Oath & Honor by Liz Cheney: Part 2 — The Attack — A Book Commentary & Exploration
"Whenever sin is exposed, it creates a crisis and crises do two things: they reveal character and they are also what we might call "separating" times. A crisis reveals character because in the moments of crisis we do what we have been practicing. We display what we have habituated. We demonstrate what or who we live in obedience to... A crisis is a revealing time... it will reveal the heart of the structure or organization that is threatened by the truth." - Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God
Character matters. Crisis demonstrates why. We need leaders who will embrace truth and goodness, even in crises.
I started as a lifelong Republican, but when Trump came along in 2016, his lack of character was disturbing and his history of brokenness and exploitation of others deeply bothered me, because of my Christian faith and personal experiences, when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination. Christians defending his sinful behavior made it even worse. Many Republican leaders raised alarm in 2015 and 2016, including Ben Shapiro, Marco Rubio, and Lindsay Graham. Here's a full list. Now all three of these leaders, and many more, are fully entrenched behind Trump, supporting and even fundraising for him.
I'm reminded of the following insight from Oswald Chambers.
"If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is wickedness and selfishness, something downright hateful and wrong, in human beings, when it attacks your life, instead of reconciling yourself to it, you will compromise with it and say that it is of no use to battle against it." - Oswald Chambers, Reconciling Yourself to the Fact of Sin
Many fellow Christian Republicans who support Trump may agree with this statement, and say that is why they are fighting against their political rivals. So I will adjust the one line to make it relevant here, and to point out what I see as their voluntary blind spot.
"If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is wickedness and selfishness in yourself and your political tribe... instead of reconciling yourself to it, you will compromise with it..."
In 2020, the possibility of something like January 6th happening (because of all of Trump's lies) concerned me. To prevent a worse catastrophe, I voted for Biden.
January 6th happened. I was just a simple citizen and I saw it coming (through cognitive empathy) but it caught many people off guard. Now, I see that day as a symptom, not an end. Tragedies, like Jan 6, tend to repeat at a bigger scale when humans dismiss or defend them, so I'm expecting something like January 6th to happen again, perhaps at a larger scale depending on how things unfold in 2024.
Strong Character Versus Weak Cowardice
Trump's hollow character, chronic lying, and unwillingness to stop the violence contrasts with Liz Cheney's courage to speak truth to power, even within her party and at the cost of her power. Her 2020 election story, which I'm sharing excerpts below, is a testament to putting truth and country above partisan games. Maybe, just maybe, it can inspire us all to be braver and reject the raw virtueless pursuit of power for what's good and true.
For America to transform into a better version of itself, I believe it will require we all take responsibility for January 6th, 2021, especially since those most responsible are not interested in doing so. It's not to say that we are all to blame for the actual attack on the capital, but we have all played roles in fostering or allowing high conflict in our country. For us to move forward will require we all take extreme ownership of that day, so we become the leaders that won't allow it to happen in our country again. And more importantly, we must address the root causes of it effectively, so people don't feel the need to act out in that way and are exploited by nefarious actors.
Important Facts about January 6th
Since we're going to dive into the capital attack on January 6th. Here are key facts about the violence and crimes committed on that day by the rioters.
- More than 2,000 people ultimately broke into the Capitol, many of whom vandalized and looted parts of the building.
- Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted by rioters.
- 80 of these officers were from the US Capital Police and 60 were from the Metro Police Department.
- 114 officers were injured
- 5 people died in connection to the events on January 6th, including a capitol police officer.
- Ashli Babbitt was shot as she attempted to climb over a barricade and go further into the capital
- Benjamin Phillips (heart attack)
- Kevin Greeson (heart attack)
- Roseanne Boyland (accidental drug overdose)
- Police officer Brian Sicknick (the medical examiner later reported he suffered from a stroke)
- 4 police officers committed suicide after the events of Jan 6
- Howard Liebengood (3 days after the events)
- Jeffrey Smith (He sustained a head injury from the attacks)
- Kyle DeFreytag
- Gunther Hashida
- 1,265 people have been charged for their actions on January 6th in nearly 50 states and in the District of Columbia
- Approximately 452 defendants have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees
- Approximately 123 individuals who have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.
