The Jan. 6 election is coming — and it's time for America to choose a path

Groundhog Day isn't until next month. But if you were watching cable news over the past few days you certainly got a feeling of déjà vu watching all the footage of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection again and being reminded of the violence and horror of that day. It is still as shocking as it was three years ago. And yet: We are evidently about to embark on a replay of the election that brought us to that awful moment and it feels as if nothing has changed in our politics at all.

Three years ago at this time we were reeling from the effects of a global pandemic that was still taking lives by the tens of thousands and stunned by what had transpired after the election. There was talk of invoking the 25th Amendment against Donald Trump to get him out of office before Inauguration Day, and Congress was considering impeaching him for the second time, mostly to prevent him from ever running again. Even staunch Trump supporters like then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Lindsey Graham stood up to denounce him. There was a strong sense, in other words, that the camel's back had finally snapped.

We should all have known better. Even after the traumatic events of that momentous day, 147 House Republicans came back into the chamber that night, and voted to overturn the election results. As for impeachment, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly told his aides, “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a b**ch for us. If this isn't impeachable, I don't know what is." But in the end Senate Republicans couldn't muster the 10 more votes they needed to reach the two-thirds threshold necessary for conviction. 

So here we are. Unless something highly unexpected happens, we will face a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in November. Current polling shows that it is very close, so if Trump doesn't win, I think we can probably expect more disruption and violence just as we saw three years ago. It feels like the entire political system has been frozen in that moment and we're right back where we started.

In the 2020 race we had one of the weirdest presidential campaigns ever, with the pandemic causing massive disruptions. There was social distancing on the rational Democratic side, and major super-spreader events from the Trump campaign. We also saw the most bizarre political conventions ever mounted, with Republicans flouting all norms from public health advisories to stage their event at the White House and major government monuments, as if it were a royal jubilee, while Democrats held theirs outdoors in a parking lot.

We won't exactly be going back to normal this time. Trump's assault on democracy has never been resolved, so we shall have the presumptive Republican presidential nominee facing 91 criminal indictments and a range of other legal problems stemming from his post-election behavior in 2020. Half the campaign may take place inside courtrooms — and outside them as well. And once again, as in the fateful election 24 years ago, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court may end up being the deciding factor.

This past weekend we saw the outlines of how the campaign will likely unfold, and the contrast could not be clearer. On Friday, President Biden gave what many observers called one of the best speeches of his career, appearing at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to mark the Jan. 6 anniversary and lay out the stakes in the election. “Today we’re here to answer the most important of questions," he said. "Is democracy still America’s sacred cause? It’s what the 2024 election is all about.”

He made clear that he was at Valley Forge to evoke George Washington's decision to leave office after two terms and peacefully hand over the reins of power, establishing one of the bedrocks of American democracy, which Donald Trump upended when he couldn't bear to admit that he'd lost in 2020. Biden contrasted that kind of statesmanship with Trump, saying, “He still doesn’t understand a basic truth, and that is you can’t love your country only when you win.” He exhorted America's voters to cling to reality and ensure that Trump doesn't get the chance to do it again:

When the attack on Jan. 6 happened, there was no doubt about the truth. As time has gone on, politics, fear, money — all have intervened. And now these MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump on Jan. 6 have abandoned the truth and abandoned democracy. They made their choice. Now the rest of us — Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans — we have to make our choice.

Trump was in Iowa all weekend, counting down to the caucus there in less than two weeks. He made many incoherent and daft statements and told offensive lies about Biden stuttering through his Valley Forge speech. (He also took a shot at the late Senator John McCain's disability, suffered when he was tortured as a prisoner of war.) In other words he was his usual childish, bullying self, which is of course what his followers love most about him.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

He also talked about Jan. 6 and the 2020 election at each stop.

Trump repeated the false claimed that the FBI had "led the charge" that day and repeatedly asserted that those who stormed the Capitol behaved "peacefully and patriotically," virtually demanding that people believe him rather than their own eyes. And indeed many people do. The latest Washington Post poll found that  only 18% of respondents said the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were “mostly violent" and 72% of Republicans think that “too much is being made" of the Capitol riot.

So the battle lines have been drawn. On the anniversary of Jan. 6, the presumptive presidential nominees both spoke. Joe Biden told the truth, reminding the country of what really happened. He asked that Americans recognize the threat that a second Trump presidency presents to all of us. Trump continued to lie, even more brazenly than usual, once again insisting that he actually won the 2020 election and exhorting his followers to "finish the job."

Those words hold true for the rest of us as well. It's time to end this standoff once and for all.