One change Meta made this week was to eliminate restrictions on some attacks on immigrants, women, and transgender people. Specifically, its hateful conduct policy now allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’”
Meta has long supplemented its public community standards with nonpublic guidelines that it shares with employees and contractors charged with enforcing its policies. The guidelines give moderators examples of what is and is not allowed.
Today, Platformer is sharing some of those guidelines.
In an answer to the question “Do insults about mental illness and abnormality violate when targeting people on the basis of gender or sexual orientation?” Meta now answers “no.” It gave the following examples of posts that do not violate its policies:
Non-violating: “Boys are weird.” Non-violating: “Trans people aren’t real. They’re mentally ill.” Non-violating: “Gays are not normal.” Non-violating: “Women are crazy.” Non-violating: “Trans people are freaks.”
And in a follow-up questions about whether denying that a protected class violates the hateful content policy, Meta also answers no. It gave these as examples of posts that are now allowed on Facebook and Instagram: (snip-MORE. This is from the guy who left Substack a while back. I don’t want to steal from him. It’s free to read.)
January 9, 1964 Anti-U.S. rioting broke out in the Panama Canal Zone, resulting in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and three U.S. soldiers. The immediate issue was whether both the U.S. and Panamanian flags would fly at Canal Zone facilities, as ordered by President John F. Kennedy. James Jenkins, a 17-year-old senior at Balboa High School in the Canal Zone: “I guess you could say I’m the guy that started this whole thing. I’m sort of the ringleader. I circulated the petition to keep our flag flying. Then me and the others raised the flag. The school authorities left it up because they knew we’d walk out.” On the third day, demonstrating Panamanian students entered the school grounds and sang their national anthem, but the Balboa students blocked them from raising their flag. there was a scuffle — and the Panamanians retreated in outrage, claiming that their flag had been ripped by the Zonians.
January 9, 1967 Julian Bond, elected more than a year before, was finally sworn in as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives.The legislature had refused to allow him to take his seat because of his opposition to the Vietnam War and specifically his endorsement of a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) statement accusing the United States of violating international law in Vietnam. Bond had been the director of SNCC. Following his election in 1965, the Georgia House refused to seat him. He was re-elected to his “vacant seat” and the House refused again. He was then elected to the same office for a third time. But not until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in his favor was the legislature forced to relent. Julian Bond in 1966 waiting to be seated in the General Assembly
January 9, 1987 The White House released the presidential finding – signed by President Ronald Reagan on January 17, 1986 – which authorized the sale of arms to Iran (to encourage the release of hostages) and ordered the CIA not to tell Congress. This was done retroactively after several shipments, including 18 HAWK (Homing-All-the-Way-Killer) surface-to-air missiles, had already been transferred to the Iranians, then at war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Read the actual document authorizing the arms sales More Outline, key players and selected Iran-Contra documents from the National Security Archive
January 9, 1991 Sam Day The day after the start of the U.S. bombing of Iraq, ten peace activists were arrested at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, for handing out written warnings to military reservists about participation in war crimes. Long-time peace activist Sam Day was sentenced to four months for his participation. Remembering Sam Day
10th anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo killings by Ann Telnaes
On January 7, 2015 the editorial cartooning community suffered a horrible blow Read on Substack
The attack at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo left 12 people dead, including five cartoonists, and set off a worldwide debate about free speech and satire.
January 8, 1912 = The African National Congress was founded in South Africa. The ANC (now multi-racial) was the first black political organization in South Africa. It was formed to combat the racially separatist system known in the Afrikaans language as apartheid. The ANC is now the majority party in the South African government. African National Congress history ================================== January 8, 1961 The people of France voted to grant Algeria its independence in a referendum. This followed more than 130 years of French colonial control of the north African country. The result was a clear majority for self-determination, with 75% voting in favor. Read more =================================== January 8, 1973 U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho resumed secret peace negotiations near Paris. After the South Vietnamese had blunted the massive North Vietnamese invasion launched in the spring of 1972, Kissinger and the North Vietnamese had finally made some progress on reaching a negotiated end to the war. However, a recalcitrant South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu had inserted several demands into the negotiations that caused the North Vietnamese negotiators to walk out of the talks a month earlier. Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger ================================== January 8, 2003 Three activists, including Kate Berrigan (daughter of Phil) and Liz McAlister, rappelled down a 32-story skyscraper near the Los Angeles Auto Show and unfurled a banner reading “Ford: Holding America Hostage To Oil.” They had chosen Ford due to its having the lowest average fuel economy of any auto manufacturer, and that it was not living up to the reputation it put forth as being an environmental car company. Frida Berrigan tells the story
Personally, I don’t think it’s surrender on the part of Meta, nor any of the other media moguls. It’s all of one piece-they’re all in it together with the new 47th president. I’ve read this from others, too, both last night and this morning. We the people are not part of the club. Anyway, here is this.
