The Week Ahead

January 5, 2024

Joyce Vance Jan 6

Monday is the anniversary of January 6. Even though technically it’s the fourth anniversary, it feels like the first one in a way, because it’s the first time since the 2001 insurrection that Congress will certify a new president. There is no concern over whether Congress will be able to do its job, and not to put too fine of a point on it, but that’s because Trump won. Had he lost, there is no telling where we’d be right now. This is small comfort for what we face with his return.

Last Thursday, President Biden honored a group of people, including Liz Cheney, with Presidential Citizen Medals, an award for people who render exemplary deeds of service to their country or their fellow citizens. Trump’s response was predictable. He called Cheney and others involved in the January 6 investigation “dishonest Thugs.”

Cheney responded: “Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic—to protect the America we love from you.”

One way of protecting the country we love is keeping our memories of the events of January 6, 2021, strong and fresh. For too many people, the outrage has slipped away over time. Elected Republicans who took to the floor on January 6 after they were able to return to the Capitol no longer seem to remember the anger, the fear, and the outrage that animated them to protect our country on that day. Following the January 6 attack, Lindsey Graham said, “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.” Mitch McConnell said Trump was "practically and morally responsible" for the attack. Today, at least publicly, Republicans have lined up behind Donald Trump, supporting him. January 6 has been effectively memory-holed. It’s the moral equivalent of no longer being outraged by Pearl Harbor or 9/11.

It's important for us to remember January 6 with clarity for what it was, an attack on the Constitution and the country. I hope you’ll share your stories from that day in the comments. Saturday night at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump celebrated the insurrection with many of his Fulton County, Georgia co-conspirators and other supporters on view. We need to reject that effort to normalize the insurrection with an accurate history of those events as Donald Trump, inexplicably, returns to office.

Me, around 11 pm on January 6, 2021, shortly before I realized I was going to have to tear up the syllabus for the democratic institutions class I was about to teach, because it could no longer be approached in the traditional way.

Donald Trump on January 6, 2021

This week we will watch Jimmy Carter’s final progress from his home in Georgia to the nation’s Capitol and back to Georgia. But Carter would not have been one to sing a dirge for democracy; he would have demanded its restoration. Jonathan Alter, who wrote a Carter biography in 2020, spoke this weekend on MSNBC about how Carter decided to enter politics instead of pursuing civil rights advocacy, despite some qualms, because he wanted to get into government and be able to do something about the problems he saw. He mentioned that during his time in Georgia politics, Carter would even manage the occasional friendly nod in segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace’s direction.

Hearing that reminded me of one of my favorite stories about my mother-in-law, a story I heard from a federal bankruptcy judge named Clifford Fulford, who had been with my in-laws at the University of Alabama and remained close to them throughout their lives. From 1951 to 1952, my father-in-law was the president of the Student Government Association, and like many of the people who held that office, went on to play a role in party politics in Alabama, serving as the state Democratic Party chair before becoming a judge. He was at odds with Wallace—they had a fundamental disagreement over matters of race—and fought him, successfully, for control of Alabama’s Democratic Party.

But on one occasion, Clifford found himself seated in the front row next to my mother-in-law, as my father-in-law introduced Governor Wallace to speak. He told me he thought it was a pretty vanilla introduction, but apparently, my mother-in-law, who staunchly and unapologetically believed in civil rights, thought it was too glowing. Clifford said that as the entire audience rose to give Wallace a standing ovation, he looked down beside him to see my mother-in-law, arms crossed and a disgusted look on her face, remaining seated. “What did you do?” I asked him. “Oh,” he responded, “I sat right back down next to Miss Helen,” adding “I would not have wanted to be Bob Vance when he got home.”

We need the leadership of men like Jimmy Carter who believe in civil rights and human rights and are willing to do the hard work it takes to protect them, valuing people over their own personal popularity. We also need the wisdom of America’s women and others who understand that sometimes, there is a moment to stay seated. As Democrats make tentative overtures and talk about bipartisanship at the start of this new administration, it’s important to understand that while there are moments for compromise, which is the only way government works, there are some things we cannot, and must not, compromise on. January 6 is chief among them. We cannot and must not pretend that Donald Trump did not inspire an insurrection. We should not forget that despite being reelected in 2024, he tried to steal the 2020 election.

January 6 should be the day we recommit to democracy, every single year. It must not become they day we forget about it.

We’re in this together,

Joyce