Opinion: Jan. 6 was just a start. Vigilantes are expanding, and legalizing, their attacks

The insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was aimed at preventing the peaceful transfer of power after Donald Trump lost the presidential election. Relying on legions of citizen culture warriors — everyone from PTA moms to abortion snitches to heavily armed white nationalist militiamen — vigilante democracy is punishing women, racial and religious minorities and LGBTQ+ people who make dignity and equality demands that are perceived as threatening white Christian men’s political and cultural power. All of this shows why it would be a mistake to see vigilantes as just waging and winning a “culture war.” Cultural victory is not the MAGA movement’s ultimate objective. As we look ahead to the next few rounds of critical elections, we remain haunted — less by the feverish rioters of Jan. 6 than by the cool, calculating strategists who spent the subsequent days, months and years devising and legitimating a vigilante-based regime that aims to ensure Christian nationalism never comes up short again. Lee apparently considered the presidency to be Donald Trump’s by right regardless of what voters said; his advice was putting a lawyerly spin on one of Trump’s most revealing of aphorisms.