The Rise of a New, Dangerous Cynicism

For weeks leading up to January 6, 2021, I and others on the Biden campaign had been working through Donald Trump’s challenges to the 2020 presidential election. We did so in the courts, and then later on, we had regular calls with Capitol Hill senior staff about preparations for the upcoming electoral-vote count. We considered a whole range of possibilities, including one that fortunately did not materialize: Mike Pence buckling under pressure from Donald Trump, and either declaring him the winner, or disrupting the proceedings by insisting that the count should be suspended and the battleground states invited to reconsider the results in favor of Joe Biden that they had already certified.

Then came the attack on the Capitol, and I was back and forth on calls with my primary source of contact with the Senate leadership, Mark Patterson, who was the general counsel to Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. I’ve known Patterson for years, having worked with him when he was a senior aide to one of Schumer’s predecessors, former Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Patterson is calm, sensible, possessed of excellent judgment. On January 6, I reached him at a secure space to which he had been escorted to protect him from violence as the mob coursed through the corridors, police officers were beaten, guns were drawn, and one