- Approximately 1,186 defendants have been charged with entering or remaining in a restricted federal building or grounds. Of those, 116 defendants have been charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon.
- More than 332 defendants have been charged with corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding, or attempting to do so.
- Approximately 718 individuals have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges, many of whom faced or will face incarceration at sentencing.
- Approximately 213 have pleaded guilty to felonies. Another 505 have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors.
- Four of those who have pleaded guilty to felonies have pleaded guilty to the federal charge of seditious conspiracy.
This is Part 2 of Oath and Honor by Liz Cheney
This blog post focuses on part two of Cheney's book, which reveals the history of that unfortunate and preventable event on January 6th, 2021. I'll highlight key quotes from Oath and Honor, and provide short commentary on each quote.
Here's a quick summary of the book we're exploring.
Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney Summary: A gripping firsthand account from inside the halls of Congress as Donald Trump and his enablers betrayed the American people and the Constitution — leading to the violent attack on our capitol on January 6th, 2021 — by the House Republican leader who dared to stand up to them.
Let's jump into part two!
Part 2: The Attack
As inferred by the title, this part of Liz's book explores her perspective of what happened on January 6th, 2021.
Chapter 11: The Oath Does Not Bend or Yield to Popular Sentiment
"But by January 6, 2021, Donald Trump had consumed a good portion of almost every day in a rage: inventing and spreading lies about election fraud, preying on the patriotism of his supporters, and telling them they had to "fight like hell" if they wanted to save their country. He had summoned them to Washington for a "big protest" on the day of the congressional vote count, promising them it would be "wild."'
I believe America is like a Chinese finger trap. The more you struggle and fight to get out of the trap, the harder it gets, and the more trapped you become. The main problem we have now is, what if the struggle is so severe it breaks the finger trap altogether?
That seems to be a possible threat in 2020, but I was confident America would stand strong through the 2020 presidential transition. But because of my horrible endings with selfish and prideful people like Trump, I was deeply concerned he would trash and break things on his way out. It'd turn out that he did do just that, through the January 6th riots. And I could see that coming from a mile away, by putting myself in the shoes of people who falsely believed Trump didn't lose the 2020 election. His firehose of falsehoods was the dead giveaway. Trump's protocol is to claim fraud if he loses. The 2020 election was not the only time he's done it and we can expect it again in 2024.
"Some of my Republican colleagues in the House were preparing to use Trump's stolen-election lies as the basis for an unconstitutional attempt to overturn the election results. Historian Timothy Snyder has described the deep damage this was doing to our country: "Making (Trump's) fictions the basis of congressional action gave them flesh."'
I oscillate between our surreal reality and the normalcy we used to experience. Because of the wild chaos of Trump, the world around him often seems like a fever dream. It has all the markings of a dangerous path we've traveled down, but then it also and often seems like a clownshow. When people around Trump do his bidding, it makes the fever dream shape our actual reality. The question we all have is, how much do we want to live in that chaotic world we're building for ourselves? Do we want another four years where Trump continues to degenerate our society, constitution, and institutions?
"And in the days that followed January 6, a. number of other former agents provided a private security detail. These were some of the same people who had protected my family when the threat we faced was from al-Qaeda terrorists. Now they were protecting me again — this time in the face of threats from our fellow citizens, mobilized to violence by an American president."
Jan 6 is the tip of a betrayal spear by Republicans for me. It's one thing to be attacked by enemies, but when fellow neighbors and citizens betray our country the way Trump, Republican leadership, and supporters did, it's deeply frustrating, especially as a Christian who cares about the way of Jesus.