Donald Trump’s surprising victory in the 2016 US presidential election sparked a backlash against tech platforms in general and against Meta in particular. The company then known as Facebook was battered by revelations that its network dramatically amplified the reach of false stories about Trump and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and was used as part of a successful effort by Russia to sow division in US politics and tilt the election in favor of Trump.
Chastened by the criticism, Meta set out to shore up its defenses. It hired 40,000 content moderators around the world, invested heavily in building new technology to analyze content for potential harms and flag it for review, and became the world’s leading funder of third-party fact-checking organizations. It spent $280 million to create an independent Oversight Board to adjudicate the most difficult questions about online speech. It disrupted dozens of networks of state-sponsored trolls who sought to use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to spread propaganda and attack dissenters.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg had expected that these moves would generate goodwill for the company, particularly among the Democrats who would retake power after Trump lost in 2020. Instead, he found that disdain for the company remained strongly bipartisan. Republicans scorned him for policies that disproportionately punished the right, who post more misinformation and hate speech than the left does. Democrats blamed him for the country’s increasingly polarized politics and decaying democracy. And all sides pilloried him for the harms that his apps cause in children — an issue that 42 state attorneys general are now suing him over.
Last summer, the threats against Zuckerberg turned newly personal. In 2020, Zuckerberg and his wife had donated $419.5 million to fund nonpartisan election infrastructure projects. (Another effort that had seemingly generated no goodwill for him or Meta whatsoever.) All that the money had done was to help people vote safely during the pandemic. But Republicans twisted Zuckerberg’s donation into a scandal; Trump — who lost the election handily but insisted it had been stolen from him — accused Zuckerberg of plotting against him.
“We are watching him closely,” Trump wrote in a coffee-table book published ahead of the 2024 election, “and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”
By the end of 2024, Zuckerberg had given up on finding any middle path through the polarized and opposite criticisms leveled against him by Republicans and Democrats. His rival Elon Musk had spent the past year showing how Republican party support can be bought — cheaply.
In business and in life, Zuckerberg’s motivation has only ever been to win. And a doddering, transactional Trump presented Meta with a rare opportunity for a fresh start.
All they would have to do is whatever Trump wanted them to do.
Ending its fact-checking program, which funds third-party organizations to check the claims in viral Facebook and Instagram posts and downrank them when they are found to contain falsehoods. It will be replaced with a clone of Community Notes, X’s volunteer fact-checking program.
Eliminating restrictions on some forms of speech previously considered harmful, including some criticisms of immigrants, women, and transgender people.
Re-calibrating automated content moderation systems to prioritize only high-severity violations of content policy, such as those involving drugs and terrorism, and reviewing lower-severity violations only when reported by users. (This sounds boring but might be the most important change of all, as we’ll get to)
Re-introducing discussion of current events, which the company calls “civic content,” into Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Moving content moderation teams from California to Texas to fight the perception that Meta’s moderation reflects a liberal Californian bias. (Never mind that the company has always had content moderation teams based in Texas, or that it was Zuckerberg and not the moderators who set the company’s policies.)
Zuckerberg announced these changes in an Instagram Reel; Joel Kaplan, a Republican operative and longtime Meta executive who last week replaced Nick Clegg as the company’s president of public policy, discussed the changes in an appearance on “Fox and Friends.” (See transcripts of both here.)
One way to understand these changes is as a marketing exercise, intended to convey a sense of profound change to an audience of one. In this, Meta appears to have succeeded; Trump today called the company’s changes “excellent” and said that the company has “come a long way.” (“Mr. Trump also said Meta’s change was ‘probably’ a result of the threats he had made against the company and Mr. Zuckerberg,” dryly noted the Times’ Mike Isaac and Theodore Schleifer.)
