre is to maintain party unity and win the next election.

Kevin McCarthy experienced a moment of clarity on January 6th. But he wanted to be Speaker of the House. And his best path to becoming Speaker (his only path, most likely) required Trump’s support. The insurrection was terrible, but it was also in the past. Surely someone else could deal with it.

Joe Biden certainly knew how serious the January 6th attack was. But he had a lot of other things on his plate, and the premise of his presidency was a return to normalcy. Focusing on a robust, immediate prosecution would come with opportunity costs. If nothing else, it could look partisan. Better, certainly, to appoint Merrick Garland and leave him to handle the matter.

And Merrick Garland, of course, is an institutionalist. Prosecuting the crimes of January 6th was indeed his job. But a fast prosecution risks becoming a sloppy prosecution. Better to move slowly, deliberately, so that no reasonable person could question the integrity of the Department of Justice.

I still remember, in December 2023, speaking with a Republican operative who was so certain that the party was finished with Trump anyway. Republican leaders might not be attacking Trump directly, but in private they were done with him. It was Ron DeSantis’s party now, she assured me.

So then it fell to the Republican Supreme Court majority. I have no doubt that Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are outright ideologues. But I doubt John Roberts felt great about the events on January 6th. (They were, after all, so uncouth!) Still, it would be uncomfortable to leave Donald Trump to face a federal trial during the general election season. Republican voters had nominated him, despite the memory of January 6th. It wouldn’t be right to inconvenience his campaign with the weight of a trial. Better to delay matters indefinitely and leave it up to the voters.

And the voters… well, it had been a long four years. The voters were left with a choice between two parties: Stick with the status quo or return to the guy from the before-times. With one party insisting that January 6th was no big deal (and ancient history, basically), the issue divided along partisan lines.

After all, if it was really such a threat to Democracy, then surely someone would have done something about it in the intervening four years.

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I don’t know what the future holds. But it is my strong suspicion that things get worse from here.

January 6th was a warning. A handful of people did take it seriously. (To their credit, the January 6th Committee did their best with what they had.) But the most powerful actors in government, media, and society recognized the insurrection for what it was, only to decide that taking it seriously wasn’t worth the personal inconvenience.

Better to leave it to someone else. You don’t rise to the heights of power by taking unnecessary responsibility.

I hope they feel ashamed on this day. Let January 6th, this year and every year, be a day when political and economic elites hang their heads in shame.

Donald Trump escaped accountability for his actions because no one in a position to hold him accountable decided, for themselves individually, that it was worth the effort.

They each decided that the legacy of January 6th should be someone else’s problem.

Now it is a problem for us all.