Five Years After the Coup

I didn't know if I would be able to post about the fifth anniversary of January 6. But I can't let it go unremarked, either. 

I have to refer to my posts from January 2021. I think they hold up pretty well:

• Less than 24 hours (January 6) 
• No shared reality, not even about the portapotties (January 9) 
• What do they want to see? (January 24) 
• Twitter: Insurrection, Inauguration, Reaction (January 31) 

Here are a few new things, first from BlueSky:

I know this feels impossible now, but I swear, on January 6 itself, there was a pretty broad bipartisan consensus that storming the Capitol to find and kill lawmakers was bad, and that Trump was responsible for inciting his followers to try it
Jay Willis

Why did this change?
1. Relentless propaganda by rightwing media complex, including Russia.
2. Corrupt elites, including news media.
3. Radical centrists who believed "woke" are more dangerous.
4. Biden/Garland misjudged the evil, had too much faith in exceptionalism.
5. American goldfish memory.
The Editorial Board

Samuel Alito flew two flags used by insurrectionists. Clarence Thomas' wife plotted to overturn the 2020 election. Both justices refused to recuse themselves from SCOTUS cases related to the January 6th plot. It's a stain on our nation that this has effectively been forgotten.
Robert Reich

Five years ago, Donald Trump instigated a violent insurrection in the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election. The fact that the GOP coddled him, protected him, renominated him, and now support him in office, is a stain that will never be erased.
Marc Elias

Two pieces of media from today should be preserved:

NPR created a Jan. 6 archive that brings together reporting, video, documents and testimony to show what really happened during the Capitol riot. It presents a timeline, with cases and evidence behind the attack. 

WAMU's 1A show spoke with three reporters who were at the U.S. Capitol that day, including Igor Bobic, who captured the video of Capitol policeman Eugene Goodman confronting the first rioters to enter the Capitol. 

It's arguable that the coup has turned out to be successful, given where we're at, though it didn't seem that way at the time.