Just before sunrise on a November day in 1861, Massachusetts abolitionist Julia Ward Howe woke up in the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. She got out of bed, found a pen, and began to write about the struggle in which the country was engaged: could any nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” survive, or would such a nation inevitably descend into hierarchies and minority rule?
The motto of Boston College, where Heather is a distinguished Professor of American History, is Aien Aristeuein (English letters in place of Greek), which means EVER TO EXCEL. Heather always excels in her daily "Letters from an American." I at least skim if not read the daily op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post. None of the regular columnists on their op-ed pages comes close to matching the quality of Heather's Letters. Her letters are filled with relevant history and are written in a style that grabs our attention and helps us understand the complicated country and world we live in. She is never dull, she ALWAYS EXCELS. And we are better people thanks to you, Heather. Joe Parkes, NYC
Listening to President Biden’s speech yesterday, I was proud of him, and proud to be a patriotic American! Joe threw down the gauntlet and called out the malignancy of his predecessor and his enablers.
I didn’t spend 26 years in the Navy, protecting our country and its Constitution, just to see it all shredded by a mob of ignorant, despicable traitors, egged on by the worst treat to Democracy since the founding of this great nation…Donald J. Trump!
On the first anniversary of Jan. 6, Biden delivered a brave, necessary, intelligent address . I wish we hadn't had to wait so long for it, but it finally came, definitive and unflinching, true right down to the bone. Well-reasoned and thrilling. I'm proud to be on his side and to have heard this speech.
As a psychotherapist in the northeast I am privileged to witness and hear my clients’ innermost thoughts and feelings.
While those I serve are reporting anxiety about what they are reading or watching on the news, very few seem to understand exactly how a loss of democracy or the vote could affect them. Unfortunately, many young people suggest that all politicians are awful and they do not believe their vote can make a difference.
Heather, I think we need to help the public understand the real-life consequences of autocracy.
Another letter that passes easily (cleverly, subversively, revealingly -- choose your adverb) through the line between history and journalism.
For those readers who would like to participate in nominating Prof Richardson for a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism, we will need 15 samples from the year. Since yesterday, readers have proposed 7.
Thank you. They would all be useful in helping to give the jurors a sense of the quality and power of her writing. We could use more from the spring and summer.
Anyone interested in participating in this effort to broaden and strengthen Prof Richardson's audience is welcome to recommend others that might be included in a submission. No need to review all 365 of her letters for 2021. Just suggest one that was particularly moving, insightful, or personally relevant and I'll add it to the bundle, to be siftted through next week.
As several of you noted, she sometimes posts a photo of her harbor or sky at home with a brief comment. One of those that helped see you through to her next letter might be a good addition to the bundle.
Our deadline for submission is now just over two weeks away.
Thanks, too, to those who suggested that a journalism prize competition might not be the most appropriate for someone who regards herself as an historian. Others posted that she could certainly be (and is) both a historian and a journalist. Fortunately, for this most famous of literary prizes (other than the Nobel), there is a history category, historically (apologies) reserved for books. That category closed for entries in October. If unsuccessful with our journalism application, we can always try again later this year in the history section.
Last night watching “Preserving Democracy: Pursuing a More Perfect Union” on PBS I was struck by how deeply embedded slavery and racial suppression exists in Trumpism. I remembered Dr. Richardson’s letter in which she revealed how the issue of abortion was brought into politics during the Nixon era to divide and distract us. Racial suppression, abortion, gun rights, immigration (and what else?) are issues used as weapons to divert the populace from the actions of those who want to destroy our democracy and institute an autocracy. We must help bring our sisters and brothers into understanding that these issues used as zero sum games are being used against us to serve the selfish desires of the greedy. Too simplistic?
What a brilliant letter. The Battle Hymn of the Republic was my Dad’s favorite song! When we kids were getting antsy in the car my mom would get us singing and then we’d dive into the Battle Hymn of the Republic. This letter is brilliant. I got goosebumps reading it. The spineless republicans disgust me. All 147 of them. Thanks
Thanks for this HCR. The Republic-cons proved today what spineless, worthless traitors they are, and Biden gave the speech of his life. I do believe there is a glimmer of the slightest pre-dawn greyness on the eastern horizon, messenger of the coming sunrise.
