The Most In-Your-Face Look Yet at Trump’s Violent Power Grab

Ahead of this November’s presidential election, Donald Trump has revived his infamous “Stop the Steal” campaign, warning that fraud and interference are primed to warp the results, upend the Constitution, and thwart democracy. It’s a familiar treasonous playbook that he first used in 2020, when he and his MAGA cohorts sought to overturn his decisive loss to President Joe Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the nation’s Capital.

As the new documentary film 64 Days demonstrates with harrowing up-close-and-personal insightfulness, that scheme was far from a spontaneous expression of outrage. On the contrary, it was planned and orchestrated by Trump and his political and white-nationalist allies.

Documentarian Nick Quested was embedded with the Proud Boys and its leader, Enrique Tarrio, in the months leading up to Jan. 6, and 64 Days—premiering September 30 in New York City—is a bracing recap of the two month period between the 2020 election and the attempted coup that rocked America. On June 9, 2022, Quested testified before the United States House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack, and his latest film is an extension of his comments at that hearing, detailing his experiences among far-right activists who were committed to subverting the election. A chronological road map of the coordinated efforts to commit the very theft to which they ostensibly objected, it’s a chilling reminder that there are nefarious forces at play in this country, determined to seize power and undermine the rule of law by any means necessary.

64 Days is the story of a conspiracy carried out by “Stop the Steal” organizers and partners (including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers), Trump’s legal team (led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell), and White House players to delegitimize the election, have it thrown out by the courts, reverse it through threats and intimidation, and—when those maneuvers came up short—prevent its certification via Capital carnage.

Quested’s film begins with Fox News calling Arizona for Biden on election night, thereby instigating a rally outside Maricopa County’s tabulation center. From the get-go, Alex Jones was one of the chief firebrands of this movement, claiming that the 2020 contest was as important as 1776—a revolutionary year that would be endlessly invoked in the ensuing weeks—and that “if they wanna fight, they better believe they’ve got one!” Before long, similar protests were taking place in Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.

The nominal creator of “Stop the Steal” was alt-right influencer Ali Alexander, and throughout 64 Days, he promotes—in online videos and in front of rabid crowds—the theory that Biden won by perpetrating widespread voter fraud. As has been categorically proven in the years since, this was a lie, but it didn’t stop Alexander from parroting it whenever and wherever possible.

“Any election I don’t like is stolen,” confesses Alexander in an archival clip, and during these crucial 64 days, he spoke at forty rallies, recorded 120 hours of video, and posted over 6,300 tweets, all of it aimed at stoking the flames of conservative ire and disappointment via disinformation.

Within days, social media and online forums were awash in coded incitements to violence, and Roger Stone was starting to formulate a structured plan of attack in an encrypted group chat that included Alexander and Tarrio, who took control of the Proud Boys following an October 2018 NYC brawl. Tarrio states that his anti-communist stance stems from his family’s experiences in their native Cuba, but he mostly comes across in 64 Days as a tough-guy extremist who wants to scuffle alongside his “street-brawling gang,” as they’re described by Sandeep Prasanna, an investigative counsel on the Jan. 6 committee.

Empowered by Trump’s October 2022 debate order that the Proud Boys “stand back and stand by,” Tarrio and his crew became newly energized and eager to take direct action. This was exactly what the commander-in-chief wanted, and he was soon repeating “Stop the Steal” arguments to create an environment of distrust and anger. Tarrio describes the Proud Boys as “a regular group of men that are just tired of being trampled on,” yet Quested’s footage of them beating up outnumbered protestors (whom they invariably dub “antifa,” their catch-all pejorative for their enemies) indicates that they’re furious individuals desperate for a fight.

64 Days documents the step-by-step attempts by Trump and his cronies to achieve their ends: harassing Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers (the latter of whom sits for a new interview) into finding 11,700 imaginary votes; filing 62 unsuccessful lawsuits in order to halt certification; and pushing the boundaries of civil unrest by occupying the Georgia Capital—an event that, in hindsight, resembles a trial run for Jan. 6’s mayhem. What emerges is a portrait of a gradually escalating plot that was inflamed by hostile rhetoric, as when Tarrio proclaims, the day before December 12’s “Million MAGA March II,” that “You want a war, well, you got one!”

Tarrio wasn’t present at the Capital on Jan. 6, since he’d just been released from jail—a situation that Quested suggests was meant to provide him with an alibi. Nonetheless, the director and his colleagues were present alongside the Proud Boys on that fateful day, and 64 Days features a wealth of in-your-face footage of the rioters, many of whom outright state their intentions before all hell breaks loose. Much of this chaos has been played and replayed ad nauseam during the past three-plus years. Yet it still packs a terrifying punch, as crowds begin breaking into treacherous chants, storm through barriers and overwhelm police officers, and run through the Capital’s hallways, their fury only matched by their giddiness at having temporarily succeeded in their aims.

Also telling its tale through social media posts, digital communications, and news headlines—has an immediacy and volatility that echoes this infamous incident. It convincingly contends that Trump knew what he was doing in motivating MAGA acolytes to go all-out to keep him in power, and if that mission ultimately failed, Quested’s concluding clips of Trump and JD Vance revealing their new “Stop the Steal” machinations imply that a new battle may be on the imminent horizon.

I Had a Front-Row Seat When ‘Stop the Steal’ Became a RiotBEARING WITNESS

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