What made you decide to write this non-fiction work? RawStory published my 2,000-word timeline of January 6, 2021 last spring, on March 5. The original timeline was focused mainly on January 6 itself, since we didn’t know nearly as much then as we do now about all of the behind-the-scenes machinations to overturn Joe Biden’s win.
To Read Dan Benbow’s essay in its entirety click on the link below
https://www.rawstory.com/insurrection-timeline/
A couple months ago, as revelations kept trickling out from the House subcommittee investigation (Click On Link Below), it occurred to me that the March 5 piece could serve as an outline for an updated timeline. I wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel. I also felt that the subject was of enormous historical importance and that such a document (i.e., a detailed timeline of the events/actions which caused the insurrection and the events of that day, in a narrative) didn’t exist…so I should create it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_on_the_January_6_Attack
Can you talk about your experience of researching this non-fiction work? And the dates of when you began researching and when your research was complete? I read a lot of articles in legitimate, reality-based publications just about every day, so my research didn’t stop and start. I began saving useful pieces as soon as the first January 6 timeline was published last spring. I began adding to the first timeline (from March 5 of last year) a couple months ago, when I started re-reading everything since last spring and pulling out key information for the update.
Video of Capitol Riot Shown During First January 6 Committee Hearing
Research on a subject like this is never really “complete.” I simply stopped adding new details the day the new timeline was due, January 5. When you’re writing a piece about something that is under investigation, you have to be ready to incorporate information from a late-breaking story to avoid missing something important in the narrative.
What is the date you began writing this piece of non-fiction and the date when you finished writing the piece of non-fiction? As mentioned, RawStory published the first timeline on March 5, 2021, two months after the insurrection. I started working on the update (the piece profiled here) around two months ago as I went through all of the research. I finally had a full draft of the new version 7-10 days before deadline. I then did around 15 more readthroughs to shave it down and move stuff around to achieve a fluid narrative.
Where did you do most of your writing for this non-fiction work? On my couch.
What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? Coffee in the mornings, two big cups spread out over a few hours, water to chase, straight into a Word document, no noise, total concentration.
Other than occasional second winds in the evening, my brain always works best in the morning, so my most productive hours were from when I got up until noon or so. That said, I generally worked until 8 PM, with breaks to do chores, work out, play guitar, something to break up the time and refresh my synapses.
Please include an excerpt of one FACT or one set of FACTS that you were most impacted by in this non-fiction work. The excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer. I will choose two facts that are intimately connected.
- A thorough AP study of the six closest swing states found a total of less than 475 potentially fraudulent votes. Not all of the ballots were necessarily fraudulent (thus the word “potentially”), not all of the ballots were necessarily counted, and the ballots came from Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Joe Biden won each of these states by more than 10,000 votes.
- 68% of Republican voters still believe that Trump was robbed of a second term. That figure rises to 82% among Republicans whose main (dis)information source is Fox and 97% of Republicans who take Newsmax and One America News Network at face value. 30% of Republicans are so dismayed by Donald Trump’s election loss that they believe “violence might be warranted,” a number which jumps to 40% among the Newsmax and One America crowd.
Why was this one fact or one set of facts so compelling for you to discover and to write about? The margins of Trump’s loss and the legitimacy of Biden’s win weren’t at all surprising to me. I knew from early on, as verified by numerous Trump officials (including cybersecurity head Chris Krebs and hyper-loyalist Attorney General William Barr), judges of both parties (including Trump appointees), elections officials of both parties across multiple states (including several who endorsed Trump), and a handful of honest Republican senators who’d endorsed Trump (Romney, Ben Sasse), that Trump’s fraud claims were ludicrous.
But most people didn’t put together the cumulative weight of the above, so hard data is handy. The fraudulent vote total factoid is particularly compelling because 1) it’s from an unimpeachable source (AP) with no dog in this fight and 2) the data they provided was so damning to Trump’s Big Lie. They found under 500 votes fraud, total, in all six of the contested swing states. Trump lost all of those states by 10,000 or more votes. He lost Wisconsin by more than 20,000 ballots, Nevada by over 30,000, Pennsylvania by over 80,000, Michigan by over 150,000. Biden didn’t even need the two closest states (Arizona and Georgia) to win. They were gravy.
Click on link below to see election results in numbers.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/president-results
A precocious 3rd grader could do the math and any reasonably-intelligent adult could draw the obvious conclusion: the rage at the heart of January 6 was built on an absurd lie, the excuses state-level Republicans are using to suppress Black voters in particular are built on an absurd lie, the 2/3rds of Republicans who don’t “believe” Biden is legitimate are delusional, and the division we’re seeing now, up to and including a potential civil war at some future point, are all being caused by and done in service to arguably the worst sore loser in presidential history.
“Four Hours At The Capitol” offers Immersive Look at January 6 Insurrection
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt. My deletions were just about all line editing deletions, word changes, things that made the piece read better. I constructed the first draft carefully over a several weeks, so I didn’t need to hack off big sections later on. All drafts were done digitally.
