- Violence has almost always played a role

in the establishment of democracy.

The United States was obviously founded

in a violent revolution,

which was not simply a revolution against the British,

but it was also a kind of civil war

fought against the Loyalists,

who were often treated with great violence.

In the United States, were expelled in many cases

or sort of driven to accept the American Revolution.

- The symbolism of the United States Capitol

has always been a point of celebration on one hand,

but also has been at the center of efforts of attack too,

when certain populations have decided

to launch a frontal assault against the American republic.

I think of, for example, the War of 1812,

and this is widely cited these days,

but when British forces rode up the Chesapeake Bay

and then up the Potomac River

and launched an assault on Washington, DC

and burned the building.

That was an effort to demonstrate

a strike at the very heart of Republican principles,

such that the message was received in the new republic

that it was not safe, it was not stable, it could not stand.

But then I also think of the political rancor

of the late 1840s and the early 1850s.

The politics of racial divide,

the politics of racial animus,

the efforts to protect slavery became so vicious

that many who represented the nation

and who were members of the House or senators

went to their offices armed, went into the Senate Chambers

or the House Chambers armed

and they were not necessarily armed

against attack from without, but they were armed

against attack from within, from their own colleagues.

- There have been times in American history

when members of Congress worried about the public showing,

(laughs) showing their thoughts and feelings

with violence in The Capitol against Congress.

One of those moments is in the 1850s,

in which there's a North Carolina congressman,

with the wonderful name David Outlaw,

who is worried because there's a slavery debate

that's getting really heated.

And he writes to a friend and says, in this letter,

he's worried because if the debate becomes ugly,

he would easily expect

that the people swarming around The Capitol, the public,

which could be scores and scores of people,

might swarm into the House and or Senate Chamber

and really encourage and enforce bloody violence.

He's so worried about that, that he and a friend

count the number of men in the House

who they think are armed.

They count roughly 40 or 50 men that they assume are armed,

which in and of itself is fascinating.

It's really hard to find that kind of information.

But again, the idea that the public may get

emotionally upset and then rush into Congress

and inflict their demands in a violent way,

it's not new to 2021.

- I think the era of Reconstruction and just afterwards

had events, which are the most, are the most similar

to things that happened on January 6th.

Mobs trying to overturn democratically elected governments.

In Reconstruction, you had, let's say,

the Colfax massacre in Louisiana, where armed whites,

I mean really armed, with cannons and things like that,

assaulted the county courthouse in a parish

as they call it in Louisiana,

and a black militia unit was there

defending the local government

and they eventually surrendered and some number of them,

scores of them were killed after surrendering

by this white mob.

Or after Reconstruction, in the late 19th century,

The Wilmington Riot of 1898, where again,

a locally, in Wilmington, North Carolina,

an elected biracial government overturned

by, again, armed whites who forced the members

of the Wilmington Municipal Government to resign

and flee the city.

So mobs trying to overturn democratic elections

are not necessarily new in American history,

but it has happened enough that we have to realize

it's a symbol of a problem with democracy

or a problem with people accepting the legitimacy

of everybody having a say in our political democratic,

democratic system.

- So January 6th represents the collision

of three different streams of militant right activism.

One is the white power movement.

People you see who were organized,

who showed up in vests and tactical gear, wearing radios,

who talked about bringing in weapons

and who, from the early reports, seemed to have instigated

the attack on the building.

The second stream is QAnon.

QAnon is peddling a very old set of conspiracy theories.

We've had some version of the idea of a cabal of elites

harming white women and children around

since the protocols of the Elders of Zion, if not earlier.

And then the last stream, the biggest one,

is the Trump base that was motivated enough to go out

and protest what they thought was a stolen election.

And that group ranges from deeply committed

to sort of people who may have just been there

to attend a rally.

The militant right and the white power movement

present imminent threats to American democracy,

whether they are advocating for race war,

which presents a clear and present danger

to American people and to democratic process,

or whether they're advocating for authoritarianism.

Either way,

this is a fundamentally anti-democratic groundswell.