John Sides - The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy

The BITTER END

THE BITTER END

The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy

John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON & OXFORD

Copyright 2022 by Princeton University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sides, John, author. | Tausanovitch, Chris, 1985 author. | Vavreck, Lynn, 1968 author.

Title: The bitter end: the 2020 presidential campaign and the challenge to American democracy / John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck.

Description: Princeton: Princeton University Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021033744 (print) | LCCN 2021033745 (ebook) | ISBN 9780691213453 (hardback) | ISBN 9780691228914 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Trump, Donald, 1946 | Biden, Joseph R., Jr. | Presidents United StatesElection2020. | Political campaignsUnited StatesHistory21st century. | Political participationUnited States. | United StatesPolitics and government20172021.

Classification: LCC E915 .S53 2022 (print) | LCC E915 (ebook) | DDC 324.973/0905dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033744

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033745

Version 1.0

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Editorial: Bridget Flannery-McCoy, Alena Chekanov

Jacket Design: Karl Spurzem

Production: Erin Suydam

Publicity: James Schneider, Kate Farquhar-Thomson

Jacket photograph: Shutterstock

To

Rick and Elizabeth Sides,

Stephanie Carrie,

and

Abigail and William Lewis,

Our families.

WHEN DO WE START WINNING?

That was what a friend of Ashli Babbitts asked on Twitter the week before Congress met to certify the 2020 presidential election. Babbitt replied, January 6, 2021.

Babbitt was a thirty-five-year-old Air Force veteran who lived outside San Diego with her husband. She owned a struggling pool-supply company. She also was an ardent supporter of Donald Trump and his crusade to overturn the results of the 2020 election. On January 5 she had tweeted, Nothing will stop us. They can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours dark to light! The next day, with a Trump flag tied around her neck, Babbitt joined a mob that breached the U.S. Capitol and interrupted the certification of the election.

Babbitt had traveled to Washington to attend a Save America rally that Trump and his allies organized for that morning. At the rally, multiple people spoke in violent terms about what needed to happen. Rep. Mo Brooks, a Republican from Alabama, said, Today is the day American patriots start takin down names and kickin ass. Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? One of Trumps sons, Donald Jr., said that red-blooded, patriotic Americans should fight for Trump. Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani called for trial by combat. At noon, Trump himself spoke for an hour, declaring that he would never concede the election and telling supporters, We fight like hell and if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore. He called on supporters to go to the Capitol and demand that Congress do the right thing.

Thousands of his supporters heeded Trumps call. By 1:00 p.m., some breached the temporary fences on the Capitol grounds and clashed with Capitol Police officers. A little after 2:00 p.m., protesters broke a window and began to enter the Capitol. At 2:30, the Senate, including Vice President Mike Pence and several members of his family, was evacuated. Protesters, including a few who were armed or carried zip-tie restraints, soon occupied the Senate chamber. Approximately 800 eventually entered the Capitol. The protest had become a riotor, as some would later say, an insurrection.

Babbitt was among a group that targeted the House chamber, where some members of Congress still remained, hiding under desks. The rioters attacked the glass doors that opened into the Speakers Lobby, a room just outside the chamber. One yelled Fuck the blue! at the officers standing there. The group hit the doors with their hands, flagpoles, and other objects.

When one door broke, Babbitt tried to climb through. Michael Byrd, a Capitol Police officer standing on the other side, shot her. Babbitt received medical attention on the scene from police and was transported to a local hospital, where she died of her injuries.

Babbitt was the only rioter to be killed that day, but she was otherwise similar to the types of people who entered the Capitol. Most who were charged with a crime had no connection with far-right groups, militias, or white nationalist organizations, although such groups, including the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers, were represented among the rioters. Court records showed that most of these people said they were only doing what Trump had told them to do: defend him and keep Biden from winning a stolen election. This was Babbitts goal, too.

Trump welcomed their efforts. Indeed, he had long been willing to downplay, countenance, or even encourage violence on his behalf. In his first presidential campaign he praised supporters who assaulted protestors at his rallies, offering to pay their legal bills. In his second campaign, rather than disavowing the support of extremist groups, he encouraged them. In the presidential debate on September 29, 2020, he told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by.

And so it was no surprise that Trump was initially pleased when his supporters stormed the Capitol, according to White House officials who later spoke with reporters. The violence was well underway before Trump finally tweeted, at 2:47 p.m., Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful! Even then, one official said that Trump had not wanted to include stay peaceful.

Members of Congress and White House aides implored Trump to speak out more forcefully. Trump sent a second tweet at 3:25, calling for people to remain peaceful and saying, No violence! But he refused to condemn the violence outright or tell his supporters to leave the Capitol. At 4:22 p.m. he published a video message in which he said that we have to have peace and told his supporters to go home. But he also said that we love you, youre very special and repeated his false claim of election fraud. At 6:25 p.m., after the rioters had finally been cleared from the Capitol, Trump praised them again, tweeting, These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. He added, Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!

It was a jarring sentiment even at that point, and it would become more so when the full toll of that day was clear. Ashli Babbitt was dead; the Capitol building had been damaged extensively; and the Capitol Police had suffered devastating harm and lossapproximately 140 officers were injured by rioters, who beat them with baseball bats, flagpoles, and pipes. One officer, Brian Sicknick, died the following day of a stroke that was possibly linked to the injuries he had received when a rioter pepper-sprayed him. Four officers committed suicide in the months following the riot.