Four years ago, on January 6, 2021, after Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, thousands of fascist Trump supporters, urged on by Trump himself, stormed the U.S. Capitol. Once inside, they wreaked violent havoc, demanding to overturn the election. They made their intentions clear by setting up a gallows and noose outside to threaten Mike Pence (Trump’s vice president who refused to go along), screaming death threats at Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and others, flying Confederate flags. This was a fascist coup attempt—that nearly succeeded.

Four years later, on his first day in office in his return as U.S. President, Trump unconditionally pardoned some 1,500 fascist thugs who had been charged or convicted off of that January 6 attempted coup, some for serious violent crimes. He also commuted the sentences of top fascist leaders involved—including Stewart Rhodes, the head of the fascist gang the Oath Keepers, who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 years. And Trump gave a complete pardon to another top fascist, Enrique Tarrio, the head of the Proud Boys, who had been sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy. 

During the presidential campaign, as Trump continued the lie about the “stolen” election, he called those January 6 thugs “hostages” and “heroes,” promising to free them. He sometimes opened his rallies with a recording of the “J6 Prison Choir” singing the “Star Spangled Banner.” Now he’s fulfilled that promise big time, opening the doors wide to let them walk free.

Trump’s blanket pardons, along with commutations, of these violent fascist foot soldiers and leaders, set a precedent for putting a legal stamp of approval on anything the fascist stormtroopers may do—no matter how violent—so long as it suits what Trump deems to be his interests and on the side of his regime. One of those receiving a pardon (known as the “QAnon Shaman”) wrote on X: “THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!! NOW I AM GONNA BUY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!”

Think what it means that this mob that tried to carry out a fascist coup in front of the eyes of the world are legally cleared and even celebrated—while they've only gotten more hardened and organized. Meanwhile Trump and his appointee to head the FBI, the most powerful instrument of federal law enforcement, openly talk about how people should be persecuted, prosecuted and even jailed—or worse—because they promote political views that go against Trump and his MAGA-fascist agenda. 

It should also be noted that Trump has succeeded in forcing virtually everyone in the Republican Party to go along with the fiction that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him and that the January 6 rioters were “unjustly” prosecuted and jailed—even many of the Republicans who initially opposed or were reluctant to embrace this lie. Even Trump’s vice president, J.D. Vance, was telling reporters a few days before the inauguration that he didn’t think January 6 rioters who committed violent crimes should be pardoned. The fact that Trump came out with the sweeping pardons and commutations on Day One, in a very bold and in-your-face way, sends a clear message about how aggressive this fascism intends to be in the second term—and how little even the appearance of abiding by the rule of law matters to him and his regime.