On Jan. 6, 2021, “a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked” by ground forces loyal to then-President Donald Trump.
They interrupted the constitutionally required certification of electoral votes from the states by invading the Capitol, overpowering the Capitol Police, and ransacking the houses of Congress and congressional offices. For more than three hours, the then-president watched the invasion on television and did nothing to protect the nation, his primary constitutional duty.
You may recognize the quote from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s declaration of war on Japan before the joint houses of Congress the day after Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. Jan. 6, 2021, presented an equally serious threat to the nation.
Here is my characterization of the insurrection in the Pine Belt News from Feb. 22, 2021:
“What rage and savagery were on the faces of those intruders! By all accounts, many of them believed the former president, that the election had been stolen from him, and that this last constitutionally mandated action by the U.S. Congress, to count the state-certified electoral vote totals, was their last chance to, as the slogan went, ‘Stop the Steal.’ But look at their faces; listen to their words; notice their actions — crashing police lines; breaking down doors and shattering glass; flaunting Confederate flags; claiming God’s blessings; rifling through senators’ desks.
“And what if the rioters had caught Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi? Would they have beat them to death on the spot? Would they have dragged them out to the Capitol steps, assembled an ad hoc firing squad and shot them on national TV? Would they have held them in a people’s jail overnight and assembled a kangaroo court the next day and held a public ‘trial’ before sending them to the firing squad or the gallows? Look at their faces; listen to their voices; watch their actions. What were they thinking?
“The answer, of course, is, ‘They weren’t thinking at all.’ They were simply acting out loyalty to their leader, then-President Trump. Loyalty to the conspiracy theory that the ‘deep state,’ had conspired to steal the election from their leader and the companion ‘theory’ that the leadership of the Democratic Party were pedophiles, murderers and cannibals.”
“There can be no free speech in a mob. Free speech is one thing a mob can’t stand.”
Jan. 6, 2021, may have already faded from memory. It’s so easy. That’s the great danger — that our over-riding interest in preserving democracy and the rule of law may be drowned out by the political campaign, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and the ex-president’s indictments. Remember, Donald Trump is out on bail, awaiting trial in Fulton County, Ga., charged with interfering with the 2020 presidential election results in that state.
And there’s a second great danger — that we find it hard to imagine living under a dictatorship, a.k.a., one-man rule. A failure of imagination would be fatal to democracy. Remember, Trump demands loyalty to him, not to the Constitution. And his loyalty is one-way — cross him, and you are thrown under the bus.
It’s also hard to imagine our speech being seriously curtailed. We are used to saying just about anything we choose, although sometimes we do not choose wisely; see the latest internet squabble. And recall the mob invading the Capitol, remembering what Northrop Frye wrote six decades ago: “There can be no free speech in a mob. Free speech is one thing a mob can’t stand.”
“There’s something in all of us that wants to drift toward a mob, where we can all say the same thing without having to think about it, because everybody is all alike except people that we hate or persecute,” Frye continued. “Every time we use words, we’re either fighting against this tendency or giving in to it. When we fight against it, we’re taking the side of genuine and permanent human civilization.”
So, don’t forget Jan. 6, 2021.
Exercise your imagination: What would it be like to be governed by the whim of one man? What would it be like to lose free speech? What would it be like to be governed by a mob?
Richard Conville
Richard Conville is a retired professor of communication studies and a long-time resident of Hattiesburg, Miss. He can be reached at [email protected]. This essay previously was published in The Pine Belt News in Hattiesburg.
Related articles:
Most Americans believe democracy is at risk ins 2024 — but for different reasons
My argument in Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies
Conservative Christianity as threat to democracy
American democracy is in danger, and so is the gospel
