In the days leading up to the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, President Joe Biden made little effort to hide the fact that the insurrectionist riot was on his mind. Indeed, last week, the retiring incumbent awarded Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming — the leaders of the now-defunct bipartisan Jan. 6 committee — with the Presidential Citizens Medal.
A few days later, during an exchange with reporters at the White House, Biden said, in reference to the Jan. 6 assault, “I think it should not be rewritten. I don’t think it should be forgotten.”
On the anniversary of the Trump-inspired violence, the Democratic president went further, writing an opinion piece for The Washington Post.
An unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite — even erase — the history of that day. To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes. To dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it away as a protest that just got out of hand. This is not what happened. In time, there will be Americans who didn’t witness the Jan. 6 riot firsthand but will learn about it from footage and testimony of that day, from what is written in history books and from the truth we pass on to our children. We cannot allow the truth to be lost.
Part of what makes this so notable is the degree to which it captures where things stand in relation to the public discourse. Four years after the violence, we could certainly have another conversation about Donald Trump standing by for hours as a mob of his supporters attacked his own country’s Capitol, as part of a bid to claim illegitimate power in the wake of an election defeat. We could review anew what the rioters did, their intentions, their motivations, their weapons, their enablers, their willingness to violently clash with law enforcement, and even their terrifying proximity to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
But on the fourth anniversary of one of the most important examples of domestic political violence in our nation’s history, perhaps no element of the conversation is more important than the ongoing crusade to bully Americans’ memories into submission.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump and his allies engaged in a war against democracy. On Jan. 6, 2025, the conflict has evolved to include a war against the recent past.
Four years ago at this time, Trump was a defeated failure whose pathetic political career lay in ruins, and there was a broad agreement among officials in both parties that he deserved to be held accountable for his role in inciting the attack. The riot was so indefensible that the initial line from some Republicans was that the violence should be blamed on far-left Antifa radicals who were, the absurd theory posited, only pretending to be Trump supporters.
Variations on these ridiculous conspiracy theories continue to be popular in conservative circles, with related nonsense about the FBI being secretly responsible for encouraging rioters to commit crimes.
Paradoxically, while too many Republicans have implicitly conceded that the attack was atrocious — while trying to steer the blame away from those who actually bear responsibility, of course — others in the party have decided to recast the villains as heroes and victims. The New York Times published a striking report on the GOP’s “inverted interpretation,” which “defied what the country had watched unfold”.








