January 6 Is A Spent Political Force

January 6 is over. It’s history. It’s done as a political issue. Four years after a mob stormed the Capitol, it doesn’t matter anymore in our politics.

This is not a normative statement: I’m not saying that it shouldn’t matter. Quite the contrary. Trump’s course of conduct in rejecting the legitimacy of his defeat in 2020, up to and including his speech on January 6, should have disqualified him from further service in public office and resulted in casting him into the outer darkness of our political culture. There were two procedurally proper ways to do this: The Senate could have convicted him after his second impeachment and barred him from holding office again, and Republican primary voters could have rejected him and turned the page rather than leaving him as the only alternative to continuing the ruinous governance of the Democrats. I argued for both at the time. But in each case, our system chose to honor the small-d democratic value of Trump’s continuing popularity with Republican voters rather than honoring the virtues of good statesmanship and good citizenship.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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January 6 is over. It’s history. It’s done as a political issue. Four years after a mob stormed the Capitol, it doesn’t matter anymore in our politics.

This is not a normative statement: I’m not saying that it shouldn’t matter. Quite the contrary. Trump’s course of conduct in rejecting the legitimacy of his defeat in 2020, up to and including his speech on January 6, should have disqualified him from further service in public office and resulted in casting him into the outer darkness of our political culture. There were two procedurally proper ways to do this: The Senate could have convicted him after his second impeachment and barred him from holding office again, and Republican primary voters could have rejected him and turned the page rather than leaving him as the only alternative to continuing the ruinous governance of the Democrats. I argued for both at the time. But in each case, our system chose to honor the small-d democratic value of Trump’s continuing popularity with Republican voters rather than honoring the virtues of good statesmanship and good citizenship.