Public service was on display yesterday during President Biden’s speech as it was the previous day when Merrick Garland spoke to the country. Daily, HCR is a perfect example of a public servant who grinds out their self-assigned responsibilities when it’s dark, cold and the future looks grim. We’ve been a fortunate country to have had people willing to shoulder the burden of being public servants. Joe Biden is following in the footsteps of those hard working patriots. POTUS is a very difficult job for any person at any age, but I find it especially inspiring to watch a seventy-nine year old guy do it day after day. Boula, boula, Joe!
“ Julia Ward Howe woke up in the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. She got out of bed, found a pen, and began to write about the struggle in which the country was engaged: could any nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” survive, or would such a nation inevitably descend into hierarchies and minority rule? ”
Beautiful words, but America was not “conceived in liberty”. It was stolen from the indigenous peoples with lies, cheating, horrendous violence, and with disease. First we stole the land and then we settled it and transformed it using slave labor. I have used the following quote several times, but it’s always valid when discussing most any political news or history regarding America:
“A ‘better world’ bought by atrocities will be rotten at the core.” (Ilona Andrews)
Privileged and entitled White men paved the way with greed, selfishness, and complete disregard for human beings. Their evil deeds were rewarded as they are their own judges and jury.
America is so rotten at the core, they’ve sanitized history and painted a fantasy of a great nation. Make no mistake, there are many people who deserve to be called great Americans, but they can’t erase the truth.
The truth keeps reminding us with every act which protects the privilege & entitlement of a few at great cost to many.
Like 9-11, I avoid viewing images and videos of the January 6, 2020 insurrection - they being so terribly painful and shameful to view. That said, I’m grateful to Nancy Pelosi and Chuch Schumer, to our president Joe Biden and to Merrick Garland for their integrity, leadership and class. And I gotta say, the words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” are as stirring and relevant now as when the Civil War was raging. Thank you Heather for sharing that.
May we beat back the brutes and take back our beloved nation. 🙏🏻🇺🇸
President Biden's speech yesterday was one for the history books. I am so glad he directly called out TFG in forceful language. Should he have been doing it all along, as some wondered? I think it was all the more powerful to wait until the anniversary. The speech would not have been nearly as powerful if he had been sniping at TFG all year. Instead, he spent the last year doing his job as president, putting the country's needs first, and letting the House Jan 6th committee accumulate the facts of what happened that day. I think it was a smart move.
Well said! I think Joe Biden and the Democrats have turned the corner on this thing. From what I hear and read, the House Select Committee has compiled an enormous database that will elucidate and substantiate the committee's findings of fact, and its recommendations for laws that need to be changed or enacted so as to put teeth into the democratic and institutional norms that heretofore have gone relatively unchallenged. Undoubtedly, the committee staff are already circulating drafts of chapters that will appear in the Final Report, as well as any Interim Report that the committee chooses to make. The commemorative ceremonies of yesterday, today and tomorrow must be treated as the springboard for a public awareness campaign that constantly re-emphasizes the lessons of January 6: That democracy is fragile, and it needs to be protected, now mostly from its domestic enemies and those who would profit by its demise. That in the year leading up to the 2020 election, there were no provable instances of voter fraud apart from those that were early on discovered, and were committed entirely by supporters of Donald Trump. That over the past several years, Trump supporters and now the Republican Party have engaged in an ongoing campaign to denigrate democracy and voting through falsehoods, inflammatory propaganda themselves based upon falsehoods and mischaracterizations, and that those efforts are continuing and need to be opposed. That in the postelection year leading up to the January 6 insurrection, the various attempts by Republican Party operatives to cast doubt on the validity of elections, specifically in Maricopa County, Arizona, Atlanta, Georgia, and elsewhere, have yielded results that in no way substantiate the allegations of election fraud or official misconduct; and if anything, those post-election reviews have yielded findings that showed that Joe Biden won by even larger majorities that had been recorded during the official vote counting. Then all Republican efforts to reduce access to the polls have been done in bad faith and are presumptively illegitimate.
