Documenting the Danger to Democracy
How photographs of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol counter the rewriting of history and demonstrate the importance of visual journalism in the struggle against authoritarianism.
On January 6, 2021, an attack on the U.S. Capitol attempted to overturn the results of the presidential election in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump. Three years on from this momentous event, Republicans in America have been downplaying its significance, declaring it to be “legitimate political discourse,” “fake news,” or a “false flag.”
Against this rewriting of history, the photographs and videos of the insurrection provide documentary evidence of the violence and its authoritarian agenda. Visual reports from the many journalists on the scene offer a pictorial archive fundamental to our collective memory of the danger to democracy. Recalling how this day was recorded is essential in 2024, a year in which democracy will be tested like never before.
What happened?
January 6, 2021, was always going to be an historic day.
The election of a US president is democratic, but it is a process of representative democracy rather than direct democracy. On the first Tuesday of November every four years, voters opt for one of the presidential candidates on the ballot.
However, voters are, in fact, choosing members of the 538-member Electoral College. There is a complex process to determine the makeup of the Electoral College. Electoral votes are allocated amongst the states based on the population Census and the size of Congressional delegations. Each state decides how to appoint its electors, and in all but two states (Maine and Nebraska), the allocation of electors is determined by the winner of the state-wide popular vote being assigned all that state’s electors.
Thus, Wyoming, the smallest state with 581,000 residents, selects three electors, while California, the largest state with 39 million residents, picks 54.
This means US presidential elections are not one-person, one-vote: it takes nearly four times as many Californians to select one member of the Electoral College as it does Wyomingites. Democratic structures come in many forms, some more democratic than others.
If a candidate receives the support of 270 electoral college members, they become the president-elect. Congress then meets in a joint session to formally count and certify the Electoral College result. That takes place on January 6 after each presidential election the previous November.
Certification has traditionally been a routine procedure.
January 6, 2021, was not a routine day.
Donald Trump lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote in November 2020. Nonetheless, he immediately declared the election rigged, the vote fraudulent, and the result stolen.
Trump and his supporters conspired to overturn the election result, and that is why Trump was impeached and why he and many of his allies are now indicted on charges of interfering with the election and defrauding the government and votes.
The “Save America” rally at the Ellipse, near the White House, on January 6, 2021, brought together speakers and supporters seeking (in their words, which reversed reality) to “stop the steal.”
The rally had been planned well in advance and was attended by more than 50,000 people, many of whom had been bussed to Washington from other parts of the country.
The defeated president called on his supporters to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol building where Congress sits, saying:
We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
VII photographers Ashley Gilbertson, Ron Haviv, and Christopher Morris were there. VII Mentee Christopher Lee also photographed the day. (You can hear much more about how these photographers worked in “Anarchy in the USA: Revisit the Conversation with VII Photographers who Covered the Events in the Capitol,” a VII Insider event recorded shortly after January 6, 2021).
Trump’s speech to the rally ended at 1.10 pm, and by then, the violence at the Capitol had begun. Many — though not all — of those at the rally followed Trump’s exhortation to go to the Capitol. Amongst those who did were armed white supremacist militias, including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.
In the 187 minutes between the end of Trump’s speech and his belated and half-hearted call for the violence to end (tweeted at 4.17 pm), Americans and the world watched an unprecedented effort to subvert the democratic process as more than 2,000 individuals fought with law enforcement and forced their way into the Capitol. (See the Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol for a comprehensive account of the attack with these details).
The VII photographers were often assaulted and abused by the crowd, who saw them as “enemies of the people,” “Antifa,” and members of “the fake news.”
Christopher Lee — wearing a mask to protect himself against Covid — reported that some shouted at him: “We know you’re not one of us because you take the virus seriously.”
The VII photographers also reported a surreal mix of chaos and wonderment, violence and carnival, in the mob once they had breached the building. Ashley Gilbertson likened it to the feeling evident when he witnessed Iraqis entering Saddam Hussein’s palace in Baghdad.
