This is an adapted excerpt from the Jan. 6 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
In 2018, in Coral Gables, Florida, then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi attended an event for Donna Shalala, a Democratic congressional candidate. In response, the local Republican Party in Miami-Dade County called for a protest of that event.
During that protest, members of the Proud Boys heckled and shouted expletives at Pelosi as she walked inside. That included Enrique Tarrio, the national head of the Proud Boys. At the time, Tarrio lived in South Florida. He now lives in federal prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years for trying to overthrow the U.S. government. On Monday, Tarrio’s lawyer wrote to Donald Trump formally asking the president-elect to pardon his client.
Another attendee of that 2018 protest was Miami-Dade County Commissioner Kevin Cabrera, who can be seen on video pounding the door of Shalala’s campaign office. Trump just named Cabrera as his pick to be the next U.S. ambassador to Panama.
We’re supposed to have a sharp line that keeps violent intimidation on one side and politics on the other — never the twain shall meet.
Cabrera defended his conduct, saying he was just exercising his right to protest, but it’s worth remembering that, at the time, Republicans were actually embarrassed by the display. The head of the Miami-Dade Republican Party later apologized for being there. Other Republicans, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, condemned the event.
Just more than six years later, Rubio is about to be nominated to be Trump’s secretary of state, and the guy who pounded on a door to try to scare Pelosi is set to report to him as a U.S. ambassador.
The reason that is repellent, the reason that is repulsive, is because we’re supposed to have a sharp line that keeps violent intimidation on one side and politics on the other — never the twain shall meet.
On Monday, the certification of the 2024 presidential election took place in Washington. It happened, ministerially and ceremonially, like it’s supposed to. That contrasts with what occurred four years ago on Jan. 6 and makes clear the profound difference between the parties.
Had Democrats won the presidential election, many openly expected and prepared for the possibility of Republicans launching a violent revolt. But if Republicans had won, it was expected Democrats would peacefully accept and participate in the transfer of power. When there’s an expectation of violence if one side loses in an electoral contest, then the political parties in that country are no longer competing in democratic terms.
That’s part of what we’re contending with at this moment: How do we ever get back to competition in democratic terms? How do we get the Republicans to no longer see physical force and armed conflict as the way they’re going to get their way?
Well, one big step backward from that as a goal will be Trump’s promised pardons of the people who committed violence in his name that day. The argument now appears to not be about whether Trump will issue pardons to people who took part in the attack on the Capitol, but just how many of them will get the pardon.
That’s led publications as diverse as the HuffPost and The Wall Street Journal editorial page to try to front page the details of the actual crimes for which some of these people were convicted.
“Andrew Taake pepper-sprayed police officers defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and hit one with a metal whip. He is serving 74 months at a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas,” HuffPost reported.
“Christopher Alberts carried a loaded 9 mm pistol onto Capitol grounds that day and hit police officers with a wooden pallet,” the report continued. “He is serving an 84-month sentence at the federal prison in Milan, Michigan.”
Another example from HuffPost: “Steven Cappuccio held his cell phone in his mouth so he could beat an officer using both of his hands, including with the officer’s own baton. He is doing 85 months at the federal prison in Forrest City, Arkansas.”
As the outlet noted, all three of those men will be back on the streets if Trump follows through on his pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
According to their analysis, “Of those serving a year or more in prison, a full 57% are there following a conviction in cases involving an assault on a police officer. In all, 83% serving a year-or-more were convicted of committing an act of violence.”
This means that, with few exceptions, the only people Trump could release from prison with his pardon power are those who attacked a police officer, possessed weapons or explosives, or were convicted of some other violent felony.
Then there’s the deeply conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page, which published a piece with the headline, “Trump’s Pardon Promise for Jan. 6 Rioters: Does it include the ex-meth trafficker who brought a metal baton and swung it at police?”
After describing some of the actions of these rioters in brutal detail, the editorial board goes on to write, “Pardoning such crimes would contradict Mr. Trump’s support for law and order, and it would send an awful message about his view of the acceptability of political violence done on his behalf.”
Now, I take issue with the Journal’s characterization that Trump has always supported law and order; he’s repeatedly praised violence in his name. But that last line is correct — it would send an awful message.
This Jan. 6, we saw the profound difference between the Democratic Party, offering democratic competition, win or lose, and the Republican Party’s threat of violence.
We saw the profound difference between the Democratic Party, offering democratic competition, win or lose, and the Republican Party’s threat of violence.
Yes, there’s an unnerving, unsettling, fight to remember what actually happened — to be real about how disgusting it all was — while the Trump movement and the Republicans try to say the attack was a bunch of heroes who have been wrongly persecuted for doing nothing wrong.
But there is an instrumental and practical question at hand, too. Which is, what happens to the future of political violence — in the very short term — if the people who committed violence on the president-elect’s behalf are sprung from prison and celebrated as vindicated heroes when Trump takes office again?
The idea that there is permeability between violence and politics, that what is supposed to be civic hallowed ground, is fouled by the rioting and looting we saw take place, in Trump’s name, on Jan. 6, 2021.
That is supposed to repel us and disgust us — indelibly. We are never supposed to acclimate to that. But the Trump side has. And so now, four years later, with just two weeks until Trump is back in power, we must be prepared for what could happen next.
Allison Detzel contributed.