It also appeared in the news of today that the Select Committee is looking seriously into whether the former president can be charged with a federal crime based upon his refusal to act during the 187 minutes that the Capitol building was under attack. The committee seems to have focused on dereliction of duty by the former president, who spent those precious minutes sitting in the White House dining room watching television with rapt attention, and tweeting up a storm to encourage his followers to press their assault even harder. I fail to see why there should be any legitimate controversy over the eventual prosecution of Donald Trump for criminal misconduct in office. The January 6 assault on the Capitol was not spontaneous by any stretch of the imagination. It was planned, paid for in advance, and attracted followers who participated in the pre-assault rally at the White House on the morning of January 6 from everywhere in the United States. Local news coverage here in California mentioned that no fewer than 40 individuals who are California residents have been identified as being among those several thousand individuals who participated in the attempt to halt the counting of the votes cast in the November election. California is a long way from Washington DC by some 3,000 miles; and if anything stands out, it's the need for advanced planning to make sure that everything comes together at once. Logistics are the heart and soul of any large-scale, multifaceted, personal participation in an event or thousands are expected to show up. What happened was not a flash mob: airline tickets require advanced reservations, and seats are limited. If people are going to drive the distance, traveling to Washington from anywhere west of the Mississippi River is going to take time. In my lifetime, I've had the pleasure of driving cross-country three times, albeit during different eras, and whether in the 1950s, or the 1970s, travel time was always between seven and ten days. The point I am making is that this logistical effort had to go back months in order to find places for overnight lodging, feeding, and caretaking for literally thousands of people, even if they are traveling on their own dime. I am confident that the Select Committee is delving into the money trail, starting with who donated money to this effort, and how it was distributed. Also to be noted on the subject of logistics would be the happenstance that large numbers of people showed up both at the President's rally speech at the White House, and an hour later in front of the Capitol, armed with all sorts of makeshift weaponry, and some of the constituting firearms and ammunition, even as the rally organizers were cautioning would-be attendees to leave their guns at home. Others showed up in tactical gear consisting of body armor, helmets and facemasks, which strongly suggests that they were preparing themselves for hand-to-hand combat. Still others showed up with chemical sprays like the so-called 'bear spray' that several individuals used to neutralize Capitol Police officers and others. This is not the kind of stuff that would escape notice by TSA in vetting travelers on a cross-country flight. The planning for this was therefore deep, and thorough, with certainly more thought put into it then someone might do to plan a fishing or camping trip into the outback. Looking at the calendar for 2020 would have shown that opponents of Joe Biden's election would have to be working over the nine consecutive weeks between Election Day on November 3 and January 6, with the greatest level of activity following the Christmas holidays into the first week of January. That is an enormous amount of effort by a great number of people who had to coordinate with one another, and marshal the resources necessary to carry off this coup d'état. Donald Trump might have been personally incapable of pulling this off on his own, but he had a great deal of help from the ranks of his followers, and their financial supporters. I have no doubt that the White House staff coordinated much of that effort.
Altogether, what we have is a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States Government of the benefits of a fair election. That is a crime. And it doesn't matter which party is in charge. It is still a crime. A prosecutor does not have to show that the leader of a criminal conspiracy has a hand in, or even knowledge of, every detail that conspiracy encompasses in pursuit of its criminal goals. It is enough that he set the conspiracy in motion, and generally oversaw its accomplishment. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's post-January 6 condemnation of Donald Trump basically laid out a federal prosecutor's opening statement in a criminal trial on the same facts of what Trump did, and what he also failed to do. Dereliction of duty is a crime under military law; and here Trump was withholding armed force to suppress the insurrectionists to accomplish his own criminal purpose. Trump's Oath of Office includes both his duty to enforce the laws of the country he was elected to serve as its President, and to protect and defend the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. The duty to protect and defend requires affirmative action on the part of the official charged with that duty, and Trump did nothing, even as his senior advisers and others were beseeching him to take some sort of action to end their insurrection and send the insurgents home. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy angrily telephoned Trump demanding he call a halt to the attack; Trump refused, reportedly telling McCarthy, "Well, Kevin, I guess they care more about the election then you do." Trump knew what was going on, and he approved of everything he was seeing on his television set. That is the only conclusion that logic and the law will allow. Trump saw what was going on, and he resisted all pleas to end it, until it was obvious that the coup had failed.
The failure of the insurrection in its earliest stages by allowing senators and Members of Congress to escape, made it impossible for Trump to succeed with his gambit. The fact that Trump failed does not lessen his criminal culpability one iota. He is guilty as charged. What we need now is an Attorney General who will take that lesson to heart.
