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January 6 Commission



  • What Jill Lepore Got Right—And Wrong—About January 6 Committee

    The historian's critique of the committee's report—that it focused too narrowly on Trump and not enough on the far right movement—is undercut by a false equivalency that election denial and conspiratorial thinking are equally prevalent on the left and right of the spectrum. 



  • As a History of Insurrection, the January 6 Report is a Mess

    by Jill Lepore

    The Committee delivered a potent indictment of Donald Trump's responsibility for the events of January 6, but shed little light on the origins or the future of the antidemocratic insurrection and failed to tell a compelling story about what happened. 



  • Historians Predict How History Will Remember January 6

    Historians of the Civil War era including Manisha Sinha and Joanne Freeman, suggest that the Jan. 6 Committee has assembled a documentary record of events that can support a definitive understanding of events. But what politicians and voters make of the information will determine what history is written. 



  • Task of January 6 Committee? Don't Let the Plot Get Memory-Holed

    The compulsion to fit the past into a narrative about collective identity means that events like January 6 and the ugly truths about the scope and goals of the far right are likely to be consigned to the archives in a misguided attempt to "move on." 



  • There Are Two Ways America Can Go After January 6

    by Thomas Zimmer

    In some respects, the January 6 attack resembles the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. What should concern us is what could happen if the Justice Department decides to give similarly lenient treatment to the Capitol conspirators and their leader. 


  • The January 6 Committee and the Paranoid Style

    by Bruce W. Dearstyne

    Episodes consistent with the "paranoid style" recur with sufficient frequency in American history to make them a landmark of the culture. But it's less well understood how each individual episode has faded, insight we could use today. 



  • Liberals: The January 6 Hearings Won't Save Us

    by Daniel Bessner and Ben Burgis

    Liberals hoping the televised hearings will result in criminal charges or accountability for Trump and his accomplices are in denial about the culture of elite impunity in America. The Democratic Party can't hope that outrage over January 6 will help them in November. 


  • Don't Call them Conservatives

    by Alan J. Singer

    As we confront what is happening in this country, we need to stop calling the MAGA movement conservative.



  • History's Guidance to the January 6 Committee

    by Stephen A. West

    The 1872 report of the Congressional Ku Klux Klan Committee offers lessons for the January 6 Commission: expect partisans to weaponize the report, and don't trust "the judgment of history" to clear up doubts about culpability. 



  • The US Keeps Failing the January 6 Test

    by Nicole Hemmer

    Between Republican obfuscation and Democratic indifference, "it is fair to say that American democracy is in a far more tenuous position today than it was during the January 6 insurrection."