Rewriting History

The term "revisionist history" routinely gets thrown around in popular discourse as a shorthand for "lying about the past."

I've noted before that this is actually quite different from how historians use that term, as we understand that all good historical work is inherently revisionist in some fashion, as we strive to bring in new sources and new subjects, new perspectives and new pedagogies, new theories and methodologies, and all kinds of new analytical tools to update, to refine, to perfect and, yes, to revise our understanding of the past.

That said, the term carries on with its negative meaning in public conversations largely because there's just so much of it going on, especially from the highest levels of power.

And today, on the fifth anniversary of the violent insurrection waged by Donald Trump and his cult members against the Capitol, we've got a sterling example of a truly ridiculous attempt to rewrite the recent past.

The official White House website – once a serious means of communication, now reduced to a Reddit forum run by alt-right trolls – has put up a page to mark the anniversary of this moment, titled "January 6: A Date Which Will Live in Infamy."

If your first thought was to think that there's really no comparison to an assault on the Capitol that left only a handful dead in its wake and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that left 2,404 dead and inspired that famous quote from FDR, well, you're right. But that's not the comparison they're making.

No, they think the bipartisan congressional majorities who voted to ratify the 2020 election results were the ones who committed the dastardly crime, not the armed thugs who stormed the building on the orders of a rejected incumbent. That's why January 6th will "live in infamy," they say, because our democratic institutions actually held against a treasonous plot to disrupt them.

A load-bearing aspect of this insane effort to spin reality around is the White House's claim that it was actually the bipartisan congressional committee to investigate January 6th that first spread the idea that Trump's thugs were somehow violent or disruptive.

Since January 6, 2021, Nancy Pelosi spent over 3 years and nearly $20 million in taxpayer funds on her partisan Select Committee, producing a scripted TV spectacle to fabricate an “insurrection” narrative and pin all blame on President Trump. ....

The Democrats masterfully reversed reality after January 6, branding peaceful patriotic protesters as “insurrectionists” and framing the event as a violent coup attempt orchestrated by Trump—despite no evidence of armed rebellion or intent to overthrow the government. In truth, it was the Democrats who staged the real insurrection by certifying a fraud-ridden election, ignoring widespread irregularities, and weaponizing federal agencies to hunt down dissenters, all while Pelosi’s own security lapses invited the chaos they later exploited to seize and consolidate power. This gaslighting narrative allowed them to persecute innocent Americans, silence opposition, and distract from their own role in undermining democracy.

I really don't know where to begin with this one, there are so many lies crammed into one space.

Were Trump's braindead followers "peaceful patriotic protesters"? Of course not.

We all saw with our own eyes the photos and videos of these people breaking windows, knocking down doors, and climbing walls like they were storming a castle. Despite the repeated lies that they were "peaceful" and completely unarmed, there were several guns confiscated from that crowd and plenty of tasers, knives and blunt objects too. These were used against uniformed policemen trying to protect the Capitol from the mob, as well as makeshift clubs and even bear spray.

And as Jack Smith recently confirmed in congressional testimony that Republicans did their best to bury, Trump was directly responsible for it all.

Given the vast availability of video and material evidence from January 6th, more than 1600 rioters were indicted on federal charges; at the time of Trump's second inauguration, about 80% of them had been convicted in courts. The legal system dealt with them with full consideration and due process. But of course, to Trump, that didn't matter. He issued sweeping pardons for all these goons immediately after taking office.

Next up, the idea that it was ACTUALLY "the Democrats who staged the real insurrection by certifying a fraud-ridden election, ignoring widespread irregularities, and weaponizing federal agencies to hunt down dissenters" is even more ludicrous.

This issue has almost literally been litigated to death, with dozens of lawsuits brought across the country resulting in loss after loss for the Sorest Loser. Republican judges were involved in some of those decisions, we should note, and several state-level Republicans – notably leaders in Arizona and Georgia – rebuffed Trump's schemes to get them to overturn the results too.

