While 2021 was a very challenging year in many respects, the new year is bringing some hopeful signs of better days ahead for restoring our democracy. When times look bad, it’s good to have reason for hope to keep us all going.
It has been a full year since the violent attack on our nation’s Capitol which killed five people and seriously injured over 100 police officers. More and more Americans are wondering whether those who conspired to overthrow our government will ever be held accountable.
Hope in the Department of Justice
On Wednesday, the day before the first anniversary of the insurrection, Attorney General Merrick Garland assured the nation that, “The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law, whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy. We will follow the facts wherever they lead.”[1] That means Donald Trump, the conspirator-in-chief, is not out of the woods and may very well be prosecuted and brought to justice.
Hope in President Biden
The next day, President Biden “ripped into Trump’s subversion of democracy and the refusal of most Republicans to stand up to the former president’s lies. In what was by far the most passionate, forceful and effective speech of his presidency, he moved democracy to the center of the nation’s political debate,” according to Washington Post political columnist E. J. Dionne Jr.[2]
Biden declared, “You cannot love your country only when you win…You can’t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies.” And he placed the responsibility on “all of us…to stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame of democracy…(and) keep the promise of America alive.”[3] Hopefully, Americans of all political stripes will respond to Biden’s call. And it appears that they are doing just that.
Hope in Former Trump Administration Officials
A growing number of Republicans are working to prevent both another Trump presidency as well as more political violence undermining our democracy. Stephanie Grisham, former press secretary in the Trump White House, is helping to organize this effort. In the White House on January 6th, she observed that Trump was “gleeful” watching his supporters attacking the Capitol.[4] Another key organizer, former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, Miles Taylor, also co-founded the Renew America Movement, a group to support candidates across the political spectrum that identify as being in favor of reforms to strengthen democracy.[5]
Meanwhile, numerous members of former Vice President Pence’s staff are cooperating with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection. They include former chief of staff, Marc Short, as well as his former national security adviser, Keith Kellogg. In addition, “multiple tiers of Pence’s staff who were at the White House on Jan. 6 have been “integral” in helping the committee flesh out what happened.”[6]
The committee, of course, is the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection. The nation is being well served by its members and their work. Just think where the committee might be now due to Republican obstructive tactics, if House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had kept the rest of his Republican picks on the committee after Speaker Pelosi refused to accept Trump allies Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks.[7]
Hope in former Republican officials
Staunch conservative, Bill Kristol, a former adviser to President Reagan, has formed Defending Democracy Together with other Never-Trump Republicans. The organization is dedicated to defending America’s democratic norms, values, and institutions. It recently hired lobbyists in an attempt to rein in presidential emergency powers, refine the federal government’s war powers and clarify Congress’s subpoena authority.[8]
Even ruthless Republicans like Karl Rove are denouncing the attack on the Capitol and demanding justice. He recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
To move beyond Jan. 6, 2021, we must put country ahead of party…There can be no soft-pedaling what happened and no absolution for those who planned, encouraged and aided the attempt to overthrow our democracy. Love of country demands nothing less. That’s true patriotism.[9]
Hope in Liz and Dick Cheney
The only Republican official who participated in the Capitol commemoration of the January 6th attack this past Thursday was Rep. Liz Cheney, Vice-chair of the Select Committee. Ironically enough, she brought her dad, Dick Cheney, along with her. The former vice-president, you may remember, was the mastermind of the Bush Administration and its fabricated justification for the immoral Iraq War.
Here’s what the elder Cheney had to say:
I am deeply disappointed at the failure of many members of my party to recognize the grave nature of the January 6 attacks and the ongoing threat to our nation.[10]
Hope for Democracy
A pro-democracy movement is growing across the political spectrum. The struggle for the soul of America is far from over. Hopefully, this movement will prevail and, as Lincoln pronounced in the midst of the bloody Civil War, our nation “shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”[11]
Bruce Berlin, J.D.
A retired, public sector ethics attorney, Berlin is the author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America (See breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.), the founder of New Mexicans for Money Out of Politics, a former U.S. Institute of Peace fellow, and the founder and former executive director of The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution. He can be reached at breakingbigmoneysgrip@gmail.com.
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[1] https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4994302/attorney-general-pledges-january-6-attack-perpetrators-held-accountable
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/06/biden-tells-truth-best-speech-his-presidency/
[3] Ibid.
[4] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/stephanie-grisham-trump-gleefully-watched-jan-6-1280113/
[5] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/06/former-administration-officials-block-trump-526623
[6] https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mike-pence-staff-giving-goods-021846346.html
[7] https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/21/politics/nancy-pelosi-rejects-republicans-from-committee/index.html
[8] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/07/anti-trump-group-led-by-bill-kristol-hires-lobbyists-to-push-presidential-power-reform.html
[9] https://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-jan-6-responsibility-anniversary-riot-storm-capitol-trump-protesters-investigation-11641417707
[10] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/01/06/dick-cheney-surprise-visit-capitol-jan-6-riot/9122457002/
[11] https://legacyneuro.com/gettysburg-address/
Breaking Big Money's Grip on America 