New York Times editorial board argues that January 6 was 'worse than it looked'

The storming of the Capitol on January 6 by Trump supporters has been compared to the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Sen. Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden has noted that not even during the Civil War “did insurrectionists breach the Capitol.” It’s October now, and the New York Times editorial board is still telling us that January 6 was “worse than it looked,” which isn’t hard to believe going by new surveillance camera video released in September by a judge’s order.

Jan. 6 Was Worse Than It Looked https://t.co/K5bUtV1st8

— Sam Harris (@SamHarrisOrg) October 2, 2021

The editorial board, fortunately, didn’t bring up that Capitol Police officer who was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher, a fiction the paper finally corrected in mid-February. But it does have a wish list of things it would like changed to be sure democracy is never threatened again. The editorial board writes:

However horrifying the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol appeared in the moment, we know now that it was far worse.

The country was hours away from a full-blown constitutional crisis — not primarily because of the violence and mayhem inflicted by hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters but because of the actions of Mr. Trump himself.

…

The threats to a free and fair presidential election don’t come from Congress alone. Since Jan. 6, Republican-led state legislatures have been clambering over one another to pass new laws making it easier to reject their own voters’ will, and removing or neutralizing those officials who could stand in the way of a naked power grab — like Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, did when he resisted Mr. Trump’s personal plea to “find” just enough extra votes to flip the outcome there.

…

Democrats should push through these reforms now, and eliminate the filibuster if that’s the only way to do so. If they hesitate, they should recall that a majority of the Republican caucus in the House — 139 members — along with eight senators, continued to object to the certification of electoral votes even after the mob stormed the Capitol.

The editorial board reminds us that Trump “insisted over and over” that Georgia’s election was rife with “large-scale voter fraud,” and yet large-scale voter suppression was one reason Democrats in Congress objected to the certification of Trump’s electoral votes. We’ll have to check back issues of the Times to see how they reported on that threat to democracy.

Related:

Judge orders federal prosecutors to release new collection of Capitol surveillance videos from January 6 https://t.co/ce2mh7thE7

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) September 23, 2021