Whether this will be enough to get Trump to end the current antitrust prosecution against Meta, or otherwise advocate for the company in regulatory affairs, remains to be seen. By the cynical calculus of the company’s communications and policy teams, though, one assumes that Trump’s comments inspired a round of high-fives in the company’s Washington, DC offices.
But these changes are likely to substantially increase the amount of harmful speech on Meta’s platforms, according to 10 current and former employees who spoke to Platformer on Tuesday.
Start with the end of Meta’s fact-checking partnerships, which perhaps generated the most headlines of the company’s changes on Tuesday. While the company has been gradually lowering its investment in fact-checking for a couple years now, Meta’s abandonment of the project will have real effects: on the fact-checking organizations for whom Meta was a primary source of revenue, but also in the Facebook and Instagram feeds of which Meta is an increasingly begrudging steward. (snip-MORE. Go read; he left Substack because of the nazis, and made Platformer to get his writing to people. It’s free to read, and you don’t have to subscribe, either.)
Wow! This has taken a long time. I had hoped to do it every day. But I have been at this since 4 am and it is now 12 pm when I am finishing it. I love sharing the horrible shit the right wing thinks, the things the cult wants to do. If everyone likes these posts so they can choose what to read or ignore let me know. If no one wants them then I am wasting 8 hours of my life. Love and hugs to all. PS. On the other side even with my issues I am feeling a lot more energized. It seems I go one 24 hour period with no sleep and then sleep nearly 12 hours … and repeat. Love all of you, really feel good right now.
But please let me know what you feel of these posts. Do they keep you informed? Do they help? As to if I listen yes, I have decided to post the meme post twice a week because the majority of the few responces I got implied they were too many in each post. So the one I have now worked on for several days will be posted tomorrow morning and since only one person said they cared about the day, I will now try to do them on Wednesday and Sunday. However the voting is still open if I get a new majority of people who feel a different day is better for them. Again as always, loves and hugs. Scottie
Trump supporter crashes his car while speeding in the snow, screaming about Trump, and blasting "maga music". He was livestreaming WHILE DRIVING 💀 pic.twitter.com/uOinMINwa2
White male bosses, black / brown low level employees without a chance of promotion. White women secretaries / assistants. In other words, 1950 to 1960.
PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Kat Kerr declares that people who stole the election will “hang on meat hooks in hell right next to Hitler.” Kat Kerr says 150-foot angels will kill her critics. Kat Kerr says a talking scroll in heaven will soon prove the “legality” that Trump is still president. Kat Kerr says she heard God “laughing loudly” at Biden’s fake electoral college count. Kat Kerr says Jesus took her to a football game in heaven where he always wins at every sport. Kat Kerr says Jesus personally gave her the commission to draw a portrait of God and that she touched God’s hair while visiting heaven to create the drawing. Kat Kerr personally dispatches 1000 “special ops angels” to ensure Trump is reelected. Kat Kerr assigns 100 million angels to guard the Republican convention. Kat Kerr claims God destroyed the Bahamas with a hurricane due to all the underground sex trafficking tunnels. Kat Kerr claims she saw angels bombarding Trump protesters to drive out their “demonic infections.” Kat Kerr claims she waved at the blond angels guarding the tomb of Jesus. Kat Kerr claims she met Whitney Houston in heaven. Kat Kerr claims the GOP secretly won the 2018 House midterms by pretending to be Democrats. Kat Kerr claims all the aborted babies in heaven had a dance party after Kavanaugh was sworn in. Kat Kerr claims God has a rainbow colored pet unicorn. Kat Kerr claims she met Jesus in person and he was totally hot. Kat Kerr clams that once you reach heaven, Jesus personally throws you a dance party in his mansion and serves you the delicious desserts he baked himself. Kat Kerry claims God personally told her the results of the next five presidential elections. Kat Kerr “takes authority” over volcanoes, hurricanes, and wildfires in the name of Jesus, failing to stop each event.
Trump’s plan redirects even more wealth to top 5%. It shifts the tax burden onto everyday Americans to fund tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy. It increases inequality. Removing tax on tips is a symbolic gesture to appease MAGAs while they're sold out to the top 5%.… pic.twitter.com/noGH4Mp3fI
When I was in the service in the 1980s it was illegal for gays to serve. But I was mostly openly gay. I had to be careful as did the many “straight” guys who from training on wanted to have sex with me, and worked / asked / begged for us to take an afternoon drive together somewhere remote on the base to those that begged me to take a four day pass with them to travel a little ways away and get a hotel somewhere. The reason if someone asked was we were seeing such … or visiting a theme park … what ever was plausible even though no questions were ever asked. I never thought about that then … no one ever questioned anything.