"He had been tweeting repeatedly about the "thousands of people pouring into D.C.," suggesting the outcome of the election could change on January 6, and threatening that the crowds "won't stand for a landslide election victory to be stolen." He was also spreading the lie that the "Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors."'
If I believed the lie Trump was selling, I would have been outraged and upset. Trump manipulates people who love their country to do his selfish bidding. At some point, as many have, we all have to take responsibility for discovering the truth and not allowing ourselves to be exploited. That's my hope through all of this, is that we become those types of citizens.
"Most of the members taking part in the sheet-signing ritual knew it was a farce. Among them was Republican Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee. As he moved down the line, signing his name to the pieces of paper, Green said sheepishly to no one in particular, "The things we do for the Orange Jesus."'
Orange jesus. Wow. Trump expects all of his followers to make orange jesus their lord and savior. He is their messiah, to conquer MAGA's enemies, and restore America to its once known greatness. He makes the core ideology of most Republicans true.
"The president of the United States was attempting to utilize an angry crowd as a weapon to threaten Congress, to prevent us from carrying out our constitutional duty.
My father knew immediately and unequivocally that Trump's speech was likely to cause violence. And now Trump had targeted me directly.
The next time I talked to my father, I was being rushed from the House chamber as the violent mob mobilized by Trump stormed through the Capitol."
So much was visible scanning the news and Twitter about how Jan 6 was unfolding as I braced for the uncertain events unfolding before me. It's been wild to discover all the additional details of how this event to threaten Congress and stop the counting of the electoral votes, went down. And it's wild that as Trump was accusing his enemies of doing bad things, he was in the middle of doing the very things he was saying his political rivals were doing.
I once had a falling out with a client, where he was lying and accusing me of falsehoods. When I was talking to one of his employees, with whom I had a good relationship, she said that everything he was accusing me of, was the very things he was doing to me. He was projecting his corruption onto me. And Trump did and continues to do the same thing with his political enemies and those who do not make orange jesus Lord and Savior. What's wilder is how many people have done just that.
Chapter 12: This is Because of You
"Member after member on the Republican side made the same arguments that we'd been hearing for days. Members who bragged about their conservative beliefs, and their fidelity to the plain meaning of the text of the Constitution, were now arguing that Congress should claim power found nowhere in the Constitution to disregard the will of the people and overturn an election.
Mike Johnson claimed that Arizona "clearly violated" the Constitution in its selection of presidential electors, it occurred to me that I had never heard him raise a concern about Arizona's elections before.
Yet now he was on the floor of the House, arguing that we should ignore. the rulings of federal and state courts in Arizona and throw out the results of Arizona's election, thereby disenfranchising millions of voters."
What was novel in reading Liz's book is how many of the Republican leadership went along with Trump's lies and unconstitutional efforts. They quickly bent the knee and kissed the ring. Many might make the argument that it was simply performative, going along with Trump so they didn't have to deal with the blowback while thinking they were not doing anything with actual consequences. The problem is that they are embracing the lie and practicing falsehood. To have and use courage requires exercising that courage when it's hard because it will only get harder going forward. When it gets the most hard, we will do what we've conditioned ourselves to do. When the allure of power is before us, we'll soon find ourselves watching ourselves do things as if we've lost control of ourselves.
"As I sat back down, Raskin was still opposite me, looking down at his phone. "Liz" he said. "There is a Confederate flag flying inside the United States Capitol."
I couldn't believe it. That hadn't happened, even during the Civil War.
"My God, Jamie — what have they done?" We later learned that, at this same time, senior staff in the White House were begging President Donald Trump to tell the rioters to halt the violence and leave the Capitol Building. He refused."
Being from Arizona, the history of the Confederate flag is a bit foreign to me, other than what I've learned about it in the last decade. I've often wondered if what we're going through is unfinished business from our civil war and pre-civil war era.
