Source — AITW Ep065 — Processing Events at the US Capitol¶

Episode Metadata¶

Field	Value
Episode number	65
Title	Processing events at the US Capitol
Publication date	2021-01-09
Recording date	Friday, 8 January 2021
Guests	None — Allan and Darren only
Allan present	Yes
Format	Emergency episode — rapid reaction to January 6th US Capitol storming; no reading segment replaced by one documentary recommendation

Summary¶

Rapid-reaction emergency episode recorded two days after the January 6th storming of the US Capitol. Allan had been meant to spend the day writing the new chapter for the updated Fear of Abandonment edition ("Australia's specific step up") but instead watched CNN for approximately twelve hours. The episode proceeds through: the immediate events and what they reveal about US political culture; short- and medium-term implications for Biden's presidency (domestic focus will crowd out foreign policy except climate); the democracy vs. autocracy framing (Allan resists it — the real contest is "capability and incompetence"); Morrison and Payne's responses (Allan rates them acceptable if "ponderously bureaucratic"); the ANZUS alliance question (not destabilised, but "four more years of Trump would have put it under really severe stress"); and a closing passage on American exceptionalism, the Winthrop/Reagan "city upon a hill" phrase, and the superiority — as Allan sees it — of Australian democratic institutions.

Biographical significance: Allan reveals he took a third-year course at Melbourne University on "Puritanism in Old and New England" — extending what is known about his undergraduate education beyond International Relations (Bruce Grant) to include historical study of Anglophone religious and political thought. He uses the course directly to explain the Winthrop sermon at the root of American exceptionalism. Also: an implicit morning exercise habit (interrupted at 6:30am by the Capitol news alert).

Key Quotations¶

"Capability and incompetence" cuts across the democracy-autocracy divide¶

"It's a reminder that it's too simple to see a contest between democracy and autocracy, because particularly in a time of pandemic, there's also a contest going on between capability and incompetence. And that simply cuts across the liberal-illiberal divide. Australia has been pretty competent. The US has not in many respects. Vietnam has been pretty competent. Russia has not."

— [00:16:17.780 --> 00:17:24.780]

Characteristic analytical resistance to the binary that others in the debate find useful. The democracy vs. autocracy frame — central to Biden's campaign and to Australian strategic discourse since 2020 — is accurate as far as it goes; Allan does not deny it. But he adds a cross-cutting dimension that the binary suppresses: competence. The four examples (Australia, US, Vietnam, Russia) are chosen deliberately: two democracies with contrasting COVID performances, two autocracies with contrasting performances. Vietnam — a one-party state — had at this point handled COVID more effectively than the United States. The implication is that the framing problem is real: a Biden summit "for democracies" will have to contend with the fact that some democracies are not working, and some non-democracies are.

"Summit for democracy" vs "summit of democracies" — a diplomatic precision¶

"There's an interesting slip there. You were talking about 'summit for democracies.' And I've sometimes seen what Biden has promised as being a 'summit of democracies.' But the latest formulation is, I think, a 'summit for democracy.' Because that then helps you avoid the issue that there is really no clear, sharp dividing line between democracies on the one hand and autocracies on the other. We're all on the spectrum somewhere and have things to learn."

— [00:21:29.780 --> 00:21:29.780]

A single preposition carrying an entire geopolitical argument. "Of democracies" names a club with a defined membership list — who's in, who's out, who decides. "For democracy" dissolves the membership problem: it is a summit oriented toward a goal, not a summit constituted by a category. Allan notices Darren's slip from the official formulation and reads it as diplomatically significant. The final sentence — "We're all on the spectrum somewhere and have things to learn" — is the most generous possible reading of the inclusivity intent, and also the most analytically honest: American democracy, as evidenced by the week's events, has things to learn too. Characteristic: maximum analytical precision applied to a single word.

"My third year University of Melbourne course on Puritanism in Old and New England"¶

"I was glad you asked that question because I always knew that my third year University of Melbourne course on Puritanism in Old and New England would come in useful someday. And here it is."

— [00:29:39.780 --> 00:32:34.780]

Delivered with characteristic self-deprecating wit — "I always knew it would come in useful someday" — the disclosure is substantive. He uses the course directly to explain the John Winthrop sermon of 1630 ("We shall be as a city upon a hill... the eyes of all people are upon us") which is the source of Reagan's "shining city" invocation. The fact that he recalls a specific third-year course subject fifty-plus years later, and can deploy its content precisely in real-time analysis, reveals the breadth of his undergraduate formation at Melbourne: International Relations (with Bruce Grant, confirmed Ep033) and also a course in the intellectual and religious history of Anglophone Protestantism. The self-deprecating wit in "I always knew it would come in useful someday" is typical: genuine learning worn lightly, deployed at exactly the right moment.

Australian democracy vs American democracy — "I'd stack it up against America's any day"¶

"As democracies go, Australia's may be plainly wrapped. And certainly not I could quote from the Constitution, but in its effectiveness and inclusiveness with compulsory voting and the democracy sausage sizzle on Election Day and the unimpeachable role of the Australian Electoral Commission in drawing up electoral boundaries. I'd stack it up against America's any day, and I guess many people around the world will be feeling the same way."

— [00:29:39.780 --> 00:32:34.780]

Allan is rarely given to national sentiment — he is an analyst rather than a patriot of the rhetorical kind. This is an exception. The comparison is offered with evident feeling: "plainly wrapped" is affectionate self-deprecation about Australia's modest constitutional aesthetics, but it contains a real preference. The three institutional features he names — compulsory voting, the "democracy sausage sizzle" (the bipartisan tradition of election-day barbecues at polling places), and the AEC's non-partisan electoral boundary responsibility — are chosen to illustrate what American democracy structurally lacks: universal participation, civil festivity around elections, and depoliticised administration. The "democracy sausage sizzle" is unusual in the corpus — one of the very few moments of fond popular culture reference, deployed in a comparative argument about institutional design. He is entirely serious: these are not decorative features but evidence of a functioning democratic culture.

