In the weeks since the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, federal prosecutors have announced criminal charges against more than 175 people — less than a quarter of those involved in the melee, but enough to provide a rough portrait of the mob and the sprawling investigation into its actions.
The New York Times‘ review of the federal cases through the end of January brings a lot of clarity about the riot at the Capitol. Many of the very loud claims and blames about who was involved now have to be discarded.
First, relatively few people entered the Capitol: less than 700 people. This really shows that the problem was primarily a lack of security which mostly lays at the feet of the Democratic mayor of DC and the bi-partisan-controlled Capitol Police. Whatever Trump did or didn’t do, the Dems and Reps share the blame.
The mayor and other responsible officials seem to have lost their awe for the Capitol site and didn’t protect it as if it was a sacred place. The forced entrance into this nationally sacred site was even more painful than the awful radical left terrorist bombing in 1971. Online media meant that we got to experience the horror as it was taking place. It was like a horrible car wreck happening in slow motion before us. Many of the invaders were just walking and taking photos around the Capitol as if they were tourists. In frightening contrast, some people were bursting doors down, attacking police and killing one, and one or two were marching purposefully along with plastic wrist ties as if they were going to take hostages. One protestor was trampled to death by fellow protestors. One invader was shot and killed by the police.
The violent intruders, perhaps, numbered 100-150 people. Various guesses place the crowd outside as numbering between 4,000 and 10,000, but no one really knows because of the absence of aerial photographs.
Second, no pastors, priests, or other organized religious leaders have been identified so far as part of the riot. They may have been outside watching but none took part in the assault — as far as the Times knows right now. Of course, we need to keep looking. Leo Christopher Kelly, who prayed in the Capitol, was an employee of an internet company. He came to Washington, DC by himself and says he entered into the building because he got caught up in the moment. Couy Griffin, a county commissioner, lead a bullhorn prayer.
Third, as we first reported, Oath Keepers were involved. As you might remember, we speculated that these older guys were guiding the others. That appears to be true. The Proud Boys were involved; 11 possibly arrested so far.
Fourth, relatively few people (12) with open Q Anon leanings were arrested. This may not mean anything because it is based on a survey of the mob’s social media accounts. However, this low level of open allegiance to QAnon conspiracy theory may cause us to pause our conspiracy theories about the mob. You had very visible QAnon Shaman and other symbols of Q Anon or pagan-Christianity, but the numbers were relatively small.
Fifth, were there “Christian nationalist” leaders inside the Capitol mob? Most of the reporting has focused on people outside of the mob inside the Capitol. There were some pastors preaching in the days before the mob and probably some outside the Capitol.
According to the Times, “But a majority expressed few organizing principles, outside a fervent belief in the false assertion that President Donald J. Trump had won re-election.”
There is too small of a sample that would allow a statement such as the mob in the Capitol showed an “authentic White Christianity” (Jemar Tisby). Nor can it be said that it showed that “White evangelicalism” had fused with Trumpian extremism (Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham of the New York Times) unless you mean that the portion of evangelicals among the 74 million people, 46.8%, voting for Trump were extremists.
So, let’s hold up on massive ideological generalizations. There were few people directly involved and they didn’t have a common ideology. They were Trumpists for sure, but a small select group of them. They represented no one but themselves and the crackpot ideas of certain militant groups.
Our OpEd by Bishop Joseph Mattera called to task the false prophecies of a bunch of Prophets. These Prophets may have planted the seeds of insurrection. Others may not have taken the dangers of the irresponsible false prophets seriously enough. Does this show “authentic White Christianity” or “White evangelicalism’s” fusion with Trump extremism?
To Be Continued. I welcome any additional information, analysis, or thoughts that you may have!
March 5, 2022 update: Subsequent reporting has confirmed, in the main, our first impressions.
As of January 1, 2022, 716 individuals have been charged with illegally entering the Capitol or Capitol grounds on January 6. We placed the number that entered the Capitol as less than 700, based on early Federal police reports. There is some uncertainty about how many entered after the doors were opened (forcibly), perhaps up to 1300 people. Since most of these acted more like gawkers and tourists and entered after the doors were opened, the federal government doesn’t plan on charging them.
It has been widely confirmed that the D.C. police resisted heavy police presence and vetoed the use of the national guard. The Capitol police had a small group on the outside, because they said that the federal agencies gave them false information about the danger of the crowd. The federal agencies have pushed back and produced copies of warnings. Regardless of who is right, the too low police presence has been admitted.
Our identification of the Oath Keepers as shepherds of the breach of the Capitol has been confirmed, along with a few other groups.
One minor church leader did enter the Capitol. Steve Rabey of The Roys Report identified Tyler Ethridge, a youth pastor from Florida, as one of the people who entered the Capitol. Ethridge has been fired from his job. Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, has been analyzing 716 of the rioters who have been charged by the federal government. In his “American Face Insurrection,” published on January 5, 2022, he didn’t identify any significant religious leaders among those charged for storming the U.S. Capitol. Mainly, the religion of the rioters was a sort of do-it-for-yourself faith. (Also see Michelle Boorstein’s July 6, 2021 article in Washington Post He says that the rioters were not involved in the leadership of any national evangelical organization. Further, he confirmed our first impression that the crowd as a whole was not the fruit of some conspiracy of right-wing extremists nor the result of some QAnon uprising. He found that the rioters’ social make-up was mainstream American. “Of the insurrectionists that were connected to far-right militias or groups, 51 charged were Proud Boys, 24 were Oath Keepers, 18 were Three Percenters, and 9 belonged to various other small groups.”
At this point, it is not possible to evaluate to what degree the violent rioters were White Christian nationalists. Certainly, we can now say that they did not represent mainstream evangelicalism. As many have pointed out, the so-called Christian nationalists are much less likely to attend any church. Such broad generalizations that the rioters represented “authentic White Christianity” or evidence that “White evangelicalism” had fused with Trumpian extremism have not been substantiated by Pape and other researchers.
The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Freedom From Religion Foundation sponsored a very interesting survey of the White Christian nationalist rhetoric and symbols used in the events before, during, and the riot, and during the riot. The report uses a very expansive definition of Christian nationalism as “the fusion of Christianity with American civic life.” That sometimes leads to weak methodology like counting the number of crosses as evidence of extreme White Christian nationalism. Is the White priest who wears the cross while praising Trump walking evidence of White Christian nationalism? Still, the report is filled with a useful catalog of symbols and rhetorics that most evangelical and other religious leaders are probably not very familiar with. And the researchers were attempting what was possible, so they were not attempting to discover how many of the people who violently entered the Capitol subscribed to extreme White Christian nationalism because the evidence is not available and is not likely to become available any time soon.
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