December 18, 2020 Is the Other Date We Should All Understand and Remember

Image Courtesy of Salon

January 6, 2021 is a day that will long live in the minds of Americans as the first time in our history that the peaceful transfer of power failed to happen. But weeks before that date, on December 18, 2020, the seeds of Jan. 6 were sown by Trump and his allies. 

Two important things happened on that day which should concern us and, most likely, the January 6 Committee and prosecutors.

First, a group of extremist advisors to the former president, including former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn and “kraken” legal team leader Sidney Powell, held an unannounced and unapproved meeting with Trump in the White House. During the bizarre session, which only was possible after an aide to Trump ally and advisor Peter Navarro waved the group in past security, Powell and Flynn pressed the former president to move to overturn the election by, among other things, seizing voting machines under an Executive Order drafted up for this purpose. The Order would also have appointed Powell, best known for debunked “Dominion” election fraud theories and conspiracy peddling, as Special Counsel to investigate the 2020 election. It also would have given the Secretary of Defense 60 days to write up an assessment of the election—well past the date Trump was required to relinquish power.

Second, just hours after the meeting, Trump sent out a tweet that set in motion the violent attack upon the Capitol. “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election,” he told his tens of millions of followers. “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” The tweet included a link to a report from Navarro, who is now charged with contempt of Congress for failing to appear before the Jan. 6 Committee. The Navarro report falsely claimed to show proof of massive voter fraud. Trump’s tweet was viewed as a call to arms by extremist militias such as the Proud Boys, whom he had earlier instructed to “stand back and stand by” during a nationally televised debate with Joe Biden. From that date forward, these groups began to plan and mobilize for January 6. Indeed, within days after the tweet, the former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio created an encrypted group chat called “MOSD Leaders Group” (short for Ministry of Self Defense) described by Tarrio as a “national rally planning” committee that included his top lieutenants.

There is an important connection between the fateful meeting of extremists and the battle call put out by the former president. While less radical factions within the White House (who apparently entered into a multi-hour screaming match with the extremists during the meeting) managed to prevent the Executive Order from issuing, Trump’s takeaway was that there were key people who were loyal to him and willing to press forward with the most outlandish election fraud claims, providing the fuel for the fire he intended to light on January 6. In short, his tweet combined the Big Lie with a fateful call to his followers to take direct action on January 6.

We are likely to hear a great deal more about that December 18, 2020 meeting. According to reporting by Axios, a former legal advisor to Trump, Eric Herschmann, was also in the meeting. After hearing Powell’s claims about foreign interference in the election, Herschmann demanded that Pat Cipollone also attend. These two lawyers are key witnesses for the Committee and possibly for prosecutors. Throughout the hearings, Hershmann has been providing some of the most colorful, frank and revealing recollections and insights into the inner workings of the White House during those fateful weeks. And Cipollone just last week provided some eight hours of testimony to the Committee. (Two others to note: Patrick Byrne, the wealthy former Overstock CEO, who recently agreed to testify before the Committee, and Emily Newman, a little-known former Trump administration official, were also in attendance for unknown reasons. It is unclear whether Newman has provided usable testimony to the Committee.)

At this point, it’s also important to recognize an uncomfortable truth connecting all of this. Both Flynn and Powell are deeply associated with the QAnon conspiracy cult and regularly amplify its messaging. QAnon maintains, without any factual basis, that the Democratic Party is run by a ring of satanist pedophiles. While it is unclear whether people like Powell actually believe these lies, it is indisputable that she leverages them to mobilize followers to donate and to act. Powell’s and Flynn’s outrageous claims about the election are finding audiences with those already brainwashed to believe that a “globalist” world order has conspired to drain the blood from children and control America. 

It is admittedly hard to write these words without cringing at how far down the rabbit hole millions of Americans have tumbled. But that is actually part of the power of such narratives. Serious people don’t normally want to talk about matters that are so patently absurd, so sunlight often never has the chance to disinfect the rot. And yet, by talking about things openly, we risk highlighting and amplifying such movements, much as Trump gave visibility to the Proud Boys through one fateful question and answer.

I raise QAnon here because it is also deeply intertwined with the radical violent groups, such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. For example, Trump advisor Roger Stone, who has long standing ties to the Proud Boys, regularly claims that a Satanic portal hovers over the Biden White House. This peculiarly toxic ecosystem produces radicals like the so-called QAnon “shaman” Jacob Chansley, who led part of the crowd in storming the Capitol and recently was sentenced to 41 months in prison. 

The post-January 6 world has already demonstrated that election trutherism combined with QAnon conspiracy theory is thriving. It is such a potent, anti-reality mixture that its adherents can be transformed quickly into useful pawns willing to commit violence in the name of saving America. There is a direct line between irresponsible GOP rhetoric about alleged LGBTQ+ “groomers” in our schools and the rise in Proud Boy and other militia activity around the nation. It is only a matter of time before this breaks out into open violence, as it very nearly did with a planned violent riot by members of the Patriot Front against Pride festival attendees in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, halted only because a passerby reported the masked men loading themselves and their riot gear into a truck.

Conspiracy theories have always existed, of course, but rarely have they been advanced and maintained by people with such power, people with such access that they had the ear and shaped the mind and actions of the former president himself. On December 18, 2020 they nearly convinced Trump to use the power of his office and of the military to upend the entire election and remain in office. Trump came away with the understanding that he could use the Big Lie to mobilize the mob on January 6, and his tweet later that night set that plan in motion. Coming from Trump, the move was more an instinct than a well-formed strategy. But a more cunning leader, one who may be watching and learning from Trump’s missteps, could readily organize and transform these scattered militias into active local and national threats in the name of things like “election security” and “protecting the children.” That is already happening in places like Florida under Governor DeSantis. 

And so there is a troubling reason QAnon and the Big Lie are as outlandish as they seem. As Voltaire once famously observed, those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. It may well be that the foot soldiers for impending political violence have already been self-selected via their extremist beliefs. They happen also to be heavily armed with military grade weaponry, which has become a kind of fetish to display, even publicly brandish.

For these reasons, it is crucial to recognize and disrupt the connection between political conspiracy and political violence, between corrupted minds and corrupt seizure of power. The American public needs to be made keenly aware of the danger that conspiracy peddlers like Powell, Flynn and Stone pose so that their likes are never handed or near the levers of power again.