I will never forget watching Donald Trump on January 6

This is an exclusive excerpt from “Citizen: My Life After the White House.” The book will be published by Knopf on November 19, 2024.

All of these efforts for a shared America are made more difficult when one party believes that the main purpose of power is to hold on to it as long as possible, and that once in control it will try to change the rules for this to happen. When dealing with Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America supporters during my second term, Gingrich told Erskine Bowles, my chief of staff who also led my budget negotiations, that I was a great politician but that I was at a disadvantage against more militant Republicans because I wasted time and energy on efforts that did not increase Democrats' power, such as reinstating benefits for illegal immigrants (the term which we used at the time) who paid taxes but could not vote. He said to Erskine: “The president really believes that we should all live by the same rules, doesn't he?” Erskine replied: Yes. We believe this is what true democracy requires. Gingrich responded: We don't believe that. We believe that everyone we elect or appoint must first do what is best for our party. Then we can talk about the rest. During the Trump presidency, Senator McConnell proved this by rushing through Barrett's confirmation after blocking the vote on President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland for over eight months.

The most extreme example of this single-minded determination to seize and maintain power at all costs occurred on January 6, the day both houses of Congress met to certify Joe Biden's victory in 2020. Trump's claim to be the true winner of the race angered the crowd so much that he whipped it into a frenzy by claiming the election was stolen from him, even though judges across the country , including some named by him, had quickly found the accusations. baseless. The judges respected the law. Did all voters have the opportunity to vote and were votes counted correctly? But Trump and his supporters didn't calculate the scores that way. The only question that mattered to them was: did we win?

There was a method to Trump’s madness. He had lost Arizona by about 10,000 votes, Georgia by just under 12,000, and Wisconsin by just over 20,000. If he could have had those states' votes overturned, the electoral vote would have been tied, sending the election to the House of Representatives, where each state gets one vote, and Trump would have won re-election, despite losing about seven million votes in the election. a huge participation. At least Putin's social media efforts to get people to vote for Jill Stein or stay home didn't work this time. Perhaps our intelligence community had figured out how to plug at least one hole in the dam of our democracy.

As I watched the crowd of thousands march toward the Capitol on live television, I couldn't help but think of the chaos that had erupted in Charlottesville during the Unite the Right rally a few years earlier, and its tragic result. The Jan. 6 crowd included professionals, business owners, police officers, and retired and current military personnel, all fired up by Trump's lies and on the move to try to stop the democratic process in its tracks.

In 2017, I wrote a review of Ron Chernow's compelling biography of President Grant for the New York Times Book Review. The events in Charlottesville gave prominence to Grant's efforts during Reconstruction to establish the Justice Department and to his strong support for its successful efforts to dismantle the Ku Klux Klan. I wrote that in the wake of Charlottesville, the events of Grants' presidency seemed, in many ways, as much a mirror as a history lesson. Three and a half years later, the Jan. 6 attempt to overturn the vote count offered an even more chilling parallel.

Much has been written about the events that occurred when these thousands of people, encouraged by Trump, reached their destination. The images are seared into our memory for me, the photo of the Arkansan with his feet on what he thought was Speaker Nancy Pelosis desk and a stun gun in his waistband was particularly piercing. Richard Barnett, a retired firefighter from Gravette, a town in northwest Arkansas, was convinced that, according to prosecutors, the United States would be taken over by communists if President-elect Biden became president and was prepared to do whatever it takes. including occupying the Capitol, to prevent this from happening. He prepared for this violence by arming himself with a stun device and a ten-pound steel pole, both capable of inflicting serious bodily injury. And then he went to Washington, D.C., with these weapons.

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Barnett is serving four and a half years in prison for his actions, and as of this writing, more than 1,400 people have been charged with crimes related to the Capitol attack, and more than 880 people have been convicted. The Justice Department has estimated that around 2,000 people have committed crimes and investigations are ongoing. All these ordinary people, from all walks of life and convinced that they were patriots, were so moved by Trump's lies, relayed by the right-wing media, that they attacked their own government.

Many Republican members of Congress, who hid behind their desks, stacked furniture against their office doors to keep out rioters, or fled to safety, denounced the attacks immediately after they occurred. produced. Unfortunately, after Trump denied what happened, even criticizing law enforcement officers who risked their lives to protect members of both parties, most Republicans completely changed their minds. Trump asked them the question we've all heard in bad jokes: Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? Those who turned to Trump and said: You, Master, lived to fight another day. Of the few who remained loyal to their lying eyes, most either left public office or were expelled by voters in their hand-picked constituencies. It was almost comical to see some of the GOP members photographed defending themselves whitewashing the entire episode. Republicans said support for police mysteriously evaporated when it came to officers killed or injured defending the Capitol and members of both parties among Trump's foot soldiers.

Of course, Trump didn't invent this ability to set aside law and facts to cling to power, but it's a parade he was happy to lead. Some people saw strength and conviction in Trump's denial: this is how democracy disappears from within.

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