In the follow-up to their 2018 bestseller “How Democracies Die,” authors Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky write about three rules that political parties must follow: accept the results of fair elections, reject the use of violence to gain power and break ties to extremists.
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, they write, only one U.S. political party “violated all three.”
Saturday marks the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and Donald Trump, the former president, is far-and-away the leading Republican candidate in 2024. He still refuses to acknowledge his earlier loss to President Joe Biden. Far from rejecting the rioters, he has suggested he would pardon some of those who have been convicted of violent crimes. Rather than distance himself from extremists, he welcomes them at his rallies and calls them patriots.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — In the follow-up to their 2018 bestseller “How Democracies Die,” authors Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky write about three rules that political parties must follow: accept the results of fair elections, reject the use of violence to gain power and break ties to extremists.
While the Congress returned that night to certify the election results and show the world democracy was still standing, Biden said Trump is now trying to revise the narrative of what happened that day — calling the rioters “patriots” and promising to pardon them.
At a quieter Capitol, without much ceremony planned for Saturday, it will be the last time the anniversary will pass before Congress is called upon again, on Jan. 6, 2025, to certify the results of the presidential election – democracy once more put to the test.
A giant portrait of George Washington resigning his military commission hangs in the U.S. Capitol, a symbol of the voluntary relinquishing of power — a move that was considered breathtaking at the time.
More than 1,200 people have been charged in the riot, with nearly 900 convicted, including leaders of the extremist groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who are serving lengthy terms for seditious conspiracy.
Trump has called Jan. 6 defendants “hostages” and said there was so much love at the “Stop the Steal” rally he held near the White House that day before he encouraged the mob to march down Pennsylvania Avenue, assuring he would be with them at the Capitol, though he never did join.
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