Lhe United States is reconnecting in January 2025 with one of the principles on which its political history is based: the peaceful transfer of power. There is every reason to welcome this, provided, however, that the peaceful certification of the results of the presidential election of November 5, 2024 by Congress, which took place on January 6, under the presidency of the defeated, Democrat Kamala Harris , outgoing vice-president and president of the Senate, does not erase the memory of January 6, 2021. That day, the world's leading power faltered with the assault on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump ready for anything, with his encouragement, to keep him in power despite his defeat against Joe Biden.
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During the months that followed, the stubborn rewriting of history that the Republican engaged in made it possible to avoid what should have banished him from public life. Contempt for the facts has paid off with a significant part of the conservative camp, locked in an alternative reality by the good care of opinion media impervious to the truth. However, we must remember that no evidence has ever supported the conspiracy theory of a stolen presidential election, and that this attack on the Capitol was the work of factious people, not patriots.
The blindness of the Republican base created the conditions for a long-unexpected return of Donald Trump, aided by the unpopularity of the Democratic administration, notably its record in terms of purchasing power and illegal immigration. It is very unlikely that the latter will be overtaken by late remorse when he makes the commitment on January 20 to serve and defend the Constitution, under the gaze of predecessors whom he has all insulted and smeared.
Toxic revisionism
It is all the more regrettable since, as the outgoing president recalled in a column published on January 6 by the Washington Post, “any nation that forgets its past is condemned to repeat it”. To guard against such a prospect, Donald Trump should resist his instincts and place America's greatness ahead of his personal interests and obsessions.
Putting an end to the toxic revisionism of recent years requires first of all renouncing the pardon granted to those prosecuted, judged and convicted for their participation in this coup against democracy, as Donald Trump promised during the presidential campaign. . A strong majority of Americans surveyed by several polling institutes are also opposed to this leniency, which is difficult to justify.
Another renunciation of a second commitment is also imperative: that of prosecuting all those responsible, in Congress, in the Department of Justice or even within the federal police, who simply did their duty by exposing the machination of which the 6 January 2021 was the product. Otherwise, the reflex of revenge would triumph with incalculable consequences for American institutions already tested by the broad impunity granted in 2024 to Donald Trump by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body in the country .
As we can see, the United States is still not done with January 6, 2021. Their exemplary nature is at stake, and above all the resilience of their political system.