Nothing symbolizes this more than the photo of the “QAnon Shaman.”
Nothing indicates the paradox of U.S. democracy more than the fact this man, Jacob Chansley, is running in his Arizona district as a libertarian candidate for election to the House of Representatives.
Chansley can be a candidate despite being convicted on felony charges for obstructing an official investigation.
Chansley’s case also demonstrates that the law has defended the democratic process. More than 1,000 individuals have been charged with crimes related to January 6, with more than half of them — including Jacob Chansley — pleading guilty.
The photo of Eugene Goodman best shows the resilience of the law. Goodman, a U.S. Army veteran who served during the Iraq War, was the United States Capitol Police officer who diverted invading rioters from the Senate chamber during the January 6 attack.
Goodman showed great restraint. He was forceful but did not fire his weapon, something the photographers feared might happen. His actions averted possible bloodshed in the Capitol.
Ron Haviv’s film “Insurrection” shows us the January 6 attack in two powerful minutes:
What next?
In the U.S., Trump, despite being indicted for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, will be running again as the Republican candidate in the November 2024 presidential election. Next year, on January 6, 2025, what will we see? A return to the peaceful transition of power after this year’s presidential poll, or another attempt to subvert the democratic process in the U.S.?
Democracy’s test will extend well beyond the U.S. this year. According to the Atlantic Council, there will be 83 national elections in 78 countries worldwide, including India, Indonesia, Mexico, Senegal, South Africa, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. As the council has noted (using an American sporting metaphor):
The world will likely not see the same volume of global elections until 2048. This ‘superbowl’ of an election year presents unique challenges to the global community that works on everything from election administration to information integrity.
As I’ve written previously, a global political trend toward authoritarianism is destroying the democratic culture necessary for photographers, journalists, artists, and critics to think, create, and work freely. We know that culture is best secured by democratic structures, where our governments are derived from free and fair elections, the rule of law governs all citizens equally, and the right to assemble and express ourselves freely is guaranteed. While these principles do not account for all forms of power constraining our lives — especially economic power — they are the best political framework for individual and collective enrichment.
We also know that throughout human history, most societies have not been democratic, even in the formal sense of having periodic elections. Liberal democracies — those societies with established rights safeguarding assembly, expression, and justice in addition to elections — make up only a small portion of the world’s countries. Moreover, according to Our World in Data, the number of democracies has recently declined from an all-time high in 2012.
Elections do not, by themselves, secure democratic culture. The autocracies of Iran and Russia will be holding national votes in March 2024, but they will be bogus, given the restrictions on independent media and opposition candidates in those countries. In addition to the U.S., even liberal democracies such as the Netherlands, where the 2023 success of Geert Wilder’s “Party for Freedom” showed how the populist Identity and Democracy group is gaining ground in Europe, are subject to the potential erosion of universal rights through the polls.
Democratic culture needs to be secured and sustained against the rising tide of authoritarianism. Whatever dangers are coming, we won’t see the threats unless there are visual journalists present to document them. The reportage of Ashley Gilbertson, Ron Haviv, Christopher Lee, and Christopher Morris, along with their many colleagues from other organizations in Washington on January 6, 2021, has produced an archive testifying to the events of the day. This year, more than ever, we need visual journalism like this to be a bulwark against the erosion of democracy.
This article is based on my contribution to “Documenting the Danger to Democracy,” the hybrid event organized by VII Insider in collaboration with the Forhanna Foundation at Pakhuis de Zwijger, Amsterdam, on 17 January 2024.
You can watch the recording of that event in the VII Insider video collection.
We agree, and the editorial model - based on advertising - has been in decline for 25 years or more. So photographers need to explore new funding sources and ways of working to produce the stories we need, along with news to distribute them. Collaborating with community groups pursuing change is a promising route. It's hard, but not impossible.
Wow, stunning work here, these photos are very powerful,David. I don't think people fully realise their historical value.