A year after 1/6/21: Ignoring a warning flare for democracy

A year after the Capitol insurrection, very little has changed as we remain a nation in search of common purpose and a unifying leader

There has been no shortage of opinion pieces on the meaning of the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021, as the anniversary of the event came near. Columnists have offered elaborate theories of what it meant then and what it suggests about our future. Apologists have fabricated detailed fantasies to try to justify/rationalize/explain the actions of the insurrectionists. The rest of us have tried to understand where this leaves our democracy both now and into the future.

Here’s what I find most disturbing a year after the insurrection: Very little has changed. The Republican Party remains very much a personality cult built around one man — a powerful warning about the ability of a charismatic leader to rally large numbers of Americans behind a cause, be it good or bad.

I left the Republican Party early in 2020, unwilling to identify with a party defined by Donald Trump and his racially charged grievance politics. Some may say that I was four years too late, given Trump’s egregious behavior. What became clear by 2020 was that few in the Republican Party were willing to distance the party from Trump – no matter what he did. This failure prompted my decision and sowed seeds of doubt in others.

Quite a few of my close acquaintances also left the party in the past two years. For some, January 6 was the final blow that convinced them to change a lifelong alliance. It was another example of the party prioritizing a person over principle. But voter registration data shows that my acquaintances and I represent a small sliver of voters.

The willingness of so many to follow one man presents a challenge to our democracy. Most Republicans like Trump – a lot. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted Oct. 15-18 showed that 86 percent of Republicans view Trump favorably. That’s not just a higher rating than any other current Republican, it’s a level of popularity that only Ronald Reagan has reached since regular popularity polling started.

That popularity means that Republicans who defy Trump risk their careers. Very few have shown a willingness to do that. Only 10 House Republicans voted to impeach Trump for his role in the insurrection. Most of them represent swing districts where Trump holds less sway than in most Republican districts. Only two Republican members of Congress, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, have been consistent Trump critics.

The near-unanimous party support for Trump reveals a winning-is-more-important-than-anything-else mindset that is as dangerous to democracy as any specific policy proposed by Trump, other Republicans or anyone else.

I assume Democrats, independents and nonaffiliated voters agree with most, if not all, of what I’ve written so far. But while supporters of Donald Trump shoulder the blame for the actions on January 6, we all share responsibility for the political climate that provided the kindling for that bonfire. He is a symptom of a much larger problem. If Trump suddenly announced he was going to be the first president of Mars and no longer was a factor in Republican politics, there still would be problems that need to be addressed – the same problems that allowed Trump to rise to power.

Political dysfunction tops that list. January 6 was a manifestation of that malady, not the cause of it. Contributors to the dysfunction include the never-compromise mindset of the two major political parties, a broken media model that financially rewards websites and cable news networks that serve partisan propaganda to viewers, candidates who dodge important-but-difficult issues in favor of poll-tested cultural rallying points, an electorate that increasingly associates only with with friends who share their views, and an increasing willingness of Americans to defend violence. 

While the worst actors currently reside in the Republican Party, Democrats are in denial if they ignore the possibility that an unscrupulous and charismatic progressive could mobilize the most radical members of the left.

The biggest change needed to prevent Trump or another charismatic populist – whether from the left or right – from threatening democracy involves individual commitment, not policy. There has been much discussion of election reform as a solution, or at least a partial solution, for what ails democracy. I favor many of these proposals, but make no mistake, the Voting Rights Acts, or open primaries or even my personal dream of a third party won’t address the twin problems of confrontational partisanship among those most involved in the political system and apathy among many who are uninvolved. Misinformation magnifies both problems.

To get at the root cause of so much of our political dysfunction and discord we must become more productively engaged in the political process, and to do that we must become more tolerant of people and ideas that are outside of our comfort zone and learn again how to talk to each other. Former Gov. John Kitzhaber wrote about this in a guest column for oregonlive.com last month. He described the environment he found in his hometown during a recent visit. While he was writing specifically about vaccine mandates, his thoughts apply to a range of issues in the current political environment.

Speaking of Roseburg residents, many of whom are unvaccinated, Kitzhaber wrote:

Mandating anything into this environment threatens one of the few things over which they feel they still have some control – their sense of freedom. And when their sense of freedom is threatened, it overpowers their sense of community.

That was the core problem before January 6, and it remains the core problem today. We have lost community as a nation. Instead of trying to restore it, many of our leaders have looked for a way gain enough power to force those who disagree with them to live the way that elected officials and activists think they should.

Most of these leaders and activists have taken more palatable approaches than the participants and instigators of the Capitol Insurrection. But the threat of anti-democratic crises will remain until we find a leader who can persuade people on both sides of issues to negotiate in good faith toward solutions that are palatable to both sides, which probably means those solutions won’t fully satisfy either side.

Whether January 6, 2021, marks a turning point in our democracy – a low point before a surge in communal efforts to solve problems – is up to us. If we continue to follow individuals like Trump, then we surely won’t make the necessary progress.

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Mark worked 20 years at The Oregonian in positions including business editor & editorial writer. He currently is a communications consultant.

photo credit: "US Capitol IMG_3819" by OZinOH is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0