The motto of Boston College, where Heather is a distinguished Professor of American History, is Aien Aristeuein (English letters in place of Greek), which means EVER TO EXCEL. Heather always excels in her daily "Letters from an American." I at least skim if not read the daily op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post. None of the regular columnists on their op-ed pages comes close to matching the quality of Heather's Letters. Her letters are filled with relevant history and are written in a style that grabs our attention and helps us understand the complicated country and world we live in. She is never dull, she ALWAYS EXCELS. And we are better people thanks to you, Heather. Joe Parkes, NYC
Listening to President Biden’s speech yesterday, I was proud of him, and proud to be a patriotic American! Joe threw down the gauntlet and called out the malignancy of his predecessor and his enablers.
I didn’t spend 26 years in the Navy, protecting our country and its Constitution, just to see it all shredded by a mob of ignorant, despicable traitors, egged on by the worst treat to Democracy since the founding of this great nation…Donald J. Trump!
On the first anniversary of Jan. 6, Biden delivered a brave, necessary, intelligent address . I wish we hadn't had to wait so long for it, but it finally came, definitive and unflinching, true right down to the bone. Well-reasoned and thrilling. I'm proud to be on his side and to have heard this speech.
As a psychotherapist in the northeast I am privileged to witness and hear my clients’ innermost thoughts and feelings.
While those I serve are reporting anxiety about what they are reading or watching on the news, very few seem to understand exactly how a loss of democracy or the vote could affect them. Unfortunately, many young people suggest that all politicians are awful and they do not believe their vote can make a difference.
Heather, I think we need to help the public understand the real-life consequences of autocracy.
Another letter that passes easily (cleverly, subversively, revealingly -- choose your adverb) through the line between history and journalism.
For those readers who would like to participate in nominating Prof Richardson for a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism, we will need 15 samples from the year. Since yesterday, readers have proposed 7.
Thank you. They would all be useful in helping to give the jurors a sense of the quality and power of her writing. We could use more from the spring and summer.
Anyone interested in participating in this effort to broaden and strengthen Prof Richardson's audience is welcome to recommend others that might be included in a submission. No need to review all 365 of her letters for 2021. Just suggest one that was particularly moving, insightful, or personally relevant and I'll add it to the bundle, to be siftted through next week.
As several of you noted, she sometimes posts a photo of her harbor or sky at home with a brief comment. One of those that helped see you through to her next letter might be a good addition to the bundle.
Our deadline for submission is now just over two weeks away.
Thanks, too, to those who suggested that a journalism prize competition might not be the most appropriate for someone who regards herself as an historian. Others posted that she could certainly be (and is) both a historian and a journalist. Fortunately, for this most famous of literary prizes (other than the Nobel), there is a history category, historically (apologies) reserved for books. That category closed for entries in October. If unsuccessful with our journalism application, we can always try again later this year in the history section.
Last night watching “Preserving Democracy: Pursuing a More Perfect Union” on PBS I was struck by how deeply embedded slavery and racial suppression exists in Trumpism. I remembered Dr. Richardson’s letter in which she revealed how the issue of abortion was brought into politics during the Nixon era to divide and distract us. Racial suppression, abortion, gun rights, immigration (and what else?) are issues used as weapons to divert the populace from the actions of those who want to destroy our democracy and institute an autocracy. We must help bring our sisters and brothers into understanding that these issues used as zero sum games are being used against us to serve the selfish desires of the greedy. Too simplistic?
What a brilliant letter. The Battle Hymn of the Republic was my Dad’s favorite song! When we kids were getting antsy in the car my mom would get us singing and then we’d dive into the Battle Hymn of the Republic. This letter is brilliant. I got goosebumps reading it. The spineless republicans disgust me. All 147 of them. Thanks
Thanks for this HCR. The Republic-cons proved today what spineless, worthless traitors they are, and Biden gave the speech of his life. I do believe there is a glimmer of the slightest pre-dawn greyness on the eastern horizon, messenger of the coming sunrise.
Public service was on display yesterday during President Biden’s speech as it was the previous day when Merrick Garland spoke to the country. Daily, HCR is a perfect example of a public servant who grinds out their self-assigned responsibilities when it’s dark, cold and the future looks grim. We’ve been a fortunate country to have had people willing to shoulder the burden of being public servants. Joe Biden is following in the footsteps of those hard working patriots. POTUS is a very difficult job for any person at any age, but I find it especially inspiring to watch a seventy-nine year old guy do it day after day. Boula, boula, Joe!
