J6 Is Still With Us
The dangers of the January 6 Capitol riot that happened three years ago today haven't gone away.
The J6 riot was a last ditch effort and part of a broader scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election. This broader scheme had two parts: 1) pressuring state and local officials to toss out votes for Biden or manufacture votes for Trump, 2) create fake electors that Congress would certify instead of the real electors.
Justice has been served for many of those involved.
As of today, 1,234 people have been charged in the Capitol riots. This includes 736 guilty pleas, and 749 who have been sentenced. Sixty-four percent of them have received prison time.
Four people have pled guilty in Georgia's election interference case — Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, and Scott Hall.
And, Fox News agreed to pay $787 million for its role in spreading lies about the election. It may yet pay more in a separate defamation case.
Many more prosecutions are ongoing and more states may decide to bring charges as well. And 2024 will be the year we find out if justice will come for the ring leader of all this — former President Donald Trump.
But these court cases don't mean that the threat represented by J6 is behind us. Our democracy is fragile. It's difficult, I believe, for most of us Americans to understand this. So for this newsletter, here are several recent reports to help us grasp how swiftly we could lose our democracy.
A new study from Democracy Fund, "Democracy Hypocrisy: Examining America's Fragile Democratic Convictions," found that large majorities of Americans claim to support democracy but only a minority of Americans consistently support democratic norms. The report finds:
Only about 27 percent of Americans consistently and uniformly support democratic norms in a battery of questions across multiple survey waves, including 45% of Democrats, 13% of Republicans, and 18% of Independents. When adding responses to hypothetical scenarios about unilateral action by the president, the share of Americans who consistently supports democratic norms over this time period drops to just 8 percent, including 10% of Democrats, 5% of Republicans, and 11% of Independents.
A new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that about one-third of Republicans, 31%, continue to believe the falsehood that led to J6 — that President Joe Biden wasn't legitimately elected. Only 24% of Republicans and 17% of Trump voters understand that J6 was an attack on Democracy. And 34% of Republicans and 44% of Trump voters believe the false conspiracy that the FBI was behind the J6 riots.
Why do so many Republican leaders, who should know better, go along with the misinformation, conspiracies, and authoritarianism? Vox has a report highlighting one answer — death threats.
... Across the board and around the country, data reveals that threats against public officials have risen to unprecedented numbers — to the point where 83 percent of Americans are now concerned about risks of political violence in their country. The threats are coming from across the political spectrum, but the most important ones in this regard emanate from the MAGA faithful.
Trump’s most fanatical followers have created a situation where challenging him carries not only political risks but also personal ones. Elected officials who dare defy the former president face serious threats to their well-being and to that of their families — raising the cost of taking an already difficult stand.
As a result, the threat of violence is now a part of the American political system, to the point where Republican officials are — by their own admissions — changing the way they behave because they fear it. ...
And then there is the question of why so many people who claim to be followers of Jesus participated in J6 and associated conspiracies. The short answer is that the Christians who have embraced MAGA-Christianity, led by false prophets, reject the teachings of Jesus and embrace a cult of personality abusing the language and symbols of Christianity for its authoritarian and Trump-worshiping purposes. A new video promoted by Trump this week called "God Made Trump," claiming that God made Trump to be "a shepherd to mankind," highlights this fact. If you choose to watch it, keep in mind all those who'll be watching it and find it inspirational.
What can we do? A new op-ed by theologian Jared Stacy and sociologist Andrew Whitehead for Time has some suggestions.
Only contrition from Christians over January 6 will lead us to resist retribution as a political cause. As practicing Christians, one of us an ethicist and the other a sociologist, we don’t fault our fellow non-Christian Americans who are skeptical of a Christian public presence, who might tend to reject conversations about what Christians can offer American society. We believe such skepticism is often valid. It comes from observing in Christians a political will to dominate, rather than a commitment to cultivate a world where all people can flourish and where the rights of each person to engage with the political system are defended.
The renewal of Christian civic presence in a pluralistic society begins with a reckoning. One where Christians stop confusing the power to crucify with the power of the Crucified One. This power is what David Bentley Hart calls the “anarchy of charity” — the opposite of domination. To our fellow Christians in America, we cannot sanitize or mythologize January 6. These myths do nothing but protect the power of a fast-regrouping Christian civic machine looking to install a certain vision of Christian morality through coercive force. We cannot be a reconciling presence championing the cause of retribution.
Events
Pastors and ministry leaders: Join one of our “Politics, Polarization, and Peacemaking” conferences on January 29 in Phoenix or February 15 in Orlando.
Mending Division Academy
Mending Division Academy is a set of 6 courses for small groups or individuals. Each course deals with a topic that has been a major driver of division in American churches.
When Conspiracies Divide Us: Confronting Misinformation
When Crises of Faith Divide Us: Confronting Deconstruction
When Journalism Divides Us: Confronting Our Media Consumption Habits
When Polarization Divides Us: Confronting the Perception Gap
When Politics Divides Us: Confronting Political Idolatry
When Social Media Divides Us: Confronting Our Internet Habits
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Great article, Napp. Sad that this danger remains a reality.