"There was an awful din in the chamber by this point. As the whine of the gas masks mingled with the sounds of members calling loved ones and preparing to fight the mob, the pounding outside the doors seemed to grow louder. I remember thinking it sounded like the mob had a battering ram. Their jeering violent shouts and chants were echoing off the marble hallways outside the chamber."
The mob moved in closer.
"In the gallery above the House floor, Jason Crow of Colorado, a former Army Ranger, was doing just that. He later described instinctively shifting into combat mode and going through a mental checklist to secure the perimeter and get the dozen or so fellow members seated up there with him into a small group in a defensive position. He instructed members in the gallery to remove their official congressional pins, making them harder to identify if the mob broke through. As he helped other members get their gas masks ready for use, Crow described looking up and seeing "one of the most shocking things" he had ever seen: Capitol Police officers barricading the chamber doors — with members still in the chamber. Crow later said this was when he realized we were very likely in deep trouble:
Suddenly people were running in the aisle at the back of the chamber.
The mob was battering the doors to the chamber itself, attempting to invade. Members of Congress and plainclothes Capitol police officers were rushing to find whatever they could —benches, desks, chairs —to barricade the door and defend the chamber of the House of Representatives.
The rioters had shattered the glass panels of the chamber doors, perhaps with flagpoles topped with spears. Police officers drew their guns."
These are harrowing images. We've more recently seen similar ones with Jewish students on college campuses being terrorized and threatened. All of this terrifying activity could have been stopped by Trump at any moment, and yet he waited three hours, abdicating responsibility while people around him begged him to act. He didn't want to stop it.
Members were told to evacuate the chamber. "We need everyone out!" officers instructed.
What sounded like gunshots —but was likely the sound of glass shattering —filled the air. People began yelling: "Shots fired! Shots fired!
Get down!" A member of Congress, his voice filled with fury, yelled at the mob, "Stop it! You sons of bitches, stop!"
"They won't listen," someone told him in response.
There was only one person they would have listened to — the man who provoked this attack; the man who mobilized the violent mob and sent them to the Capitol; the man who for months fed his supporters lies that the election had been stolen from him; the man who told them that they had to fight like hell to save their country. That man was sitting in his dining room at the White House two miles away watching television coverage of the attack on the United States Capitol. Donald Trump refused to tell his mob to leave.
Trump did nothing while his supporters terrorized and threatened our leaders. He abdicated responsibility, which is the opposite of what we must expect from the leaders of our country. Unfortunately, not enough Americans have experienced the consequences of Trump's abdication or they've joined in on it, and so we're now in a situation where a large portion of our country believes Trump is a viable option for president. We would never tolerate a person like this as our community leader or boss. Why are we tolerate him as a presidential candidate?
"Two days earlier we'd been contemplating parliamentary rules and procedures we could employ if Vice President Pence had refused to count electoral votes. Now an armed mob was hunting members of Congress and the vice president through the halls of the Capitol."
What many people may not realize is that the riots of January 6 were simply the last effort of many prior efforts of Trump to stay in office. It was when there were no other viable pathways that Trump encouraged his supporters to gather and threaten his vice president and Congress to change the outcome of the election in his favor: wrongly, illegally, and unconstitutionally. Those who dismiss what happened on this day are also saying it would be good or not a big deal if it happened again. This is a small variation of how Holocaust Denial works. They too call it the big lie.
"While members of Congress and staffers were still evacuating the House floor through the west end of the Speaker's lobby, rioters were attempting to break through the doors about 100 feet away at the east end of the long hall outside the House chamber.
Video shows the mob taunting Capitol Police officers standing between them and the east doors. Rioters were chanting "F*ck the Blue!" while others were striking at the glass in the doors with flagpoles and helmets and whatever else they had to try to break through. Three members of uniformed Capitol Police were forced to withdraw, leaving only a single plainclothes officer standing between the violent mob and members of Congress still evacuating at the other end of the lobby.
