What Michael Wolff’s Landslide misses about the January 6 riot
New York Times journalist Michael Wolff has written his third book on president Trump in as many years. Like the previous two, Landslide is an extraordinary read, and an oddly reassuring one for people who fear for American democracy.
It presents Trump and his team as so feckless they couldn’t possibly be a serious threat to democracy. It also argues that everyone around Trump knew his attempt to overturn his election defeat was doomed to failure — except Trump and Rudy Giuliani. Those two were stuck in a completely alternate reality, in which Trump really did win the election by a landslide, it was stolen by the Democrats, and this steal could be overturned.
In Wolff’s account, Trump couldn’t understand how he could possibly lose to Sleepy Joe Biden. Therefore, the election must have been stolen. He convinced himself of this, repeating it over and over. And whoever agreed with him became his trusted inner circle in the weeks before January 6 — which meant conspiracy-theorist crazies like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell gaining access and influence.
In Wolff’s account, everyone else around Trump, from his inner circle to the likes of senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, went along with ‘the big lie’ because, while they knew it was crazy, they also knew that it was destined to fizzle out, so it didn’t really matter if they paid lip-service to it. That way they avoided contradicting Trump’s version of reality and — in Cruz and Hawley’s case — positioned themselves well with Trump’s base for the 2024 presidential election.
In Wolff’s account, the Trump team were all astonished that the January 6 rally, which they thought of as a valedictory last hurrah for Trump, turned into a riot in which the Capitol building was stormed and five people died.
Wolff is extremely good on the inner circle of Trumpland, but he is much less good, it seems to me, on the outer circles, and the connections between the White House and the far-right mob.
And there are clear connections.
It’s clear that the January 6 riot was fomented by close allies of Trump, like Roger Stone, Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn. In the weeks preceding the riot, they told their millions of followers to prepare for war. And they were in touch with Trump.
Wolff’s only mention of Roger Stone, in a book about the events leading up to the January 6 riot, is this:
Coming out of the Willard, Giuliani ran into Roger Stone in the lobby. When Giuliani asked if he was going to the rally, Stone said he hadn’t been invited. He didn’t even know who had organized it, he said.
That’s it. That’s the only mention of Stone in the entire book. This is the man who invented the term ‘Stop the Steal’ — which he first used in the 2016 Republican primaries, then re-used in the 2016 presidential campaign to prepare for the prospect of a Clinton victory (Wolff never mentions this).
Roger Stone speaking at a Stop the Steal rally in Miami
This is also the man who instigated the violent shut-down of the election recount in 2000, when a mob stormed the building in Miami, forcing the recount to stop and handing Bush the election. Remember that?
In November 2020, Stone toured far-right alternative news sites like Infowars, constantly repeating that the election was stolen and the steal need to be resisted. At the same time, Stop the Steal sites attracted millions of followers on social media.
“Clean your guns,” said Dustin Stockton, one of the administrators of the Facebook Stop the Steal group, on a Facebook Live Stream video to his followers. “Things are going to get worse before they get better.”
Stone spoke at Stop the Steal rallies on December 12 (here he is speaking next to the head of the far-right organisation the Proud Boys) and on January 5, where he told the crowd:
This is nothing less than an epic struggle for the future of this country between dark and light, between the godly and the godless, between good and evil. And we will win this fight or America will step off into a thousand years of darkness. We dare not fail. I will be with you tomorrow shoulder to shoulder.
As it turns out, the man who did more than anyone to foment the fatal events of January 6 wasn’t at the rally — smart guy. But he was in DC that day, surrounded by a masked security team made up of the far-right ‘Oath Keepers’. Here’s footage of him outside the Willard hotel that day (you can see Giuliani leaving in the background at the end of the clip). A protestor asks Stone, ‘we got this?’ ‘I hope so’, he replies.
Far right political activist Alexander Ali also promoted ‘Stop the Steal’ on social media and alternative news sources, and organized Stop the Steal rallies. In the run-up to the Jan 6 rally, Ali said:
This is something Roger and I have been planning for a long time. And finally, he’s off the leash. So, you know, it’s a knife fight and your two knife fighters are Ali Alexander and Roger Stone, and you either fight with us or you get slashed. So I’ll let you guys know more about what that means as we evolve.
It’s bizarre that Wolff would ignore the importance of Stone — the man who pretty much launched Trump’s political career — in the events of January 6. But at least the Justice Department and FBI is apparently investigating him for his role.
Was Stone in contact with Trump in the run-up to the January 6 rally? Wolff doesn’t say. But we do know that Trump reconciled with his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, and frequently spoke to him in the run-up to January 6.
Bannon’s role in fomenting the violence of January 6 is also barely mentioned in Wolff’s book. Bannon started his own ‘Stop the Steal’ social media groups in November 2020, and constantly promoted the big lie on his YouTube War Room show and GTV channel. In November, Bannon suggested Antony Fauci and head of the FBI Christopher Wray should be beheaded, saying there should be ‘heads on pikes’. This phrase was repeated by rioters as they stormed the Capitol building.
On December 28, Bannon said that Trump supporters had to be ready to fight in the spirit of George Washington’s soldiers during the American Revolution and American soldiers on D-Day in World War II. “That’s our DNA, that’s where we come from,” Bannon said. On January 5, Bannon said:
l’ll tell you this. It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen. OK, it’s going to be quite extraordinarily different. And all I can say is, strap in … You have made this happen and tomorrow it’s game day. So strap in. Let’s get ready.
Wolff’s book also barely mentions Michael Flynn, Trumps’ former national security advisor, who worked tirelessly to spread the big lie to the Trump base. Flynn suggested there should be martial law, or even a Burma-style military coup, to keep Trump in power. Trump liked the idea so much he considered making Flynn chief of staff or head of the FBI.
General Flynn at DC on January 5
Speaking at a DC Stop the Steal rally on January 5, Flynn said:
Those of you who are feeling weak tonight, those of you that don’t have the moral fiber in your body, get some tonight because tomorrow, we the people are going to be here, and we want you to know that we will not stand for a lie.
Wolff’s book does say that Flynn was back in the Oval Office, advising Trump in the run up to January 6. But Wolff’s book still gives the impression that the riot was a complete surprise to the entire Trump team, and even to Trump himself.
As readable as Wolff’s book is, I really hope it doesn’t end up being the definitive account of the events of January 6, or the Trump team’s culpability for the riot. It gives a reassuring sense of an utterly feckless White House lacking any plan, surprised at what occurred, and of a total disconnect between the White House and the mob.
No. The Stop the Steal campaign was well organized and well funded, it was run by senior strategists with access to the White House, including Roger Stone, Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn, all of whom Trump pardoned in his last weeks in office. They acted as the bridge between the Oval Office and far-right groups like Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. This movement spent two months calling for violent insurrection against a democratic election. And that’s what it got when, on 11.59 on January 6, Trump told the rally to march on the Capitol building.
This is what Wolff’s otherwise-excellent book sadly misses out. By doing so, it lets Trump and his team off the hook for one of the most shameful days in American democracy.