David Corn: The Lesson of January 6: Tragedy Does Not Yield National Unity

[babylonsister]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/01/the-lesson-of-january-6-tragedy-does-not-yield-national-unity/

1 hour ago
The Lesson of January 6: Tragedy Does Not Yield National Unity
Trump and his cult have turned 1/6 into ammo for their war on democracy.
David Corn


There is a notion that great tragedies unite a nation. Remember the increase in civility that immediately followed the shock and horror of 9/11? But this idea is largely a myth, and the first-year anniversary of the Trump-incited insurrection at the US Capitol is a reminder that calamities do not bring together a country. In fact, they can further divide.

Anniversaries are prime time for pollsters. Surveys conducted to mark our first full trip around the sun since Donald Trump’s brownshirts, fueled by his Big Lie, stormed into Congress seeking to block the peaceful transfer of power, show that the past 12 months have only served to widen the gulf between rational adherents of democracy and those citizens willing to be led by a demagogue into the dangerous wasteland of criminality and authoritarianism.

snip//

And look at the Trump years. Charlottesville, George Floyd, the Las Vegas shooting, a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans (with many of those deaths preventable). None of these dreadful events spurred civility and productive conversation across the political divide. (Right-wingers red-baited the Black Lives Matter movement as a Marxist threat to the security of the nation.) Awful occurrences tend to widen the tears in our social fabric, as they compel people who cling to misguided and unfounded notions to cling harder. They become not reasons to reassess, but ammunition for the continuing political and cultural battles. Trump and his cultists now point to January 6 as the natural—and justified—reaction to the real insurrection that occurred over a year ago when the election was stolen (fact-check: not stolen) from Trump.

The latest news out of the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is that it has obtained firsthand testimony that Trump was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the assault on television while it proceeded. As Trump gazed at the screens, members of his staff pleaded with him to go on television and tell people to stop. McCarthy, on the phone, was beseeching him. And at least twice his daughter Ivanka went in to request that Trump do something to halt the violence. Still, Trump persisted…in watching, no doubt hoping the chaos would bolster his scheme to overturn the election by preventing the congressional certification of Biden’s victory. This is a crime that we don’t need any further evidence of. (There are plenty of other matters for the committee to probe.) We all witnessed it that day: Trump did nothing, as his people—QAnoners, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, Proud Boys, toy soldiers, and others—rampaged at the nation’s citadel of democracy to thwart constitutional governance.

To be repelled by Trump’s action—or inaction—and the conduct of his mob on January 6 would be too much of a shock to the system for a Trump loyalist. It would require disowning a foundational belief in Trump. And as McConnell, McCarthy, and Graham have illustrated, the political tide of this cultism is too tough a current to swim against. Any opportunity for January 6 to yield common cause or a valuable reckoning was a mirage. One crucial point of Trumpism is the lack of desire to reconcile or seek commonality. In many, if not most, cases, national tragedies do not heal; they clarify the rifts that exist. They reveal where the fight is and what work must be done.

[Solly Mack]

1. It's hard to find commonality with those who want an advantage or even capitulation instead of

looking at our shared humanity - and that tells you more about what motivates them than anything.

And it ain't economic concerns.

[JHB]

2. Tragedy does not yield unity when some find disunity to be very satisfying and profitable

When your business model depends on sewing outrage and division, when your very identity is defined by despising those people and laying scorn on them with a trowel the size of an airplane wing, you can't just shift gears and be "unified".

Not when "unity" in your mind means "my way or the highway."