The plainclothes officer drew his weapon and issued multiple warnings for the mob to get back, to stop attempting to break through. Ashli Babbitt, wrapped in a Trump flag, ignored the warnings and began climbing through the broken window into the Speaker's lobby.
Ashli Babbitt was shot at 2:44 p.m. Approximately 20 minutes later, a White House stafter wrote a note-later produced to the Select Committee — that read: "Ix civilian gunshot wound to chest A door of House chamber." The note was delivered to President Trump, who continued to sit in his dining room, watching the violence on television and refusing to tell the mob to leave the Capitol.
People died on January 6 because of Donald Trump's lies. Had it not been for the actions of courageous members of law enforcement, many more lives likely would have been lost."
I believe all of us are dormant radicals. In the right circumstances, we all become fanatics. I've gone through the furnace myself, and thank God, I've come out the other side with minimal consequences for myself and others. But as things have escalated, these consequences for extremism are increasing (the Republican party is being radicalized). Had things unfolded differently in my life, I very well could have been radicalizing during the Trump movement and been at the capitol on January 6th. Any of us could have been. And any of us could have been Ashli Babbitt, which means we'd be dead. All based on a lie.
Trump could have prevented the pain, suffering, and destruction that happened on January 6th. He also could have stopped it once it began. Yet, he did not. He abdicated responsibility. No person who abdicates responsibility like this should ever be put in a position of leadership again.
"At some point during this period, Phil called Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and told him we needed overwhelming force at the Capitol immediately. Trump had done nothing to tell the rioters to leave the Capitol. If he wouldn't do so, then a show of numbers would be critical to stem the violence. Of course, Jeff agreed. He had staged units in advance and was working on deploying them to the Capitol, even without any order from Trump."
It's wild that not only did Trump abdicate responsibility, but leaders who embraced responsibility, had to work around him to protect our leaders.
Chapter 13: It Turned Out That Kevin Was Lying
"Mike Pence and his family were rushed from his office on the Senate side of the Capitol into a basement garage. The mob was hunting the vice president and chanting...
"Hang Mike Pence!" Donald Trump poured gasoline on the flames, tweeting at 2:24 p.m.:
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!"
Spurring on an angry mob to get them to find and hang your vice president is a deep act of betrayal to him and our country. Trump cares most about himself, and that means what he wants is more important than doing what is right, what is true, the rule of law, and the Constitution. This is the absolutely last person in America we want as our president, and yet a large portion of Americans want to elect him again. We've got problems.
"In his speech on the Ellipse that morning, Donald Trump had told the angry crowd that Mike Pence could secure Trump's victory. Now, as the rioters were invading the Capitol, Trump was telling them that Mike Pence had refused to do what they all demanded. Our investigation later demonstrated how this tweet further inflamed the violent mob, causing rioters both inside and outside the Capitol to surge forward. Our investigation also showed that, at the moment Trump sent this tweet, he knew there was a violent attack underway at the Capitol.
The Capitol offices of both Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy had been breached by the mob. A frightened Kevin McCarthy had begged President Trump to stop the violence. When that didn't work, he had appealed to Trump's adult children, also begging for their help. None of those efforts succeeded."
Trump lied, over and over again, to his supporters, manipulating them to do his bidding. Trump's lifelong pattern is exploiting people for his selfish aims. What happened on January 6th was the logical extension of his moral poverty and his pattern of behavior, manifested on a national scale using America's most powerful position without regard for the Constitution.
"Lincoln famously warned of the danger of "mob law":
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
As powerful as America is, it certainly seems like we're not vulnerable in a material way, but our division has us spiraling out of control. In many ways, what's unfolding is a slew of symptoms of some deeper issues. Until we start taking extreme ownership, we're likely to keep spiraling. Stepping up and speaking out are two ways I'm doing this.
