The Atlantic is launching a new podcast Wednesday that focuses on figures who are supporting those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The limited series is hosted by Hanna Rosin, senior editor and Radio Atlantic host, and podcaster Lauren Ober, with episodes released each Wednesday over the next five weeks.
The podcast also is tied to an Atlantic feature story, The Insurrectionists Next Door, which spotlights the Justice for January 6 movement. Rosin and Ober had been walking around their neighborhood in Northeast D.C. last year when they noticed a Chevy Equinox with Texas plates and with slogans on the back windshield that read, Free Our Patriots, The Three Percenter, Original; and J4J6.
As it turned out, one of their new neighbors was Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt. Babbitt was shot and killed in the Capitol that day as she was with a mob trying to break through the Speaker’s Lobby, adjacent to the House chamber. Another neighbor was the wife of the first person sentenced after standing trial on charges related to the Capitol attack.
The podcast explores their neighbors’ embrace of 2020 election denialism, but also the connections Rosin and Ober forged with them, generating some insight into maintaining civility at a polarized time.
The Atlantic also is holding its annual ideas festival on Thursday and Friday in Washington, with a lineup that includes Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Kellyanne Conway, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Kate Winslet and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
