America’s unending January 6 trauma

TODAY marks exactly three years since the January 6 attack on the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC, which saw an armed mob breach the premises and try to disrupt the certification of the US presidential election result.

If that previously unimaginable attempt to overthrow American democracy was so shocking as to have global reverberations, equally astonishing has been the aftermath.

Instead of receding quietly into the annals of history, the facts surrounding this insurrection are set to become even more relevant in the months ahead.

The events of January 6 are at the heart of the question of whether Donald Trump is eligible to run for US president yet again. The Colorado Supreme Court last month invoked Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which bars any person from holding office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US or gave “aid or comfort” to such efforts, and disqualified Mr Trump from the Republican party’s primary ballot. The state of Maine followed suit days later. Other states are likely to adjudicate on this issue soon.

Mr Trump wants the US Supreme Court to rule on the matter, and to rule expeditiously before Super Tuesday (March 5), when the greatest number of states hold their primary elections and caucuses to determine who will be the party candidate put forward for the national election.

His lawyers have, incredibly, argued, and many in the Republican party believe, that the events of January 6, 2021, were protected by the First Amendment’s associational rights. They also say it is undemocratic for the courts to decide who is on the ballot, conveniently ignoring that criminal conduct is not protected by the First Amendment and January 6 was the gravest assault on democracy in US history yet.

The people have a right to choose – but that right relates to candidates qualified for the job. It was Mr Trump himself, in fanning the flames of the notorious “birther” conspiracy alleging Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen of the US, who underlined this very issue of ballot eligibility years ago.

If the US Supreme Court takes the case – and if it does not, Mr Trump’s frontrunner status will effectively be shattered within the Republican party, given the possibility of state-by-state disqualifications – the prospect of a ruling will hang over Mr Trump’s head like the sword of Damocles. Whenever and however the justices rule, January 6 will be replayed over and over in the narrative about him in the weeks leading up to election day on November 5.

As he moves forward with his re-election bid, Joe Biden will today, in a major speech, return the focus to the events of January 6. In the coming weeks, he may not have to.