"Markwayne Mullin walked up to the dais a short while later. He told me he had just come from the "triage room," where they were bringing police officers wounded in the day's combat with the Trump mob. He said it was devastating. Scores of law-enforcement officers had been seriously injured.
Mullin described their injuries in detail: broken bones, deep lacerations, an officer whose eye had been gouged by the mob, others who had been attacked with bear spray, pepper spray, and other irritants. The ongoing violence had blocked ambulances from reaching the casualties and transporting them to hospitals. It was sickening.
Markwayne went over to talk to the members of the Freedom Caucus.
I thought maybe if they heard about what was going on, about the violent attacks on police officers, they would withdraw their objections.
I was wrong.
They would not."
Something is deeply wrong when even January 6th does not jolt Republicans to do the right thing. Instead, they've done Trump's bidding, gone along with his lies, and shamelessly supported him. This is why I believe Republicans have stage 5 cancer and are in denial about it. Cheney's book made this more clear than anything, that the Republican party is dead or on life support if it's not yet dead. Losing biggly is probably the only way it can be reformed.
"Jim Jordan's public statements, including in testimony before the Rules Committee a few months later, suggest that he was actually on the phone with Donald Trump during this time, apparently still discussing how to stop the counting of electoral votes. The violence had not ended.
Members of Congress were under threat in an undisclosed location. But Jim Jordan was evidently on the phone with Trump. Still, apparently, trying to help him stay in power.
...all afternoon, President Trump and his allies had been busily making calls to senators, and perhaps to other members of Congress, trying to find ways to keep us from going forward with the count. President Trump's counsel, John Eastman, was still lobbying the vice president's counsel. The Trump team was till insisting that Mike Pence halt the counting of votes."
While the capital attack is unfolding, Trump only cares about himself. Jordan was willing to abdicate responsibility and go along with Trump. Sickening.
"Machalagh looked at me and said, "Mr. Jordan just told me that he just got off the phone with Kevin, and Kevin told him the opposite. Jordan says Kevin is going to carry on with the objections."
That can't be right, I thought. There is no way that any leader would let these objections go on in the wake of the violent assault on the Capitol.
The idea was so unimaginable that I assumed Jordan was lying.
I was wrong.
It turned out that Kevin was lying."
Lies, lies, and more lies. People going along with the lies. People becoming the lie. There is no strong political movement that can stand on this amount of deception at this level of importance. It will collapse, it's just a matter of how long we want to go along with it before we stop contributing to it.
Chapter 14: These Are The Things That Happen
"Trump tweeted again. He certainly did not take responsibility. He did not condemn the violence, or call for the people who stormed the Capitol and brutally beat law-enforcement officers to be held accountable. Instead he justified the attack: "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away." Then Trump urged his supporters to "remember this day forever," as if it were something to celebrate."
Growing up in a Republican family and community, it's so surreal to see all the people who taught me about how important responsibility is, have embraced irresponsibility. They have defended the indefensible. If you don't care about what is transcendently good or evil, we can all come up with justifications for why our wrongdoing is good.
"On the night of January 6, law-enforcement officers in tactical gear were seated on the floor, leaning up against every statue and all around the walls of the room, exhausted from the battle they had fought to defend the Capitol. I walked around the room thanking them for what they had done.
One said to me, "Ma'am, I fought in Iraq and I have never encountered the violence I did out there today.
Then he repeated the point to make sure I understood: "It was medieval and bloodthirsty."'
"Because of the bravery of the Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police, and all the law-enforcement officers who fought the rioters that day, we and our republic were preserved. But the battle was far from over."
It's pretty wild that the mob on January 6th was more violent than this soldier's experience in the Iraq war. But, since people want to justify the events or dismiss them, they'll come up with morally impoverished reasons for why it wasn't so bad, paving the way for it to happen again.
