“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
During my time covering the Trump presidency, there have been points where I’ve wondered if the events I’m watching will become capital-H History - it isn't always easy to tell in the moment if the thing that is happening in front of you will be a topic of discussion for decades or will be forgotten in a few weeks.
January 6th, 2021 was not one of those days where I had to wonder; the two events that happened that day unquestionably qualify as History.
The day started with the surprising news that Republicans lost both of the Georgia Senate runoff elections, which meant that the balance in the Senate is now 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker vote. The margins of loss were razor-thin for both candidates; Jon Ossof beat David Perdue by 1 percentage point, Raphael Warnock beat Kelly Loeffler by 1.8 percentage points. Worth noting here is that in the November 6th election Perdue beat Ossof by 1.8 percentage points.
What happened in Georgia will be an ongoing discussion as more voter data comes in but the New York Times has a preliminary writeup featuring a surprising data point
“Over all, turnout reached a remarkable 92 percent of 2020 general election levels in precincts carried by Mr. Biden in November, compared with 88 percent of general election levels in the precincts carried by Mr. Trump. These tallies include Upshot estimates of the remaining uncounted vote by precinct, and it suggests that nearly all of the Democratic gains since the November election can be attributed to the relatively stronger Democratic turnout.”
It is too soon to know why voter turnout in Trump favoring precincts declined from the November election, but that hasn’t stopped speculation. The obvious conjecture is that Trump’s efforts to delegitimize the November election and casting doubts about the legitimacy of voting caused his supporters to stay home. I hesitate to solely blame Trump for the GOP losses in Georgia - there are many factors that come into play in a runoff voting scenario - but I do think he harmed Republican chances in Georgia with his actions over the past two months.
That would be enough for one day but, around 1 pm EST, all hell broke loose at the Capitol building.
By now you already know what happened; thousands of Trump supporters overran and occupied the Capitol building with the purpose of stopping Congress from confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win. Four people were killed, including a rioter who was shot by Capitol Police as she tried to enter the House chamber.
The vote was delayed but shortly before 4 am on January 7th Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were confirmed as President and Vice President-elect, with Vice President Mike Pence performing his duty in announcing the results.
To put it bluntly - Trump supporters, under the encouragement of Trump himself, staged an attempted coup. Their intent to hijack Congress and prevent the transfer of power from Trump to Biden was clear. The door that leads to the House Capitol steps is riddled with bullet holes and offices were ransacked, most notably the Senate Parliamentarian office. Rioters scaled walls and smashed windows to gain entrance to the building. Even one of Trump’s most loyal supporters, his lawyer Pat Cipollone, considered this a coup attempt and advised West Wing staffers to stay clear of Trump lest they be accused of aiding him.
The most horrifying part of the day's events was that Trump seemed to be enjoying them. All coordination between House and Senate leadership, Capitol Police, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense fell to Pence; it was also Pence who activated the DC National Guard, overriding the original denial to activate them.
The most Trump did to quell the rioting was send out a few tweets and make a video that, while calling for protesters to go home, repeated his lies about election fraud and told the rioters that they were special and he loves them. This, in order to stop a riot he incited.
It’s an odd place to be, writing about events you know will be historical but the conclusion to those events hasn’t happened yet. I don’t know what happens next; as of this writing, there is talk about either impeaching Trump or invoking the 25th Amendment in order to remove him from office before January 20th. If either of those two things happens, where does that leave the events of January 6th, 2021 on the hierarchy of defining moments of the Trump era? In terms of imagery, that day will be hard to beat. Or will it?
Writing about history in the making reminds one that there are multiple reasons for writing about specific events. You didn’t need to read this piece to know what took place on January 6th, 2021, as you were likely already aware and following along just as I was. But writing about unfolding events serves as a time capsule, both for the writer and the reader, a way of knowing what the thinking was in that moment.
This will not be the last piece I write about that day - can we start calling it 1/6 for short? - because there are so many layers to unpack and explore that trying to jam them all into one omnibus piece wouldn’t do them justice. So fair warning, I will revisit all of this again in the near future.
Before I leave this piece, in the spirit of creating a time capsule of this moment, I want to share this picture that I think will become iconic (credit Leah Millis/Reuters)
Update - a fifth person has passed away in the Capitol riot; Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died January 7th from injuries he sustained fighting the rioters.