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January 6 was a strategic victory for authoritarianism.
Yes, the mob was ultimately repulsed. Yes, Mike Pence certified the votes. Yes, Joe Biden was inaugurated.
But Donald Trump was never held accountable. On the contrary, the fallout from January 6 probably made him more popular. On the fifth anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, Trump, its chief inciter, is back in the White House, less restrained than last time. If not treated quickly and comprehensively, the antidemocratic virus adapts and comes back stronger.
In post-Soviet Russia, we teetered on the brink of democracy.
Yet there was no reckoning over the communist past. No tribunal or commission to dispense justice for decades of crimes against humanity. Many of the old party elites simply rebranded, joined by a new cadre of oligarchic power brokers. Despite having a similar political pedigree, our neighbors in Ukraine managed a peaceful transition of power in 1994. Russia never did. Today, a KGB agent is the most firmly entrenched Russian dictator since Joseph Stalin.
That was Russia. At the very least, no one was looking to Moscow as a beacon of liberty.
But when the president attempts a self-coup in America?
Then the virus—untreated, uncontrolled—becomes especially contagious.
My appeal to Americans on the fifth anniversary of the insurrection is not another empty admonishment to never forget. Those who have forgotten have done so consciously.
Instead, I am calling on my American friends to embrace your destiny as a nation. The United States is the blueprint that so many others follow—whether in the right direction or the wrong one. Many countries’ constitutions and declarations of independence have been written on the American model. Yet demagogues the world over have also emulated your leaders’ worst habits.
As a matter of political reality and historic providence, you have a special responsibility. Create a world that embodies the spirit of 1776, not January 6.
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