I haven’t witnessed so much whitewashing since Tom Sawyer conned his hapless friends to paint a rickety wooden fence for him. But this time it is Donald Trump and his cohort of spineless Republicans who are wielding the paintbrush, dousing us in toxic white lead paint.

 For an illiterate man who has never read a book, Trump has deftly rewritten the story of the January 6^th attack on our Capitol. With the skill of the Grimm Brothers, he has spun a “they lived happily ever after” fairy tale out of a horrific event.

An Attack where the perpetrators are now pardoned.

An attack we all saw.

Watched repeatedly on TV screens and iPhones, until it was burnished into our collective minds, it was not unlike the plane crashing into the Towers on 9/11.

Indelible shocking images.  

Of all the events  Trump has tried to whitewash, this would seem to be near impossible to accomplish.  

The story the world watched would seem to be too well known to be re-characterized as anything other than what it was: insurrectionist violence, fueled by partisan lies, targeting the very seat of American government to help a defeated presidential candidate claim illegitimate power.

Pardon Me, What Did You Say?

The videos played over and over were much too familiar and powerful to ignore or forget.

The angry rioters on the Senate floor.

The guns drawn at the entry to the House chamber.

The noose displayed on gallows.

The “Hang Mike Pence” chants.

The officer’s anguished screaming as he stood crushed in a door.

Our elected officials running for safety.

A rioter grinning with pride as he put his foot on the speaker of the House’s desk.

The insurrectionists violently breaking into the hallowed building, climbing its storied walls, violently clashing with law enforcement, all while Trump flags waved around them.

There were no ambiguities surrounding Trump as we watched him pleading to his enraged disciples  to join him at the Capitol that day, “You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” the president said

The chilling footage was seen by too many people for reality to ever yield. It was all too well documented by journalists and prosecutors.

The idea of a political party even attempting to rewrite the story of the assault seemed ridiculous. Impossible. That was the stuff of Nazi Germany or the Soviets.

It would not happen.

It could not happen.

Until the Republicans decided it had to happen.

Trump was the architect but they built the big lie

Within hours Republicans suggested that the attack was an example of “leftist violence”. Matt Gaetz appeared on the House floor and declared that the violence was attributed to Antifa” members “ masquerading as Trump supporters.”

Others chimed in, supported by Fox News insisting pro-Trump protestors at the Capitol were infiltrated by left-wing extremists.

It wasn’t Trump people -it was a hoax from day one -it was staged.

The GOP ran with that and despite obvious absurdities, a striking number of rank-and-file Republican voters believed what they were told to believe.

These Republicans like everyone else saw what transpired on Capitol Hill but found it easier t believe a head-spinning counter-narrative – an alliance of far-left antifascist groups pretending to be right-wing activists, as part of an elaborate ruse -instead of the truth.

Next Story

But soon a new story began to unfold.

The idea that the left was responsible for the pro-Trump violence wasn’t going to stick.

A new fairy tale was concocted that was the opposite of their original tale: instead of far-left criminals being responsible for the attack, the Republicans recast it- it was actually conservative patriots in this new revised story who were being persecuted for little more than raising patriotic concerns about election integrity

The principal author of this new counter-narrative was of course Trump

But that story wasn’t flying. Yet. Public talk about the violence was too fierce to disregard.

A week after the violence, impeachment charges against Trump were set to a vote for incitement of insurrection.

As talk of the 25^th Amendment was bandied about by his cabinet as a way to remove him from office, Trump and his team scrambled to find political cover to ensure he would complete his final 2 weeks in office.  

As a consequence, Trump became a January 6^th critic.

Temporarily

 “Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem,” Trump said on January 7 describing the events of the day before as a “heinous attack,” Reading from a prepared text, Trump added, “The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy…To those who engage in the acts of violence and destruction: You do not represent our country, and to those who broke the law: You will pay.”

On the final full day of his term, he again read from a written script “All Americans were horrified by the assault on our Capitol. Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as Americans. It can never be tolerated.”

Once out of office his interest in maintaining that pretense waned.

It wasn’t long before a new story developed.

In March 2021 nine weeks after leaving the White House  Trump went on Fox News and said while some of his supporters went a little too far inside the Capitol, they posed “zero threat” to anyone. He added the rioters were merely “hugging and kissing the police and the guards,” before suggesting there was a “great relationship” between law enforcement and members of the mob.

The rewriting of history was mind-blowing.

The so-called benevolent rioters violently clashed with law enforcement and roughly 140 capitol police officers were injured as part of the attack. Police officers sustained brain injuries cracked ribs shattered spinal discs.One was stabbed with a metal fence stake.

Among them was Officer Michael Fanone who was grabbed and dragged into a mob by a man who boasted “I got one,” At that point, Trump rioters tased him, took his badge and radio, and threatened to murder him with his own gun.

Fanone was neither hugged nor kissed by his assailants.

Five police officers who had served at the Capitol on January 6 subsequently died.

Four of the five took their own lives.

Love Fest If you are going to Washington DC wear a flower in your hair

But for Trump, this was just the start of revisionist history. He went into full drive.

Trump described the rioters as members of “a loving crowd.” Those charged with crimes related to the attack were being treated  “unbelievably unfairly, though he never explained the unfair treatment

He upped the fantasy.

By July 2021 Trump described those who attended his Stop the Steal rally as “peaceful people.

He added “The love-the love in the air, I have never seen anything like it.  As though describing the summer of love in 1967, he described “a lovefest between the police, the Capitol  Police and the people who walked down the Capitol.”

Trump’s support for suspected and convicted Jan 6 criminals grew even more explicit in the months and years that followed. His initial rhetoric about his opposition to “Lawlessness and mayhem” and his disdain for those who “defiled the seat of democracy” by participating in a “heinous attack” was replaced by gushing praise.

By early 2022 Trump now described the January 6 criminals as “patriots”

He used his social media platform to argue that the riot “represented the greatest movement in the history of our country.”

The Republicans  were all in, tossing aside their fake Antifa Trump protestors to describe those who attacked the Capitol as “ truly respect law enforcement” as Ron Johnson gushed, deserving   of being seen as people who “loved this country.”

They were now all recast as “peaceful patriots.”

They were cited as behaving in an orderly fashion and if you didn’t know it you would think it was just a normal tourist visit

But we saw what happened. In the propagandist rewrite Americans were expected to believe the rioters were victims worthy not only of our support but also our pity.

We were now in full 1984 mode

By 2023 any sense of subtlety was abandoned

There was now a new label for the incarcerated rioters -J6 hostages not prisoners.

He called it a shame.

And it was but not for the reasons Trump thought.

The GOP in pursuit of power abandonded democracy and accountability in ways that will invite future violence.

This fairy tale will not have a happy ending where we all live happily ever after.  

There is no prince on a white horse to save us

We must save ourselves.