The violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol is anything but a surprise.

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This week’s episode: Democracy under siege ([link removed])

A mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, aiming to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. How did we get here?

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** White nationalists in action
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The violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol is anything but a surprise. As our podcast this week discusses, this is the culmination of both four years of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and 400 years of American history.

During the presidential debates last year, Trump refused to condemn the all-male neo-fascist group Proud Boys, instead telling them to “stand back and stand by.” Last week, they were no longer standing by. As host Al Letson says on this week’s show, “White nationalists, Proud Boys, QAnon and other extremist Trump supporters, they took action.” On the show, Al talks with two journalists who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6: independent reporter Brendan Gutenschwager and Washington Post reporter Marissa J. Lang. This is an excerpt from their conversation.

Al Letson: What was it like being inside the Capitol while all this is going down?

Brendan Gutenschwager: It was very overwhelming. It was something that really has no other parallel, other than maybe the early 1800s. It just defies logic to see this in the modern era. Just the whole time, it was just this shock that any of this was truly happening. I also was really in shock that the police – who were known for getting aggressive if necessary with certain protests if things got out of hand – I was very shocked to see them overwhelmed so quickly and ultimately having to stand down in many instances as people just ran through.

Marissa J. Lang: It was night and day from what I was expecting and what I have seen at other protests. In those instances, as you mentioned, we saw mass arrests, but we also saw a lot more aggressive riot control police response. We saw police officers who were firing flashbangs and Stinger balls and rubber bullets and tear gas – tear gas that blanketed entire city blocks in those cases – pepper spray, using batons and shields and kettling folks. It was just a very different scene.

Marissa, for two weeks, you've been reporting on the possibility of violence on the day Congress was certifying the presidential election results. Did you come prepared to see what actually ended up happening?

Lang: I came prepared for violence. I had been paying attention to these message boards where some of these right-wing extremists have been enumerating their plans for weeks. They have been saying: "We're going to bring our guns to the District. We're going to bring weapons to the District. We need to move in groups so that the police are not able to detain us. We're going to storm the Capitol. We're going to string up these Democrat lawmakers that we don't like." These threats were real, and they were repeated over and over. When they did break the line, push past the officers and climb the steps of the Capitol, I was still, I would say, not surprised. I was still sort of in the mindset of, "OK, we knew this would happen. We knew this would happen." I sort of figured that if I knew that it would happen, then so did law enforcement.

What do you think the future is going to be for America when we talk about these political fights and political arguments that are breaking out all across the country? This isn't a new thing at this point. We've seen this over and over and over in different cities for different reasons.

Gutenschwager: Unfortunately, I think for the near future, there still will be a lot of this division, but I really just see so much anger still there and so much hostility between sides. It's going to be a big healing process. People are going to have to do a lot of deep thinking about what has happened, not just with this incident, but everything over the last few years and just how the political discourse has changed.

Lang: I would say that I think the split and the division that we're seeing is only going to get worse. I was talking to some of the Trump supporters out there yesterday who were hanging back and were not storming the Capitol and seemed kind of stunned by what they were seeing as well. When I asked them where do they think this is going and what happens when they wake up tomorrow and Joe Biden is officially the president-elect, they said they think that certain states are going to decide if they want Joe Biden to be their president, certain states are going to decide if they want President Trump to continue to be their president, and very unironically were talking about secession, were talking about things like civil war. I think a lot of folks really do believe that's where we're headed.

Yeah. I don't think what we have coming is a second civil war. I believe that we never stopped fighting the first one. This is just the next iteration of those battles.

Lang: Yeah. There were people walking around the United States Capitol building with the Confederate flag.

