They were chanting, "No Trump, No Peace!"
The mob that stormed the Capitol had no doubt who'd sent him there: the man who was at that moment the President of the United States. They were not confused about the mission: to keep him in power for another term. That is why they broke down the doors and the windows of the national legislature to prevent Congress from confirming that he would soon leave office. He gathered them on January 6, he filled them with the last bits of virulent rage and insidious lies necessary to explode the situation after weeks and weeks of the same, and then he sent them down Pennsylvania Avenue to do his bidding.
That was what a video exhibit from the House impeachment managers making their case in Donald Trump's second Senate trial demonstrated on Tuesday. It was a video that should be shown on every television news program tonight. It should be shown to every American, even if some of the people who most need to see it never will. Tucker Carlson would not show his viewers the footage when a Dutch historian destroyed him in an interview for Carlson's own show. He certainly will not show this, and neither, likely, will his colleagues at Fox News. But we must try to get this in front of as many people as possible anyway. It is, at the very least, a vital historical document, a keeping of the record in a time when so many are eager to bury the truth beneath shameless lies and procedural squabbling.
It helped that, on either side of showing the video, Reps. Jamie Raskin and Joe Neguse made an elegant case that the constitutionality of the Senate proceedings was in no real question. Neither, as the video made clear, was the mob's mission and intent, or Trump's role in fostering it. "No Trump, No Peace!" allows us no ambiguities. Neither does the moment where a member of the mob yells at a police officer, "We are listening to Trump—your boss." It's a clear statement of allegiance and a grotesque understanding of American life. At another point, you can hear the insurrectionists scream, "Where the fuck are they?" You shudder to think what would have happened to members of Congress if the mob had found an answer in time. This is what a near-miss looks like. This is how close we got to a situation where street goons who answered to our chief magistrate took physical control of the Legislative Branch.
Show the video to someone you know. And if you run a news program, show it to the someones you know are watching. Even in the unbelievable cases where they remain unconvinced that the president must face consequences for what he's done, you will know you've done your duty as a citizen of this country. If the pursuit of justice does not fuel you, let the rage and horror of this piece of testimony do it.
Jack Holmes is a senior staff writer at Esquire, where he covers politics and sports. He also hosts Unapocalypse, a show about solutions to the climate crisis.