Not that you need to know this but I was having same sex relations with fellow service members several times a week and at least every month having a four day pass to have sex. Once it took me by surprise when on the way back to the base I got my first blowjob while driving. When I asked gratefully why, the guy told me he wanted me to remember him in case he asked to go on another pass. He did afterward … repeatedly.
Hey people we were all young really fit horny guys. Were they gay? Were they just straight who understood it would be a way to have enjoyable sex? The only thing I will say is that for every act I performed for them both passive and aggressive, they also performed eagerly for me. You make your own judgments.
Again this was the 1980s. I knew so many Marines who went into the Marines to have the gay worked out of them by becoming a real man. Others were like me, gay with nowhere to go, some were gay like my long term boyfriend who were gay so went where hunky young guys were. Remember what I have said about my time in. I was very skilled at my job as a technician. But as far as being in the Army … well not so much. But the day I was due to leave my warrant officer, my upper staff, two of who had walked in on me fucking my boyfriend on my bed with his legs up in the air and everything in view … left the room, made a big show of about to enter with lots of rattling keys to come in to our room for an unannounced room inspection finding us flushed with our pants hastily pulled on, look around and then the senior guy Sgt Emory winked as he told us … everything looks great guys … go back to what you were doing before we came in. My boyfriend about wilted and died, but I gave a hardy OK will do. And we did. I managed to get the satellite site back up online with modulation while in civilian clothing, which the others had been frantically trying to do before I jumped in. As I said, not to brag I had a talent for more than sex. They begged me to reenlist. I asked them if they could protect me from the new Company Commander who was from infantry and hard right wing who had told me if I did not leave when my contract was ended would see me court marshaled and given an unfit for service discharge. Like the people of this article. They admitted they couldn’t … so I left and became a civilian with the military losing my skills.
That is what tRump and the bigot LGBTQ+ haters want to return to. The military already is way behind on recruitment due to increasingly better economic times, so this will make recruitment worse. Making trans care for minor dependents unavailable and removing travel pay / time for abortion services will also cut down on retention. Removing the 15,000 to 20,000 trans people will also cut down on military people. Removing women from combat? What is the goal, to gut all the US military? To reinstate the draft? Anyway here is the article. Please feel free to ask me anything about this post / my time in the military you feel you need answers to. Hugs
The Pentagon has reached a historic legal settlement with more than 35,000 gay and lesbian military veterans who were dismissed because of their sexual orientation, and in many cases denied an honorable discharge and the array of services they had earned, CBS News has learned.
Under the terms of the agreement, veterans whose discharge papers reference their sexual orientation as a reason for their separation from the military can now avoid a cumbersome legal process and be re-issued paperwork that eliminates any reference to their sexuality. If they were denied an honorable discharge, they will also be eligible for an immediate upgrade review, the agreement says.
“When I was discharged because of my sexual orientation, I felt that my country was telling me that my service was not valuable – that I was ‘less than’ because of who I loved,” said Sherrill Farrell, a U.S. Navy veteran who was a plaintiff in the case. “Today, I am once again proud to have served my country by standing up for veterans like myself, and ensuring our honor is recognized.”
The settlement, which still must receive approval from a federal judge, would resolve the claims from a group of LGBTQ+ veterans who were kicked out of the military years ago because of their sexual orientation. The veterans filed a federal civil rights suit in August 2023 over the Defense Department’s failure to grant them honorable discharges or remove biased language specifying their sexuality from their service records following the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 2011.
The class action lawsuit, which was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claims the Pentagon’s failure to correct this “ongoing discrimination” represents a violation of constitutional rights.
It’s been more than a decade since the military lifted its longstanding ban on openly gay and lesbian troops. But thousands of those discharged under past discriminatory policies like “don’t ask, don’t tell” are still carrying less than honorable discharges today, depriving them of the full spectrum of benefits including VA loan programs, college tuition assistance, health care and some jobs.
