The House Select Committee investigating the attack on the U. S.
Capitol has presented new evidence in recent hearings on how former
President Donald Trump stoked violence leading up to and on January
6th. And this week the committee will focus on Trump's actions during
those 187 minutes of the insurrection itself. But as Laura Baron
Lopez reports, the escalation and normalization of violent rhetoric
has extended beyond Trump becoming a dangerous feature of Republican
campaign and
Party messaging.
We begin with last week's hearing. Very, very brief Overview direct
line from former President Donald Trump's words to violence. I was
hanging on every word. He was saying everything he was putting out
I was following it. Stephen Ayers was following Trump's lies that
he won the 2020 presidential election. He followed Trump's tweet
to be there on January. 6th. We're going to the capital.
And he followed the call to march from the White House to the United
States Capitol. Why did you decide to march to the capital? So we
basically just following when he said the committee charges that
the violence on the Sixth was the culmination of weeks of escalatory
rhetoric by Trump that when all legal avenues to challenge the election
failed January, 6th was the last stand where Trump was willing to
accept violence to stay in power.
But Ruth Benji got a history professor at New York University who
studies authoritarian governments, says the seeds of January 6th
go back even further to Trump's rise. When you look back at the past
six years, what do you see as the watershed moments, the campaign
of 2016?
Um, was a watershed in terms of the beginning of a systematic attempt
by Trump and people around him to shift our political culture from
the democracy to an authoritarian when and what that meant. It was.
He was speaking about violence as something positive punch him in
the face. I'll tell you
And he was, in a way kind of having an emotional retraining of Americans
to say violence against your neighbor doesn't always have to be bad
in 2015. That meant rallies that ended with fistfights and assault
charges
in 2017, neo Nazis felt emboldened to March on Charlottesville.
Very fine people on both sides.
In 2021, a deadly assault on the nation's capital.
Ahead of this year's midterm elections. Trump style and message are
still as popular as ever, spawning a rise in the use of violent language
and imagery in Republican campaign ads going, Rhino hunt.
With this rifle is the only thing standing between your family.
And a dozen angry Democrats in Klan hoods.
Just might need that semiautomatic.
To get ahead in the GOP. Now you need to be espousing this kind of
violent rhetoric people who are candidates like Mehmet Oz, who was
running for Senate in Pennsylvania. He used to be for gun reform.
But you can't do that now because the party has radicalized dead
wrong. Instead, he showed himself shooting a gun and parroting this
very common propaganda point that the Second Amendment is no longer
a
About hunting a recreation. It's to, uh, you know, used arms to overthrow
a tyrannical government. Second amendment is not just about hunting.
It's about our constitutional right to protect ourselves from intruders
or overly intrusive government.
In Washington. Republicans have been slow to condemn the violent
rhetoric or have remained silent. Responding to Eric Greitens ad
targeting Republicans in name only known as rhinos, Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell said it was up to individuals to decide what
they will accept. Well, I think that's something that voters and
the Missouri Republican primary need to take a look out and in the
House members of GOP leadership have themselves amplified the same
racist conspiracies espoused by mass shooters.
In May, a mass shooter killed 10 people in a Buffalo, New York grocery
store.
His online posts showed he was inspired by the racist and anti Semitic
quote. Great replacement conspiracy, writing that mass immigration
will disenfranchise us subvert our nations and destroy our communities.
One party rule in Washington experts echoes of that ideology. In
a Facebook ad posted last year by the third ranking Republican in
the House, representative Lee Stefanek of New York,
accused Democrats of planning a permanent election insurrection through
a plan to grant amnesty to 11 million illegal immigrants.
Who would overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent
liberal majority in Washington.
Stefanik spokesperson called criticism that she was amplifying the
great replacement theory a disgusting low for the left.
Peace. Republicans have sought to label Democrats as equal actors
and encouraging violence by pointing to some black lives matter Protests
that devolved into looting and damaged property. Republicans have
also tried to center, a Democratic congresswoman for urging protesters
to get confrontational Democratic politicians.
They may use heated words. But they do not pose in their campaign
ads or as sitting lawmakers with assault weapons, saying that these
assault weapons you can use them to overthrow the government. They
do not espouse oath, oath keepers and other extremist and so a. It's
not that you can never criticize the Democrats, but it is a false
equivalency and January six
Is proof of that.
More than a year after the attack. Trump refers to the rioters who
stormed the capital Patriots, who deserve pardons. If I run, and
if I win, we will treat those people from January 6th fairly. We
will treat them fairly.
And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons
Diagnosis, Trump's message and the Republicans who stand by him as
modern authoritarianism, Trump presented himself as a victim of the
whole democratic system that was out to get him and the only way
to right this wrong was through violence and that violence would
be purifying. It would be patriotic.
She doesn't see a clear exit ramp. There hasn't been a moment like
this strict with a strict parallel where you have a bipartisan system.
Mhm, in which one of those two parties has left democracy to the
point of fomenting a coup attempt.
And they are unrepentant, and the leader and beneficiary of that
to attempt which failed is still in good standing. The other wild
card is the availability of guns, so we're in uncharted terrain.
I want to take a moment now to speak directly to my fellow Republicans.
Congressman Adam Kinzinger, one of just two Republicans on the January
6th committee, released disturbing voicemails. His office recently
received
a whole lot more other than all of you natural
We die as quickly as
Possible. You
Piece of
What remains unclear is how to reverse the course of escalating violent
rhetoric and embrace of violence within the GOP and a belief among
nearly a third of Republican voters that a civil war may be justified.