Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has told associates that he believes President Trump committed impeachable offenses and that he is pleased that Democrats are moving to impeach him, believing that it will make it easier to purge him from the party, according to people familiar with his thinking. The House is voting on Wednesday to formally charge Mr. Trump with inciting violence against the country. At the same time, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California,…

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The New York Times reports: Before self-proclaimed members of the far-right group the Proud Boys marched toward the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, they stopped to kneel in the street and prayed in the name of Jesus. The group, whose participants have espoused misogynistic and anti-immigrant views, prayed for God to bring “reformation and revival.” They gave thanks for “the wonderful nation we’ve all been blessed to be in.” They asked God for the restoration of their “value systems,” and for…

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Benjamin Parker writes: Remember the alt-right? The sludge of white supremacists, misogynists, neo-Nazis, and various chauvinists leaked out of the putrid corners of the internet in the years leading up to Donald Trump’s election. Although their various hatreds, grievances, and conspiracy theories were old, they saw themselves as something new. Their very name placed them in opposition to the status quo. They weren’t the American right, the coalition that included politicians like then-House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sens. Jeff Flake…

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Adam Serwer writes: They were business owners, CEOs, state legislators, police officers, active and retired service members, real-estate brokers, stay-at-home dads, and, I assume, some Proud Boys. The mob that breached the Capitol last week at President Donald Trump’s exhortation, hoping to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, was full of what you might call “respectable people.” They left dozens of Capitol Police officers injured, screamed “Hang Mike Pence!,” threatened to murder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and set…

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NBC News reports: Right-wing extremists are using channels on the encrypted communication app Telegram to call for violence against government officials on Jan. 20, the day President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated, with some extremists sharing knowledge of how to make, conceal and use homemade guns and bombs. The messages are being posted in Telegram chatrooms where white supremacist content has been freely shared for months, but chatter on these channels has increased since extremists have been forced off other platforms…

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Fiona Hill writes: Since last Wednesday, people have been arguing what to call what happened at the U.S. Capitol – was it a riot? An uprising? An insurrection? I’ve been public in calling it a coup, but others disagree. Some have said it’s not a coup because the U.S. military and other armed groups weren’t involved, and some because President Donald Trump didn’t invoke his presidential powers in support of the mob that broke into the Capitol. Others point out…

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CNN reports: Two US Capitol Police officers were suspended and up to 15 more are under investigation for their behavior during last week’s assault on the Capitol, and federal agents will look at whether current and former law enforcement officers played a role in the riot. One of the Capitol police officers took a selfie with someone who was part of the mob that overtook the Capitol and the other wore a “Make America Great Again” hat and started directing…

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Hakeem Jefferson writes: It is not by chance that most of the individuals who descended on the nation’s capital were white, nor is it an accident that they align with the Republican Party and this president. Moreover, it is not a coincidence that symbols of white racism, including the Confederate flag, were present and prominently displayed. Rather, years of research make clear that what we witnessed in Washington, D.C., is the violent outgrowth of a belief system that argues that…

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Miranda Green writes: Ashli Babbitt did not hide her far-right political views. Outside her San Diego bungalow, located blocks from the beach, she flew both an American flag and a QAnon flag emblazoned with a giant Q and the acronym WWG1WGA, for “Where we go one, we go all.” She plastered her SUV with pro-Trump bumper stickers and a Blue Lives Matter flag. On the door of the local pool-servicing company that she ran with her husband, uncle, and brother,…

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Timothy Snyder writes: When Donald Trump stood before his followers on Jan. 6 and urged them to march on the United States Capitol, he was doing what he had always done. He never took electoral democracy seriously nor accepted the legitimacy of its American version. Even when he won, in 2016, he insisted that the election was fraudulent — that millions of false votes were cast for his opponent. In 2020, in the knowledge that he was trailing Joseph R….

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The New York Times reports: The advance publicity for the “March for America” had been robust. Beyond the repeated promotions in tweets by the president and his allies, the upcoming event was cheered on social media, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. But woven through many of the messages to stand up for Mr. Trump — and, if possible, block the congressional certification of the election he claimed he had won — was language that flirted with aggression, even violence. For…

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