A CBS News investigation has documented the Pentagon’s long-running failure to restore honor to the service records of thousands of veterans who were deprived of veterans benefits after their military careers were cut short. A series of reports documented the ways these veterans’ often traumatic separation from the military shaped the course of their lives.
The settlement would establish a streamlined process for LGBTQ+ veterans who were discharged honorably but whose dismissal was attributed to their sexual orientation — enabling them to be re-issued papers that make no reference to it. And for those who were denied an honorable discharge, the Pentagon would commit to a streamlined upgrade review process.
“This proposed settlement delivers long-overdue justice to LGBTQ+ veterans who served our country with honor but were stripped of the dignity and recognition they rightfully earned due to discriminatory discharge policies,” said Elizabeth Kristen, a senior staff attorney with Legal Aid at Work, a group that helped file the suit. “It marks a crucial step in addressing this deep-seated injustice and ensuring these veterans receive the acknowledgment and respect they have long been denied.”
The Pentagon has issued a series of pledges in the past year to right the wrongs inflicted on gay and lesbian service members in the past year. Both the Pentagon and the Department of Justice declined comment on the proposed settlement when reached Monday.
At the time the civil rights suit was filed, a Pentagon spokesman said the military had made attempts to streamline the upgrade process to a short, two-page application. The department said legal representation was no longer required to apply for a discharge review and that the discharge review boards “continue to strive to finalize 90% of all cases within 10 months as required by statute.”
But the lawsuit, prepared by the Impact Fund, Legal Aid at Work and the law firms King & Spalding LLP and Haynes & Boone LLP, called that a “constitutionally inadequate” response, saying it placed the burden on individual veterans to spend months or years obtaining old personnel records before they could file the applications. Those reviews would then take months or years to be processed, they alleged.
The lawsuit did not seek monetary damages, though the settlement allows the court to approve a $350,000 payment by the Pentagon to cover the plaintiffs’ legal costs.
“This case is not about damages,” Jocelyn Larkin, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said at the time it was filed. “This case is about simply changing that piece of paper because the effect of changing that piece of paper is so incredibly consequential for our clients.”
While the full scope of past discrimination against gay and lesbian service members remains unknown, Larkin believes the lawsuit could at least help some 35,000 veterans already identified by a Defense Department Freedom of Information Act request, first reported by CBS News in June 2023. The true figure could be significantly higher. According to the most recent data available from the Pentagon, just 1,375 veterans have been granted relief in the form of a discharge upgrade or correction to their record.
January 7, 1953 President Harry S. Truman announced in his State of the Union address that the United States had developed a hydrogen (fusion) bomb.
January 7, 1971 The U.S. District Court of Appeals ordered William Ruckelshaus, the Environmental Protection Agency’s first administrator, to begin the de-registration procedure for DDT so that it could no longer be used. DDT being sprayed next to livestock It was a widely used pesticide in agriculture (principally cotton). This happened nine years after the publication of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”, a book which cautioned about the dangers of excessive use of pesticides and other industrial chemicals to plants and animals, and humans. Rachel Carson Read more about Rachel Carson
January 7, 1979 Vietnamese troops seized the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, toppling the regime of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian Communist party. Pol Pot and his allies had been directly responsible for the death of 25% of Cambodia’s population. When he seized power in 1975, capitalism, Western culture, city life, religion, and all foreign influences were to be extinguished in favor of an extreme form of peasant Communism. All foreigners were thus expelled, embassies closed, and any foreign economic or medical assistance was refused. The use of foreign languages was banned. Newspapers and television stations were shut down, radios and bicycles confiscated, and mail and telephone usage curtailed. Money was forbidden. All businesses were shuttered, religion banned, education halted, health care eliminated, and parental authority revoked. Thus Cambodia was sealed off from the outside world.All of Cambodia’s cities were then forcibly evacuated. At Phnom Penh, two million inhabitants were evacuated on foot into the countryside at gunpoint. As many as 20,000 died along the way. Pol Pot’s legacy: Skulls of the killing fields
Jan 06, 2025 Mariel Padilla Originally published by The 19th
Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont, who was elected to the 118th Congress in 2022, said she was shaped and largely motivated by January 6, 2021 — the day a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and temporarily halted the certification of the legitimate results of the 2020 election.
“A lot of the members who ran in the 118th and 119th Congress understood that we were running towards a house on fire and that being honestly democracy itself,” Balint said.
