Jan. 6 assault reflected a deep American division: Whose democracy is it?

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Jan. 6 assault reflected a deep American division: Whose democracy is it?
Trump's rioters represented a deep, dark current in American history: Restricting democracy to a chosen few

By GREGG BARAK
Contributing Writer
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 20, 2022 6:00AM (EST)


(Salon) The enemies of democracy who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, aiming to overturn a presidential election were in effect privileging their votes over those of the majority of voters. After their side had lost the election, as well as the various recounts and court challenges, these rioters followed the lead of the losing incumbent president in his attempt to overturn the election results by force and violence. That president has now been referred to the Justice Department for possible prosecution on a number of criminal charges, an unprecedented step taken by the House select committee investigating the insurrection, which is sure to be dissolved with the new Congress next month.

The actions of the lame-duck president's supporters and those members of Congress who voted later that night not to certify the election of Joe Biden shared an evident belief that all people are not in fact equal, and that some are more deserving of rights than others. In defiance of the law and the Constitution, these Trumpist loyalists were in effect weaponizing citizenship, in the phrase of Michael Belleisles, by "claiming a determinative right as 'real Americans,' the embodiment of the 'true America,' to place themselves in a category of citizenship enjoying certain" inalienable rights that are denied to others.

Democracy, from its Greek roots kratia, means to rule by demos or the people. More precisely, democracy refers to a polity ruled by free, as contrasted with unfree (or enslaved), people. This concept of democracy, which always embodies concepts of privilege and inequality, has its roots in the historical distinction between citizens with the franchise to vote and subjects without it. From its inception, our nation has always been something other than a democracy, as initially most members of American society were subjects of the law, not citizens or rulers of the law.

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As presidential historian Michael Bellesiles, also quoted above, has written:

The concept of equality shapes definitions of citizenship. If we think that some people deserve more rights than others, then citizenship takes different forms for different groups. The January 6 insurrectionists expressed a certainty that their opinions mattered more, reflecting a heritage that has denied the full citizenship of non-whites. In some ways, their perspective is accurate, since the inequality of citizenship rights is built into our political system. The Senate and Electoral College ensure that some people always matter more than others. For instance, Wyoming's 575,000 people have the same representation in the Senate as California's 40 million … while the 700,000 residents of Washington, D.C., have no political citizenship in the Senate.

Ideally, a democracy should be one person, one vote, at least on those things that impact the commonwealth and affect all of us. To this very day, the ongoing struggle to fulfill the ideals, if not truths, held by the authors of the Declaration of Independence that all people are equal and entitled to the same unalienable rights, is still a work in progress. Likewise, the ongoing struggles to establish local, state and national governments whose democratic powers are derived from the consent of all the governed is also a work in progress. The United States will remain an imperfect union until such time as all these political struggles are realized in full measure. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2022/12/20/jan-6-reflected-a-deep-american-division-whose-democracy-is-it/