Chapter 15: He Was Going to Let The Travesty Go On
"Despite the brutal violence, destruction, and death at the Capitol, despite the fact that Donald Trump's lies— the same lies Republicans were telling to justify the objections — had mobilized the mob and caused the attack, McCarthy was going to let the travesty go on. Kevin McCarthy lacked the courage and the honor to abide by his oath to the Constitution."
I was aware of the events and details of January 6th because of watching them live and because I watched all the January 6th hearings. What was new about reading Liz Cheney's book is how much of the corruption of Trump now pervades Republican leadership. It's not just Trump, it's almost all of the Republican party. They are an extension of his whims. This includes many people who vehemently opposed Trump in 2016 and now strongly support him. Understanding why is an important question I'm working to understand so that I can communicate well about it.
"We cannot simply declare ourselves a national board of elections on steroids. The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken. If we overrule them all, it would damage our republic forever... If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral...
I will not pretend such a vote would be a harmless protest gesture while relying on others to do the right thing. I will vote to respect the people's decision and defend our system of government as we know it.
What McConnell said that night in the Senate is what McCarthy should have said in the House. But Kevin McCarthy had an entirely different agenda — one based on personal ambition, not principle."
I'm grateful we have the constitutional and legal constraints we do, because, without them, things would have taken a horrible turn for the worse in our country. That should help sober us up, that we don't want to drive the car on the edge of the cliff.
"Ultimately, despite the carnage of the day, eight United States senators voted to object to electoral votes in Pennsylvania or Arizona: Senators Cruz, Hawley, Hyde-Smith, Kennedy, Lummis, Marshall, Scott, and Tuberville. All told, 139 House members voted in favor of objections that evening, including Leader McCarthy and Whip Scalise."
It's so despicable that they embraced the lie and went along with this vote. What we practice is what we become. When we practice the lie, we become the lie.
"The January 6 attack was an assault on our constitutional republic. As Congress finished our work early on January 7, President Trump still had not condemned the attack or committed to leave office."
And now, in March 2024, we not only have a former president who does not condemn the actions of January 6th, he encourages them and says those who participated are wrongly being held as hostages. Trump is communicating that he wants something like that to happen again, for his supporters to do the same thing. That's the core idea behind calling them hostages and his words illuminate his distorted lie-based perspective of things.
How Should We Make Sense of January 6th?
This quote comes from a conversation on February 24th, 2023 with Charlie Sykes and Paul Ryan, former speaker of the US House of Congress from 2015 to 2019, at the University of Wisconsin.
Charlie Sykes: What do you think happend on January 6th and what should Republicans say about it?
Paul Ryan: "[Jan 6] was terrible, it was an Insurrection, it was violence...I believe it was a travesty and Trump is to blame, and he should be held accountable for it, at least politically speaking and the last thing we should do is try and whitewash it. We should castigate it. We should call it for what it was, say it should never happen again, make security adjustments, and condemn the heck out of it."
Additional Resources
- Read: Did Donald Trump Win The 2020 Election By A Large Margin?
- Read: Assault On the Capitol: 2021, 1917, 1792 (Insight from an expert on individual and group violence)
- Read: Oath & Honor by Liz Cheney: Part 1 — The Plot Against America — A Book Review & Commentary
- Read: Talking to the Angry Mob on the Street: A Citizen's Reflection For The Non-Crazies To Speak Up
- Watch: Interview: Changing Hearts — Loving Those Who Hate You — With Daryl Davis
- Read: Navigate The News in a Polarized World: Breaking the Chains of Cynical & Blind Loyalty
- Read: Decaying Civilization: A Brief Sketch of What is Wrong With Our (Western) Society
- Read: What Is Tribal (Secular) Morality? Our Underlying Societal Dynamic
- Read: Reflections on Tyranny, Allegiance, and Transformation
- Read: The Explosion of BeSpoke Realities: Making Sense of Our Reality Distortions
- Read: Alienation: Not Belonging and Seeing No Point to It
Book Commentary, Oath and Honor by Liz Cheney
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