The best speech President Biden has given.
“Despite the threats to Washington, D.C., and the terrible toll the war took, they made sure the Confederate flag never flew in the U.S. Capitol.
That changed a year ago today.”
Heart-stopping words, Dr. R. and so vivd.Thank you!
“ Julia Ward Howe woke up in the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. She got out of bed, found a pen, and began to write about the struggle in which the country was engaged: could any nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” survive, or would such a nation inevitably descend into hierarchies and minority rule? ”
Beautiful words, but America was not “conceived in liberty”. It was stolen from the indigenous peoples with lies, cheating, horrendous violence, and with disease. First we stole the land and then we settled it and transformed it using slave labor. I have used the following quote several times, but it’s always valid when discussing most any political news or history regarding America:
“A ‘better world’ bought by atrocities will be rotten at the core.” (Ilona Andrews)
Privileged and entitled White men paved the way with greed, selfishness, and complete disregard for human beings. Their evil deeds were rewarded as they are their own judges and jury.
America is so rotten at the core, they’ve sanitized history and painted a fantasy of a great nation. Make no mistake, there are many people who deserve to be called great Americans, but they can’t erase the truth.
The truth keeps reminding us with every act which protects the privilege & entitlement of a few at great cost to many.
She wrote that in the Willard Hotel! That same Willard.
Like 9-11, I avoid viewing images and videos of the January 6, 2020 insurrection - they being so terribly painful and shameful to view. That said, I’m grateful to Nancy Pelosi and Chuch Schumer, to our president Joe Biden and to Merrick Garland for their integrity, leadership and class. And I gotta say, the words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” are as stirring and relevant now as when the Civil War was raging. Thank you Heather for sharing that.
May we beat back the brutes and take back our beloved nation. 🙏🏻🇺🇸
President Biden's speech yesterday was one for the history books. I am so glad he directly called out TFG in forceful language. Should he have been doing it all along, as some wondered? I think it was all the more powerful to wait until the anniversary. The speech would not have been nearly as powerful if he had been sniping at TFG all year. Instead, he spent the last year doing his job as president, putting the country's needs first, and letting the House Jan 6th committee accumulate the facts of what happened that day. I think it was a smart move.
Well said! I think Joe Biden and the Democrats have turned the corner on this thing. From what I hear and read, the House Select Committee has compiled an enormous database that will elucidate and substantiate the committee's findings of fact, and its recommendations for laws that need to be changed or enacted so as to put teeth into the democratic and institutional norms that heretofore have gone relatively unchallenged. Undoubtedly, the committee staff are already circulating drafts of chapters that will appear in the Final Report, as well as any Interim Report that the committee chooses to make. The commemorative ceremonies of yesterday, today and tomorrow must be treated as the springboard for a public awareness campaign that constantly re-emphasizes the lessons of January 6: That democracy is fragile, and it needs to be protected, now mostly from its domestic enemies and those who would profit by its demise. That in the year leading up to the 2020 election, there were no provable instances of voter fraud apart from those that were early on discovered, and were committed entirely by supporters of Donald Trump. That over the past several years, Trump supporters and now the Republican Party have engaged in an ongoing campaign to denigrate democracy and voting through falsehoods, inflammatory propaganda themselves based upon falsehoods and mischaracterizations, and that those efforts are continuing and need to be opposed. That in the postelection year leading up to the January 6 insurrection, the various attempts by Republican Party operatives to cast doubt on the validity of elections, specifically in Maricopa County, Arizona, Atlanta, Georgia, and elsewhere, have yielded results that in no way substantiate the allegations of election fraud or official misconduct; and if anything, those post-election reviews have yielded findings that showed that Joe Biden won by even larger majorities that had been recorded during the official vote counting. Then all Republican efforts to reduce access to the polls have been done in bad faith and are presumptively illegitimate.