Morrison's response: "low key was OK"¶

"Should Morrison have said more? I think he and Marise Payne might have said something that sounded a bit less ponderously bureaucratic. But on the whole, no, nothing the Australian Prime Minister said would have changed much. It's not particularly helpful for him to be a commentator. So from my point of view, anyway, low key was OK."

— [00:25:00.780 --> 00:25:33.780]

A calibrated verdict that defies the obvious options. The strong view — Morrison should have condemned Trump, as Merkel did — is rejected not because it's wrong in principle but because it wouldn't have changed anything. The weak view — the response was adequate — is also declined; he concedes it was "ponderously bureaucratic." "Low key was OK" is neither criticism nor endorsement; it is a practitioner's cost-benefit assessment. He immediately notes the alternative Boris Johnson model — now "madly trying to make up for his earlier Trumpophilia" — as an example of performative position-changing that Allan declines to recommend as the standard. Characteristic: he gives Australia's government a minimum-pass verdict, precisely qualified.

Biographical Fragments¶

Third-year Melbourne University course: "Puritanism in Old and New England"¶

Evidence: Ep065 [00:29:39.780 --> 00:32:34.780]. Stated directly: "my third year University of Melbourne course on Puritanism in Old and New England." Confidence: High (directly stated).

Allan took a third-year course at Melbourne University titled (or on the subject of) "Puritanism in Old and New England." He recalls it fifty-plus years later precisely enough to name it and deploy its content. The course covered the John Winthrop sermon of 1630 — "we shall be as a city upon a hill... the eyes of all people are upon us" — which is the theological source of American exceptionalism.

This is the second confirmed course/teacher at Melbourne University: the first was Bruce Grant's International Relations course (Ep033), which was formative for his career. The Puritanism course is presumably in the History department — cross-departmental study consistent with a broad liberal arts education at Melbourne in the late 1960s. Given the confirmed timeline (~1966–1969 undergraduate study), the third-year course would be approximately 1968–1969.

The combination of IR (Bruce Grant, current affairs and diplomacy) and a course on seventeenth-century English and American religious thought is characteristic of the breadth of formation Allan brings to his analysis. His ability to connect a 1630 Puritan sermon to Reagan's 1989 farewell address to January 2021 events in real time, without preparation, is not accidental.

Morning exercise habit interrupted by Capitol news¶

Evidence: Ep065 [00:02:54.780 --> 00:04:06.780]. "About 6:30 in the morning, I was sitting around about to go out for some morning exercise when there was a beep on my phone." Confidence: Tentative (single-episode, incidental mention).

Establishes a morning exercise habit. He was about to leave the house at 6:30am when the Capitol news alert arrived — the exercise was abandoned for twelve hours of CNN. Minor detail but consistent with an otherwise active lifestyle not otherwise documented in the corpus.

Style and Method Evidence¶

The Winthrop connection in real time: He says he was thinking about the "city upon a hill" phrase that morning, while listening to The Daily podcast — showing that his analytical process is continuous even on days of emergency. The Puritanism course is activated on the spot.
Comparative institutional analysis: Australia vs. US democratic institutions — he offers a genuine comparative verdict, not just a flag-wave. The three features he names (compulsory voting, democracy sausage, AEC) are institutional specifics, not vague national pride.
Twelve hours of CNN: Allan watching CNN from 6:30am to 6:30pm on January 6th is a rare account of him being fully absorbed by breaking news. He is usually the calm analyst of the past; here the present overwhelms the analytical capacity temporarily.
"Low key was OK": One of his most compressed verdicts. The absence of adverbs is the point — not "perfectly fine" or "just about adequate," but "OK." The equivocation is precise.
Biden's domestically focused presidency as his consistent medium-term prediction: he had argued this before (Ep060) and now returns to it, strengthened by the Capitol events. This is explicit forward projection and he has the record to point to.

Reading / Listening Segment¶

All In: The Fight for Democracy (documentary, dir. Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés, 2020, Amazon Prime)¶

Allan's comment: "I was watching, before all this happened, a new documentary on Amazon Prime called All In: The Fight for Democracy, which is a history of voter suppression and features some of the work of Stacey Abrams, who more than any other person may have been responsible for getting Biden and the Democrats those two crucial Senate seats in Georgia. So that's worth watching."

Recommended as an "uplifting and hopeful note" after the week's events. He frames it as a reminder that "they can actually rebuild the democracy." Stacey Abrams's voter registration work in Georgia — which he credits as decisive for the two Senate seats — is positioned as evidence of democratic renewal from below. The documentary is also practically timely: he was watching it before January 6th; the Georgia context makes it even more relevant after.

Open Questions¶

The Puritanism course: Can the Melbourne University course catalogue for 1967–1969 (History department, or possibly American Studies) be recovered to identify the exact course and instructor? The subject is specific enough to trace.
The Fear of Abandonment chapter: Allan says his summer project was writing about "Australia's specific step up" in the new chapter. Did the chapter eventually cover this theme? The updated edition may or may not have been completed before his death in May 2023.
Biden's "summit for democracy": Did the Summit for Democracy (eventually held in December 2021 and again in 2023) validate Allan's preposition observation? His framing — that "for" deliberately avoids a hard membership list — was prescient about the eventual design of the event.