Balint said she vividly remembers January 6, 2021, because it was supposed to be one of the happiest days of her life: She was being sworn in as the first woman to lead the Vermont Senate. When her security team popped into her office to tell her that the U.S. Capitol was under attack, Balint said the footage “shook me to my core.”
The attack, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation called an act of domestic terrorism, sparked the Department of Justice’s largest criminal investigation in the country’s history and led to more than 1,500 people being federally charged. Rioters brought firearms, knives, hatchets, pepper spray, baseball bats, stun guns and explosive devices to fight Capitol Police officers and storm the building where lawmakers were actively voting to certify the 2020 election. Five people died during or soon after the riot, approximately 140 law enforcement officers were injured and $2.9 million worth of damage was done to the Capitol.
The day after the Capitol riot, Trump referred to the event as a “heinous attack” but has since promised to pardon those who were arrested in connection with the insurrection. Trump himself was indicted on felony charges in 2023 for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election — a criminal case that was dismissed shortly after he won the 2024 presidential election. The president-elect has since started describing January 6 as a “day of love,” as he did on the campaign trail.
As Congress votes again to certify the results of the 2024 presidential election, the country prepares to welcome back to the Oval Office the same man who denied his loss four years ago and threatened the country’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.
“It always sends a shiver down my spine when I hear people say ‘Americans don’t care about January 6 anymore — move on,’” Balint said. “I’m not moving on. It was a dark day in our history, and I’m not moving on.”
The 19th reached out to every woman in Congress — just as it did in 2021 and 2022 — to collect reflections on how January 6 continues to impact them and the country. Seventeen Democratic congresswomen and one senator responded and talked about their remaining trauma, their concern about the normalization of violence and their strong sense of duty to combat any efforts to whitewash that day.
‘There’s a record of this.’
Here’s what they said about how the spread of misinformation and disinformation surrounding that day has downplayed the severity of violence and the gravity of what was almost destroyed.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon: I still have seared in my memory the images of Capitol Police officers and other people being beaten. People lost their lives. … It’s not like somebody made this up. There are videos. There are pictures. There are statements. There’s a record of this. And there were people that were convicted by juries of their peers.
Rep. Deborah Ross of North Carolina: I think the most important thing is to be brutally honest about what happened that day. Many of us were there to witness, and we’re here to testify. We cannot allow Donald Trump and his cronies to deny what needs to be preserved for history. The next generation should know how fragile our democracy is and march forward, clear-eyed and ready to fight.
Balint: My grandfather was killed in the Holocaust and so I was raised in a family in which we were taught to be vigilant when people start eroding rights, upending norms, scapegoating people. When up is down and black is white and we can’t agree on basic facts, that is all an indication that we are headed in a very scary direction as a country.
Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey: I think [Trump] is going to do whatever he can to make January 6 be remembered like it’s July 4. In his mind, I think it’s going to be put in the highest regard and glorify the day as much as he can. And he’s going to have four years to try and get the rest of the country to do the same.
Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine: I think it’s very troubling that this incoming president could convince people that he either wasn’t responsible or that somehow all that didn’t matter. But sometimes it takes us a while to process big, complicated changes like this. Maybe there will be a time when we can reflect back and say that this was a mistake, that we overlooked it, that it took us time to realize how serious that movement was.
Rep. Jill Tokuda of Hawaii: As we approach January 6 once again, we all have a responsibility to stand up against the normalization of political violence and disinformation. We cannot forget what happened that day and as Americans, it is incumbent on us to reject violence in any form from infecting our politics and our democracy.
‘Deeply, deeply disappointed.’
Many of the lawmakers said they are still processing what it means about the state of our country that the same man who incited an insurrection could be re-elected four years later. Several emphasized that those involved in planning, executing or inciting the riot still need to be held accountable before the country can heal and move forward.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks on Capitol Hill on in February 2023, in Washington D.C. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois: As deeply, deeply disappointed as I am that that same twice-impeached president who led a coup against our government is headed back to the Oval Office, make no mistake: My Democratic colleagues and I, unlike many Republicans after the 2020 election, will uphold the will of the American people, fulfill our constitutional duty and do our part to ensure a peaceful transfer of power.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut: As Donald Trump returns to the presidency, I feel an even greater responsibility to ensure that we do not let an election outcome diminish the gravity of what happened that day. His re-election does not change the reality of the insurrection or absolve those who incited and participated in it. It does not erase the trauma experienced by Capitol staff and Capitol Police officers who defended our democracy at great personal risk.