It also appeared in the news of today that the Select Committee is looking seriously into whether the former president can be charged with a federal crime based upon his refusal to act during the 187 minutes that the Capitol building was under attack. The committee seems to have focused on dereliction of duty by the former president, who spent those precious minutes sitting in the White House dining room watching television with rapt attention, and tweeting up a storm to encourage his followers to press their assault even harder. I fail to see why there should be any legitimate controversy over the eventual prosecution of Donald Trump for criminal misconduct in office. The January 6 assault on the Capitol was not spontaneous by any stretch of the imagination. It was planned, paid for in advance, and attracted followers who participated in the pre-assault rally at the White House on the morning of January 6 from everywhere in the United States. Local news coverage here in California mentioned that no fewer than 40 individuals who are California residents have been identified as being among those several thousand individuals who participated in the attempt to halt the counting of the votes cast in the November election. California is a long way from Washington DC by some 3,000 miles; and if anything stands out, it's the need for advanced planning to make sure that everything comes together at once. Logistics are the heart and soul of any large-scale, multifaceted, personal participation in an event or thousands are expected to show up. What happened was not a flash mob: airline tickets require advanced reservations, and seats are limited. If people are going to drive the distance, traveling to Washington from anywhere west of the Mississippi River is going to take time. In my lifetime, I've had the pleasure of driving cross-country three times, albeit during different eras, and whether in the 1950s, or the 1970s, travel time was always between seven and ten days. The point I am making is that this logistical effort had to go back months in order to find places for overnight lodging, feeding, and caretaking for literally thousands of people, even if they are traveling on their own dime. I am confident that the Select Committee is delving into the money trail, starting with who donated money to this effort, and how it was distributed. Also to be noted on the subject of logistics would be the happenstance that large numbers of people showed up both at the President's rally speech at the White House, and an hour later in front of the Capitol, armed with all sorts of makeshift weaponry, and some of the constituting firearms and ammunition, even as the rally organizers were cautioning would-be attendees to leave their guns at home. Others showed up in tactical gear consisting of body armor, helmets and facemasks, which strongly suggests that they were preparing themselves for hand-to-hand combat. Still others showed up with chemical sprays like the so-called 'bear spray' that several individuals used to neutralize Capitol Police officers and others. This is not the kind of stuff that would escape notice by TSA in vetting travelers on a cross-country flight. The planning for this was therefore deep, and thorough, with certainly more thought put into it then someone might do to plan a fishing or camping trip into the outback. Looking at the calendar for 2020 would have shown that opponents of Joe Biden's election would have to be working over the nine consecutive weeks between Election Day on November 3 and January 6, with the greatest level of activity following the Christmas holidays into the first week of January. That is an enormous amount of effort by a great number of people who had to coordinate with one another, and marshal the resources necessary to carry off this coup d'état. Donald Trump might have been personally incapable of pulling this off on his own, but he had a great deal of help from the ranks of his followers, and their financial supporters. I have no doubt that the White House staff coordinated much of that effort.
Altogether, what we have is a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States Government of the benefits of a fair election. That is a crime. And it doesn't matter which party is in charge. It is still a crime. A prosecutor does not have to show that the leader of a criminal conspiracy has a hand in, or even knowledge of, every detail that conspiracy encompasses in pursuit of its criminal goals. It is enough that he set the conspiracy in motion, and generally oversaw its accomplishment. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's post-January 6 condemnation of Donald Trump basically laid out a federal prosecutor's opening statement in a criminal trial on the same facts of what Trump did, and what he also failed to do. Dereliction of duty is a crime under military law; and here Trump was withholding armed force to suppress the insurrectionists to accomplish his own criminal purpose. Trump's Oath of Office includes both his duty to enforce the laws of the country he was elected to serve as its President, and to protect and defend the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. The duty to protect and defend requires affirmative action on the part of the official charged with that duty, and Trump did nothing, even as his senior advisers and others were beseeching him to take some sort of action to end their insurrection and send the insurgents home. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy angrily telephoned Trump demanding he call a halt to the attack; Trump refused, reportedly telling McCarthy, "Well, Kevin, I guess they care more about the election then you do." Trump knew what was going on, and he approved of everything he was seeing on his television set. That is the only conclusion that logic and the law will allow. Trump saw what was going on, and he resisted all pleas to end it, until it was obvious that the coup had failed.
The failure of the insurrection in its earliest stages by allowing senators and Members of Congress to escape, made it impossible for Trump to succeed with his gambit. The fact that Trump failed does not lessen his criminal culpability one iota. He is guilty as charged. What we need now is an Attorney General who will take that lesson to heart.