My Week With Jan 6 Felons

The spell Trump cast over his base of loyal supporters is so powerful that they will vote for him regardless.

In September 2023, while making my documentary The Conspiracists, I spent a week with some of the insurrectionists who stormed The Capitol. When I returned home the first thing I told my partner was, “Trump is going to get back in.” This week, all the insurrectionists have been pardoned and those who were incarcerated released.

I’ve posted a short clip from the film here of Yvonne. She had just been sentenced to 30 months in prison for her part in the attack and had to self report to prison in 5 weeks time. Before she left D.C. she headed down to “Freedom Corner” where this interview took place.

I first met Yvonne an hour before her sentencing in a D.C. court. In attendance were a number of F.B.I agents and law enforcement officers. One of them was no longer able to work in law enforcement due to his injuries sustained during the attack on The Capitol. Sitting in that courtroom I was reminded quite how bad the attack really had been. Not only was it violent, but it was a terror attack on those democratically elected officials who were trapped and being targeted inside.

While I was editing the film I trawled through hours of police bodyworn footage from the day. It is particularly visceral because it is uncut and you are literally placed in their body, experiencing their body movements with them. The audio of the person whose body you are in is amplified above everything else, you hear their heavy breathing, their voice, and you hear their fear but you never see their face. I have read some comments saying that the sentences were too harsh, that many people just walked through the doors, and shouldn’t have been incarcerated at all. If you are thinking that, then I invite you to sit and watch that bodyworn footage, and ask you to think again.

Here is a short clip from the film where I incorporated some of the body worn footage.

The people I met during that week were mostly ordinary people. They weren’t the ‘Tech Bros’ or people in industry with vested interests to protect, they were just regular people. They are the core of Trump’s base and their allegiance to him is unwavering and unconditional. No matter what he says or does, they will follow. By “keeping to his word” and pardoning every single insurrectionist - even the most violent among them - Trump has now strengthened their allegiance to him even further.

The spell Trump cast over his base of loyal supporters is so powerful that they will vote for him regardless.

When the Tech Bros, the media owners, the politicians - each with their vested interests or diplomatic relations to protect - switched their allegiance to curry favour with Trump, they legitimised him. They legitimised his values, his lies and his presidency. On a pragmatic level this lack of integrity is perhaps understandable, on a moral level it is reprehensible. But regular people, Trump’s base that voted him in, don’t have vested interests to protect in the same way, so why do they support him? In the post-election analysis many pointed to inflation and the feeling of being worse off as the cause for the Democrats’ defeat, but that is probably an over-simplification: The spell Trump has cast over his base of loyal supporters is so powerful that they will vote for him regardless.

While sat in my liberal bubble I have often wondered why any woman would vote for Trump given his open misogyny. I have struggled to understand why so many of the immigrant community voted for him, given his stance on immigration. But many of his base treat him like a prophet and they will back their prophet no matter what.

In the case of Yvonne, and the women featured in my film, they believe Trump is a White Hat. In conspiracy theory circles, a White Hat is someone believed to be working behind the scenes to expose corruption, fight against perceived evil forces and to protect the public from harm. They believe Trump has come to save them. If you believe that, then you will vote for your saviour come hell or high water. He can lie, he can say dreadful things about people from your community or about women, but when you truly believe he is a White Hat, you can twist anything he does or says to fit a narrative that supports your allegiance to him.

Our ability to twist what we hear into something that fits our own belief system is known as confirmation bias in psychology, and we are all guilty of it. But, what I witnessed was confirmation bias taken to an extreme. What I also witnessed was the pervasiveness of these beliefs. These are beliefs that less than a decade ago would have been considered so wild and extreme that they were just brushed off. Now they have entered into the mainstream.

Much has already been written about the role of social media in helping these beliefs spread, I made a documentary, I Am Gen Z, that touches on that myself. The Republicans and Trump shunned the more traditional “on the ground” campaigning and chose to campaign primarily through social media and podcasts. And they won using that tactic. As Musk sits on his newly acquired throne alongside Trump we now see the real reason he spent so much money acquiring Twitter and remodeling it to fulfil his own objectives. Trump’s base thrives in this post-truth era we now live in. The valiant attempts to fight it with fact checking and science seem to barely pierce post-truth’s armour.

As Trump snuggles up with his global counterparts pushing a far right agenda, these are scary times for anyone who values living in a well-functioning democracy. There is something troubling about the momentum that Trump, and the other far right leaders have that resonates with the 1930s. Powered by a base of supporters who are literally willing to go to jail for him, it is hard to hold Trump back.

The uncomfortable truth is that, just as Yvonne is never going to be able to convert me to her worldview, I will never be able to convert her to mine. We’re both ordinary people but we no longer live in the same reality. The post-truth era powered by social media, and exploited by powerful people who want more power and money, have made sure of that. Yvonne, and everyone I met that week were welcoming and kind to me, and I thank them for that. Yvonne and I shared a week of our lives together and it turns out we are both just human beings trying to make sense of the world, in a world that has stopped making sense.

Below is a list of the pillars that make up a well-functioning democracy. What is taking place in America right now, and in other democracies across the world, flies in the face of these:

• Rule of Law

• Free and Fair Elections

• Separation of Powers

• Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms

• Pluralism and Political Participation

• Accountability and Transparency

• Independent Media

• Civil Society (the fostering of civic participation)

• Equality and Inclusion

• Peaceful Conflict Resolution

The act of pardoning the insurrectionists legitimises the attack on The Capitol and should send spasms of fear through anyone who still believes in, and values the rule of law and democracy.

So what must we do if we want to continue to live in a well-functioning - admittedly often imperfect - democracy? We need to remind ourselves of those 10 pillars listed above and defend them with everything we’ve got.

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“The Conspiracists” will begin its film festival run in March 2025.

My human rights, independent documentary filmmaking work is only possible thanks to people who support Page75 Productions. If you are able to support us with a donation you will also get early, pre-release access to The Conspiracists.

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