Rep. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin: Donald Trump, a convicted felon and aspiring autocrat, is promising to let loose dangerous rioters into our communities and threatening lawmakers and journalists with imprisonment. Trump’s lawlessness and thirst for political revenge is why I have repeatedly said he is unfit for office.
Rep. Lois Frankel of Florida: People have short memories. People are more consumed with their own lives [when they go to the polls]. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; it’s just an observation. What was probably on people’s minds? Their bank account, their rent, price of food, right?
Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio: We learned a lot of lessons through this last election. The American people know what they want to hear, whether it’s true or not.
Rep. Judy Chu of California: No matter what happens during Trump’s second term, the events of January 6, 2021, will forever be his legacy. He refused to concede or even acknowledge that there was a free and fair election in 2020, and he is still pressuring the Justice Department and intends to continue to pressure the Justice Department.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts: Trump’s return to the highest office in the land, despite his central role in the insurrection, is a gut punch to anyone who cares about our democracy. But it does not absolve us of our responsibility to pursue accountability and continue telling the story of what happened that day.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington: I still put the onus on the Republicans in the Senate who refused to convict him. That’s something I think about all the time being on the Judiciary Committee. I think our founding fathers assumed that perhaps there would be a dictator as president — that’s envisioned in the Constitution. But they also assumed that an entire party would not just enter into a cult and follow that dictator. They assumed that there would be enough people on both sides of the aisle willing to do what it takes to preserve democracy, and that is clearly not the case.
‘I still tremble at the mere mention of the date.’
For many of the women, there is lingering trauma.
Jayapal: It will always be a day that is very, very tough emotionally. I started a gallery group after, a very close support group to process the trauma — it’s something that none of us will ever forget.
Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida: I still tremble at the mere mention of the date January 6, a day that is forever tainted with fear, violence and terror. To have lived it is to never ever forget it. America can never fathom what we experienced. It was like playing a role in a horror movie and hoping that it would soon come to an end.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico: It makes me sick to my stomach that the people who desecrated our democracy will be pardoned and potentially invited back into the Capitol. It makes me incredibly sad to think that there will be Capitol Police — police who were brutalized and beaten by the mob — who will just have to stand there.
Rep. Sara Jacobs of California: I’ve been very nervous thinking about and leading up to January 6. I still have lingering trauma from the first one. I don’t like big crowds and loud noises. And I just keep thinking that they have no incentive to be violent this time, right? But it still makes me very nervous because we haven’t actually done the sort of reconciliation and hard work and accountability work that we need to do as a country. … I know that people’s trust and faith in institutions is a key part of addressing political violence because political violence only happens when people don’t feel like the nonviolent, institutional way of doing things is actually going to create the effect they want.
Rep. Ann McLane Kuster talks to Capitol Police officer Sgt. Aquilino Gonell after he testified before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol on July 27, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Rep. Ann McLane Kuster of New Hampshire said she is still dealing with lasting post-traumatic stress disorder from January 6, one the “most impactful events” in her life. Kuster was also one of the last five lawmakers to be evacuated from the House floor. She could hear the thundering crowds and pounding on the doors and experienced a panic attack as officers snuck them into an elevator and rushed them through an underground tunnel to safety. Kuster later saw security footage of insurrectionists with backpacks, bear mace and zip ties entering the same hallway she had just evacuated 30 seconds earlier.
“I’m haunted by the idea that if the police hadn’t pushed back five seconds here, five seconds there, pushing back on the bicycle racks, pushing back on the people who were crushed in the doors — that the five of us would have been kidnapped, murdered or maimed,” Kuster said. “It was only a five-vote majority and if we hadn’t been there, America might not have woken up to Joe Biden as the lawfully elected president of the United States.”
Kuster decided to retire this year before Trump is sworn in as the 47th President of the United States and attributes January 6 as one of the reasons for that decision. In addition to the lingering trauma, Kuster said she’s received more and more death threats and has noticed a marked increase of violent rhetoric in public discourse.
“He tried to kill me once,” Kuster said. “I’m not available for it again.”
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