Listen to Al’s whole conversation with the reporters in the episode Democracy under siege. ([link removed])

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** By the Numbers
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Many observers pointed out the difference in the way law enforcement treated the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol last week compared with peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters over the summer. Our reporting on the coordinated federal crackdown on racial justice protesters is worth revisiting ([link removed]) .
* At least 340 people faced federal charges coming out of the historic wave of Black Lives Matter protests over the summer.
* More than 60 people ([link removed]) arrested at Black Lives Matter protests since May 30 were ordered to be held in prison awaiting trial – some were imprisoned for months.
* There were no injuries at 97.7% of over 7,500 racial justice protests over the summer.
* So far, there have been at least 82 arrests ([link removed]) stemming from last week’s violence at the Capitol.

Read the story: ‘Go after the troublemakers’ ([link removed])

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On Jan. 1, we wrapped up our annual membership campaign – the most important fundraising effort of the year. For those of you who were able to make a donation, thank you. We are deeply grateful for your generosity.

As last week’s attempted coup at the Capitol reminded us, our work is far from done. If you believe that independent journalism is core to a healthy democracy, please consider making a donation today.
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** In the Field
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Journalists under attack

Numerous reporters who were in the Capitol last Wednesday shared their harrowing accounts ([link removed]) of violence at the hands of the people who stormed the building. The New York Times photographer Erin Schaff’s account ([link removed]) of being caught in the middle of the mob was truly terrifying:

“Grabbing my press pass, they saw that my ID said The New York Times and became really angry. They threw me to the floor, trying to take my cameras. I started screaming for help as loudly as I could. No one came. People just watched. At this point, I thought I could be killed and no one would stop them. They ripped one of my cameras away from me, broke a lens on the other and ran away.”

While Schaff was able to get away, the mob left a clear message in the Capitol: Someone scratched the words “Murder the media” ([link removed]) onto a door. This sentiment has been escalating for years. Back in 2016, reporters covering Trump’s campaign were alarmed by people wearing T-shirts ([link removed]) that said, “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required.” Reporters have been threatened, body slammed ([link removed]) while reporting on Trump rallies and taunted by Trump supporters ([link removed]) for wearing masks. In 2018, a man planned a mass shooting
([link removed]) at The Boston Globe’s offices – he mentioned Trump several times and used the same phrase the president has often used to describe the press: the “enemy of the people.”

It’s not just Trump supporters who have intimidated journalists. At racial justice protests over the summer, journalists were targeted ([link removed]) by both right-wing groups and by law enforcement ([link removed]) , who pepper sprayed, tear gassed, detained and arrested reporters around the country. Of course, arrests of journalists reporting on protests is not new: Journalists were arrested en masse amid protests of Trump’s inauguration ([link removed]) and amid 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri ([link removed]) . Trump applauded an incident
([link removed]) in which an MSNBC reporter was struck by a rubber bullet while covering protests in Minnesota, telling supporters at a September rally, “When you watch the crap we've all had to take … it's actually a beautiful sight.”

The violence last week brought these years of escalating harassment into sharp focus. We'll be watching with great interest to see what happens to this anti-media movement when Trump no longer has the White House – or a Twitter or Facebook account.
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** Reveal Recommends
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Esmy Jimenez is a Reveal investigative fellow who also works as an immigration reporter at Seattle public radio station KUOW. Before working as a reporter, Esmy had gigs as an Alaskan farmhand and a state park employee in the California redwoods.

Listening: Nicola Cruz's “Cumbia del Olvido ([link removed]) .” It's a traditional sound with a new twist -- and just so hypnotic.

Reading: I am finally reading “Circe ([link removed]) ” by Madeline Miller and am so happy to escape into the world of mythology in the evenings now.

Watching: This is a terrible show, don't watch it, but eco-dystopian story “The 100 ([link removed](TV_series)) ” has got all the teen angst vibes of The CW. I am in too deep and now have to finish the series.

You can keep up with Esmy on Twitter at @esmyjimenez ([link removed]) .
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Do you have feedback for Reveal? Send it over! This newsletter was written by Sarah Mirk (mailto:[email protected]?subject=Weekly%20Reveal%20feedback) , who will share your thoughts with the team.
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