What I Saw on the January 6 Committee

Julian Zelizer : I saw firsthand why we cannot remember the insurrection as only a dangerous anomaly or an ideologically agnostic moment of chaos, whipped up by a repugnant but vapid ex-president.

Zelizer says Trump 's failure to stop the insurrection is one piece of a story of democratic decline into racial authoritarianism, a path our country has walked before.

Peter Bergen : To many witnesses I deposed, January 6 was justified when values of inclusive U.S. democracy fail to align with authoritarian mindset.

Bergen says he saw cracks in the narrow conception of January 6 as an awful but isolated day.

He says the only way to view our evidence was as part of a pattern of antidemocratic violence motivated by racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny.

Julian Zelizer : Members of the House Select Committee deposed far-right extremists on January 6 .

Zelizer says they believed themselves to be the good guys who were obeying Donald Trump’s command to rescue America from evil forces that had stolen the election and corrupted our society.

He says the attacks, like January 6 itself, were fitful attempts to make this nightmare a reality. These atrocities reminded me, again and again, that the story of January 6 was not over.