Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a Republican, said Wednesday that it’s time for lawmakers to “move on” from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
During an appearance on “The View” on ABC, she echoed recent comments from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said members of Congress investigating the attempted insurrection should be “talking about the future and not the past.”
“Yes, it’s time to move on in a lot of ways,” said Rice, who led the State Department during former President George W. Bush’s second term in office.
“I’m going to tell you: I live in California, not Washington, D.C., and the American people do have other concerns that we ought to be thinking about and talking about,” she claimed
Rice said that although she cried the day of the attack, she felt much better when senators “filed back into the Capitol” and “certified that election” later that day. “I had new faith in our institutions and the people who were protecting them,” she added.
That sounds like a rollercoaster of a day for the former secretary of state. But her personal emotions aside, it’s dangerously naive to suggest the Jan. 6 riot was a moment in time that’s already been dealt with. Believing the incident was isolated, rather than one of many steps toward fascism, has always been the shallow view. The attack wasn’t just against the Capitol, the Capitol Police or even the lawmakers gathered in the building that day. The attack was against America’s democratic process, and that attack is ongoing.
It’s foolish for anyone to believe the attack on American democracy started or ended Jan. 6.
Donald Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud in last year’s presidential election were borrowed from conservative arguments historically designed to curb voter participation, particularly in nonwhite communities. The attackers who stormed the Capitol in January were emboldened by those lies, as are Republican-led legislatures across the country passing voter suppression bills purporting to shore up “confidence” in future elections. And they’re all joined by Republican state officials who have pursued “audits” of last year’s already-validated election results.
It’s foolish for anyone to believe the attack on American democracy started or ended Jan. 6. Some of the attackers are still being charged, while some people who may have knowledge about the attack — like former Trump adviser Steve Bannon — are stonewalling investigators.
It’s sinister for Republican figures such as Rice or McConnell — who have an interest in denying the danger of their party’s increasing lawlessness — to claim we should all practice the same willful ignorance they do.
Watch a clip of Rice’s appearance on “The View” below:
Sec. @CondoleezzaRice: “Our institutions have to be upheld.”
— The View (@TheView) October 20, 2021
“What happened on January 6th was wrong. I also know that as a government and as a country, we’ve got to be concerned about the things that are making life hard for Americans and hard for American families.” pic.twitter.com/GGA3FGfu3J
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Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.