January 6 is always a big day in the DC jail where many alleged insurrectionists are awaiting trial and sentencing. It's even bigger this year, with "Patriot Wing" inmates preparing for a promised pardon from incoming President Trump. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah and Peter Balonon-Rosen, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Rob Byers, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members A right-wing demonstration in support of protestors arrested during the January 6 insurrection of the U.S. Capitol. Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened on January 6th, 2021?
It's January 6th, and Congress met today at 1 p.m. to certify Donald Trump as the winner of the 2024 election. Four years ago, you may recall, Congress was meant to do the same, but the certification was delayed when thousands of Trump supporters marched on the Capitol.
The president-elect has said repeatedly, and he told NBC again last month, that he's going to pardon at least some of the insurrectionists.
Those people have suffered long and hard, and there may be some exceptions to it. I have to look. But, you know, if somebody was radical, crazy, there might be some people from Antifa there. I don't know, you know, because those people seem to be in good shape. Whatever happened to Scaffold Man?
You had to be there. Antifa was actually not there four years ago, but members of several extremist groups were at the Capitol on Jan. 6th. And today on Explained, we're going to ask, whither American extremism on the eve of a second Trump administration?
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Chapter 2: What is the Patriot Wing in DC Jail?
I'm Noelle King with Tess Owen. Tess is a freelance journalist who writes for, among others, New York Magazine. Late last year, Tess wrote a piece for New York, a very vivid piece called The Patriot Wing, inside the jail block run by January 6th rioters. Now, her story begins, as does ours, in that cell block on the day in July that Donald Trump was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin.
Scripps News is the primary news channel available to inmates in that unit. And Scripps News happened to be carrying the event live that day. And there was particular interest in that rally because of rumors that Trump could announce his VP pick. And when he was shot and collapsed... there was total hysteria.
We are still awaiting an update on what exactly we all just witnessed. But we do know that the former president was rushed off of the stage.
It was described to me that January 6th, they wept, they clutched each other, they tried to punch walls. They were just completely hysterical. And then, you know, the famous picture image when Trump kind of was hoisted up and he raised his fist, it turned into kind of total jubilation.
You can see his fist there in the air, but it appears his ear may be a little bit bloodied.
Fists in the air, trying to flip over tables, just incredibly intense emotions that were felt in that kind of short span of time. Some of the most notorious people who have gone through that wing, for example, the four Proud Boy leaders who are ultimately convicted of seditious conspiracy. That includes Enrique Tarrio, who is a chairman of the Proud Boys.
There are also members of the Oath Keepers. There was David Dempsey. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. That is in part due to the fact that prosecutors labeled him as one of the most violent rioters on January 6th. They said that he basically bludgeoned police officers and engaged in violence for an hour or longer. We spoke pretty regularly over the phone from the, quote, Patriot Wing.
And I bit by bit heard about his backstory. You know, he hadn't had a particularly good life. He was abused in group homes growing up, and he was homeless for much of his adult life, in and out of prison. And, you know, he glommed onto the MAGA movement and took up the cause and made that his whole life.
What did Dempsey and the others tell you about what life is like in the swing of the D.C. jail?
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Chapter 3: How do inmates celebrate Sixthmas?
This was a major narrative at the beginning that people in that unit were claiming that they were experiencing disproportionately bad conditions. That was never substantiated. The D.C. jail and American jails in general are known for having pretty abysmal conditions. And a judge ordered an inspection of the D.C. jail, you know, amid these complaints from from January Sixers.
And they did find poor conditions in some parts of the jail, not the ones that the January Sixers were being held in. You know, one could perhaps argue that they had quite good conditions in some ways, especially later on. You know, they were able to record a podcast from inside jail without jail officials knowing.
Hello. Welcome to the D.C. Gulag.
The podcast was called the DC Gulag, which is another name given to the unit.
We are here in a Patriot pod with about 30 other J6 detainees. Thank you for tuning in.
They have a vast support network outside of family members of January 6ers, of sympathizers who put thousands of dollars into their commissary accounts, help them with their legal funds. And so, you know, they're eating well. They are healthy. able to get their voices and their views out. But, you know, it's also at the same time it's jail.
In the past few days, you actually got some information suggesting that the patriot wing inside the D.C. city jail has dissolved.
What did you hear? Yes, I heard from a lawyer representing some of the January Sixers, as well as kind of rumors percolating online from local activists, that the unit is in the process of being dissolved or has been dissolved and that...
people in that unit are being moved to general population i'm not sure if that has gone into effect already um or or if that's something that is is coming but i do think that it's very interesting in terms of kind of what happens next for these for these individuals and also the future of the prosecutions because you know that unit depends on a steady stream of
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Chapter 4: What are the living conditions for January 6th defendants?
Chapter 5: How are extremist defendants housed in jail?
people in that unit are being moved to general population i'm not sure if that has gone into effect already um or or if that's something that is is coming but i do think that it's very interesting in terms of kind of what happens next for these for these individuals and also the future of the prosecutions because you know that unit depends on a steady stream of
people being arrested and, you know, it needs people in it. And I think we're expecting the prosecutions to dry up, certainly when Trump takes office.
We don't know for sure whether Donald Trump is going to pardon these guys, but I wonder what they told you about what they plan to do when they get out. Did anyone say, I want to stay in this life? I want to, you know, do more insurrections. What are the plans for these men?
I mean, I spoke to one January Sixer who is beholden to his release conditions, but I spoke to him the day after the election. He was telling me that he was shopping online for guns because he feels so confident that Trump will pardon him that he feels like he will be able to own a firearm again very soon.
Others, I think there seemed to be very little indication that they would leave the movement or that their experiences behind bars had made them change their views or re-evaluate their activities leading up to January 6th. For January 6ers who had already gotten out of prison, most are beholden to their probationary release conditions.
Others I spoke to said that they weren't allowed to be in contact with other January 6ers. But, you know, if they're pardoned, that will mean that these men can be in contact with each other completely openly again. And the other thing was that I got very little indication that the people who were facing pretty serious time, kind of regretted their actions.
That was journalist Tess Owen. Coming up, the extremists who are not in jail.
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Chapter 6: What are the plans of January 6th rioters post-release?
Chapter 7: What is the future of the Patriot Wing?
said a version of it.
If you import the third world into your country, you are going to become
Stephen Miller has said a version of it.
The idea is that there's something about Western culture, American culture, that comes in the DNA of white people.
And that people who come to America can't just say, you know, they believe in capitalism and freedom and freedom of the press, that there's something within them that prevents them from truly embodying our culture. So alt-right is a very useful term in defining this era of white nationalism that's like 2012, 2014 through about 2018.
Richard Spencer coined the term in 2008, but then trolls on 4chan embraced this term and created a whole culture around it, all this slang, slang that has completely embedded our language now. Based, cringe, cuck, cuck-servative incels. There's just so much of that language that has become part of the mainstream.
It was this rising wave that got behind Trump when Trump ran for president and really felt like they were growing, they had cultural power. In 2017, they started stepping into the real world. Having big brawls with leftists.
Often in California.
All of that culminating in these escalating street fights at Charlottesville.
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