Capitol Riot 
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SOURCE: New York Times
4/6/2021
Fears of White People Losing Out Permeate Capitol Rioters’ Towns, Study Finds
Political scientist Robert Pape's work suggests that the prime driver of participation in the Capitol Riots was a sense that the election result reflected a threat to the power and influence of whites in American culture, with familiar echoes to racist and nativist movements of the past.
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SOURCE: CNN
3/3/2021
The Capitol Riot is an Eerie Repeat of this Tense Era in American History
Historian Brian K. Mitchell tells the story of Oscar James Dunn's service as the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction; Kate Masur also comments on Reconstruction era politics.
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SOURCE: Democracy Now
2/25/2021
“Decades in the Making”: How Mainstream Conservatives & Right-Wing Money Fueled the Capitol Attack
Author Brendan O'Connor says the Capitol riots were decades in the making, and discusses the history of ideology and institution-building on the right that organized the riots.
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2/21/2021
Don't Defend Democracy With Half-Truths About the Past
by Brook Thomas
Although the Capitol riots raised deep concern about the rule of law, there is a deeper challenge ahead of the nation: to understand and change the undemocratic aspects of our foundational law and refuse half-measures in the name of unity.
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2/21/2021
January 6, 2021: A Day of Populist Transgression
by Robert A. Schneider
The Capitol riot included a small core of actors bent on destruction, with many more along for the ride reveling in a moment of transgression. In this way, it was a microcosm of the Trumpian movement that, now unleashed, will be difficult to contain.
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2/21/2021
Cynicism and Political Blunder: A Postscript to “The January 6th Assault on Congress and the Fate of the GOP’s Faustian Bargain"
by Jeffrey Herf
Mitch McConnell's decision to condemn Trump after voting for his acquittal wasn't just an act of cowardice. The acts taken together constitute a major tactical blunder in the emerging battle for control of the Republican Party.
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2/14/2021
Political Violence: Still as American as Cherry Pie
by Alan J. Singer
SNCC leader H. Rap Brown declared that violence was "American as cherry pie" in 1967. Though his remarks were scorned then, he was correct, and no movement for justice can succeed without acknowledging it.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
2/9/2021
January 6 Was Just One Day in a Sustained Campaign
by Richard H. Pildes
A constitutional law professor argues for a broad perspective in the Senate trial; the questions at stake for the rule of law and Trump's accountability for a months-long effort to undermine democracy are too important to focus only on January 6.
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2/7/2021
You Call This a Peaceful Transfer of Power?
by Philip Gerard
"If we watched this scene play out in Argentina, Turkey, Ukraine, or Thailand, we would bemoan the failure of democracy, write about a fragile government battling rebel insurgents in its own capital, make dire predictions about how long such a government could stand."
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2/7/2020
Unforgettable Images, and Something New in TV News
by Ron Steinman
A month past the Capitol Riots, a veteran television news journalist observes that the coverage of the chaotic protest and breach of the Capitol relied on something new: masses of journalists and citizens (including the rioters) recording video on their phones where TV cameras couldn't operate, forming a rich and important composite of the day's events.
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SOURCE: Orlando Sentinel
2/4/2021
Senate Must Punish Trump For Capitol Riot: Commentary
by David Marks
"Inciting lethal violence against the government, based on lies and selfish goals, has grave consequences. And considering the likelihood that some angry devotees will continue to be violent in the wake of Trump’s ongoing unwarranted assertions, legal action is obligatory."
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
1/28/2021
Did Trump and His Supporters Commit Treason?
Carlton F.W. Larson has studied the legal history of treason. Until January 6, he argued that critics of Donald Trump were off base in leveling that charge.
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SOURCE: Keeping Democracy Alive
2/1/2021
January 6: Not Who We Are?
Verena Erlenbusch-Anderson discusses the Capitol riots, arguing that violence has long been a part of the battle for political legitimacy and authority in America.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
1/30/2021
Only Accountability Will Allow the U.S. to Move Forward
by Mitch Landrieu
Full accountability for the Capitol Riot is essential lest white supremacists and other extremists take the lesson that their actions are accepted and permitted. The white supremacist massacres of the post-Reconstruction period show that moving on without accountability is impossible.
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1/31/2021
Poverty, Politics and Pandemic: The Plague and the English Peasant's Revolt of 1381
by Alfred Thomas and Peter Rutland
Seen in a historical context of pandemic-induced paranoia, antisemitic conspiracy, and broad-based resentment, the English rebels start to look less like the innocent victims of tyranny and more like the Trump supporters who invaded the Capitol.
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1/31/2021
The January 6th Assault on Congress and the Fate of the GOP’s Faustian Bargain with Trump: Notes from German History
by Jeffrey Herf
It does not seem that even facing the prospect of death at the hands of a Trumpist mob will convince the Republican Party to abandon its bargain with Trump. German conservative elites made a choice to stay the course in the 1930s that led to national ruin and defeat.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/29/2021
When the Threat of Political Violence Is Real
by Joanne B. Freeman
Republican calls for unity refuse to claim responsibility and in some cases level the threat of further violence to bully colleagues out of holding Trump and his allies accountable for the Capitol riots of January 6. This is reminiscent of the climate of threat and violence in Congress in the 19th century ahead of the Civil War.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
1/21/2021
What Americans Across the Political Spectrum Got Wrong About the Attempted Insurrection
by Corrie Decker and Elisabeth McMahon
American reactions to the Capitol insurrection made implicit and explicit comparisons to the developing world, reflecting the way that American exceptionalism has grown out of the Enlightenment's hierarchical and racist ranking of civilizations with Europe (and America) on top and Africa at the bottom.
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SOURCE: Lawfare
1/22/2021
A Practical Path to Condemn and Disqualify Donald Trump
by Philip Zelikow
The standard of proof required for the Senate to bar Donald Trump from holding office under the 14th Amendment only demands that Trump gave aid and comfort to enemies of the Constitution, not that he participated in an insurrection. As his own words demonstrate that he did, this path should be followed.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
1/25/2020
Strange Costumes of Capitol Rioters Echo the Early Days of the Ku Klux Klan - Before the White Sheets
by Kenneth Ladenburg
"Although costumes cannot tell us the entire story of a group or movement, they can provide a window into understanding how the groups and movements form and how their ideologies are spread."
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