One year ago, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. It was an unprecedented attack on the Constitution, incited by the incumbent president’s refusal to accept that the American people had voted him out of office. It was a miracle more weren’t killed as Congress and the vice president were forced to flee amidst the chaos and violence. The attack came as the culmination of weeks of lawless efforts to subvert the election outcome, which Trump continues to maintain was stolen from him.
In the immediate aftermath and since, Cato scholars have worked both to condemn the violence and the lies that spawned it, and to highlight the needed reforms to avoid future assaults on the peaceful transfer of power.
In a Cato Daily Podcast recorded on January 6, David Boaz, Cato’s executive vice president, explained that “what we saw on our television screens was a direct assault on the rule of law.… It reminded me of something we quote a lot at Cato, which is Milton Friedman saying ‘freedom is fragile; we can’t take it for granted.’”
The day after the assault, Cato’s president and CEO Peter Goettler wrote:
The violent disruption of constitutional processes is unacceptable and must be rejected unequivocally. Mob rule is no path to liberty. Attempting to forcibly keep a defeated president in power strikes at the core of the Constitution’s provisions for protecting the rights and liberties of the American people.
Chairman Robert A. Levy observed that President Trump “dangerously eroded voters’ confidence in our electoral system and its republican foundations. In desperation, he put his personal interests above those of the nation.”
Gene Healy, vice president and author of works on the presidency and impeachment, also addressed the questions arising from Trump’s role and subsequent impeachment. In a video for Reason TV, he offered his perspective: “The question of whether incitement to riot is an impeachable offense is pretty easy. Clearly, yes.” Healy further discussed the second impeachment of Donald Trump in a Cato Daily Podcast episode. More recently, Healy wrote in Cato Policy Report about how the all‐consuming presidency fuels such disastrous polarization.
Walter Olson and I have discussed the events of that day and the pros and cons of post‐January 6 election reform proposals in several pieces and podcasts, including on the growing push to fix the Electoral Count Act. Paul Matzko, editor for technology and innovation, wrote at Libertarianism.org about the underlying ideological currents that fueled the attack. Emily Ekins studied the partisan divide in opinions over social media moderation, including the decision to ban President Trump from Twitter and Facebook. Alex Nowrasteh and Neal McCluskey explored the data on the educational and immigration backgrounds of the hundreds of January 6 defendants. Patrick G. Eddington tracked the ill‐conceived demands for new domestic terrorism legislation, which eventually fizzled.
Amidst all that, Cato’s most fundamental statement on the events of January 6 started many years before, and it has continued uninterrupted. We are proud to have published and distributed millions of our pocket copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, “to encourage people everywhere to better understand and appreciate the principles of government that are set forth in America’s founding documents.” There is perhaps no better way to mark today’s anniversary than taking a moment to share that appreciation.