And by the same token, it wasn't just Democrats who went through with the normally-routine ratification of the presidential election results those states sent in to Congress, either. Some House Republicans supported the MAGA challenges from a couple states; many others did not. And in the Senate, virtually no one backed the challenges. Much like the rejection of Trump's illegal schemes at the state level by judges and legislators, the ratification of Trump's loss was largely backed by both parties.

That leaves the biggest whopper here, the suggestion that no one thought this was an "insurrection" until Nancy Pelosi and her meddling congressmen started "gaslighting" the nation into believing that.

No.

In the immediate aftermath of the assault on the Capitol, many prominent Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in denouncing the attack and blaming Trump for the unprecedented assault on our democratic institutions.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had this to say that same evening:

The United States and the United States Congress have faced down much greater threats than the unhinged crowd we saw today. We've never been deterred before, and we will not be deterred today. They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed. They failed. They failed to attempt to obstruct the Congress.

This failed insurrection only underscores how crucial the task before us is for our republic. Our nation was founded precisely so that the free choice of the American people is what shapes our self-government and determines the destiny of our nation – not fear, not force, but the peaceful expression of the popular will.

To his credit, McConnell hasn't backed down from that position, insisting to "60 Minutes" early last year that Trump's pardons of the rioters was a "mistake" and noting again that it was "an insurrection."

Other senators, who have shamefully reversed themselves and gone running back to their cult leader, were equally clear-eyed about the real tragedy of January 6th in the days and weeks that followed.

Ted Cruz, whom rioters thought were on their side, tweeted: "Those storming the Capitol need to stop NOW. The Constitution protects peaceful protest, but violence—from Left or Right— is ALWAYS wrong. And those engaged in violence are hurting the cause they say they support."

Marco Rubio tweeted: "There is nothing patriotic about what is occurring on Capitol Hill. This is 3rd world style anti-American anarchy."

Even perennial bootlicker Lindsey Graham said: "When it comes to accountability, the President needs to understand that his actions were the problem, not the solution, that the rally yesterday was unseemly, it got out of hand... I said on the floor of the Senate, I cast my vote accordingly, that Joe Biden is the legitimate president-elect of the United States."

Many of Trump's loyal foot soldiers in the House had similar clarity about who was to blame for the violence and chaos of that day.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy asserted that "the President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding."

Rep. Elise Stefaniak insisted that Republicans and Democrats "all join together in fully condemning the dangerous violence and destruction that occurred today in our Nation's Capitol. Americans will always have their freedom of speech and the constitutional right to protest, but violence in any form is absolutely unacceptable. It is anti-America, and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Another diehard Trumper, Rep. Chip Roy, said on the House floor: "Today, the people's House was attacked, which is an attack on the Republic itself. There is no excuse for it. A woman died. And people need to go to jail. And the President should never have spun up certain Americans to believe something that simply cannot be."

I could go on like this, as there were many, many more statements like this from Republicans in the House and Senate.

So, no, the bipartisan select committee investigating January 6th did not, in fact, create a new narrative that there had been a violent insurrection whose participants needed to be prosecuted. That was actually the consensus view at the time, because we all understood what had happened – especially those in the Capitol who experienced it firsthand.

The "gaslighting," of course, came from Trump and his cult of loyal followers. While the select committee was getting the truth on the record, Republicans largely retreated from that brief come-to-Jesus moment and started pressing a funhouse mirror version of events in which the Capitol Police – who showed tremendous restraint under the circumstances – were the ones who instigated the riot by daring to do their jobs protecting our political leaders and institutions.

The White House website is merely the ratification of this twisted alternate reality that they've spent years creating, a textbook case of authoritarians seeking to rewrite the past in order to control the present. Like an abuser working through the DARVO script, they have worked hard – and will continue to work hard – to make you doubt your own memories, to have you second guess your immediate conclusions, to force you to make the villains into the victims and vice versa.

Don't give an inch here. Don't let them erase what they did or what they said at the time. Don't let them substitute their delusions for your reality.

As always, the central mantra for the moment applies: Fuck you, make me.