The right-wing noise machine wants the deadly January 6th insurrection of six months ago to disappear completely from the national stage, and it's working better than even I expected it to.
Six months after their leader tried to overturn the election he had lost by more than 7 million votes, Republicans have settled on a message about the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol: Insurrection? What insurrection?
From calls to let bygones be bygones, to punishing dissidents who dare criticize former President Donald Trump for instigating that day’s attack, to literally describing the mob as no different from everyday “tourists,” the Republican Party ― with notable exceptions ― has pushed the idea that the unprecedented attempt to overthrow American democracy was really no big deal.
And, if recent polling is correct, they appear to be succeeding. According to a recent Morning Consult survey, fully 41% of Americans believe that the riot of Jan. 6 has received “too much attention,” compared with 50% who do not. That figure is driven by 68% of Republicans who say that but includes more than a third of independents and even a quarter of Democrats.
Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor who believes the country barely dodged a constitutional crisis on Jan. 6, said many Americans simply would rather not think about that day.
“It’s human nature to suppress terrible forebodings that don’t quite materialize,” he said, adding that the barrage of Trump-inspired crises during his term likely laid the groundwork. “The cascade of terrible events and near-misses over the past four years has desensitized people if not entirely anesthetized them.”
Hans Noel, a political science professor at Georgetown University, said that Republicans also have an active interest in wishing Jan. 6 away.
“Generally, conservatives, particularly those who get their news from other conservatives, will come to downplay the attack,” Noel said. “Some of that is just believing it’s not a big deal. Some of it is not wanting to talk about uncomfortable facts as they come out. But this is the main thing: The partisan messaging on this has been to downplay it for Republicans, Trump supporters and others on the right.”
Whatever its causes, the process of memory-holing that day reflects Trump’s continued success at fashioning an outrageous lie and then browbeating Republican leaders into going along with him.
House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, for example, said on Jan. 13 on the House floor that Trump “bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.” Within weeks, he had gone to visit Trump at his Palm Beach resort and posed for a photo with him. And, at the six-month mark of the mob assault, he is attacking those few GOP House members, such as Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, who refuse to bend to Trump’s will.
McCarthy’s office did not respond to HuffPost queries. On Thursday, he said of Cheney’s acceptance of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s appointment to serve on a select committee to investigate Jan. 6: “Maybe she’s closer to her than us.” He had warned Republicans who would serve on that panel that they would be stripped of their committee assignments.
“If most Americans have indeed forgotten about Jan. 6, that is in part due to the tenacious efforts of the GOP to downplay it,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University. “For a party whose brand is law enforcement, Jan. 6′s murderous rage against Capitol Police could turn voters off. So they deny the violence ― Trump turned it into ‘hugs and kisses’ ― and block any investigation that would place the facts of it in the public realm.”
So yeah, "Why don't you liberals shut up about January 6th already" is a thing, and nearly half the country agrees, even a quarter of Democrats.
It's okay though.
We'll have a brand-new horrible domestic terrorism event or six to talk about very soon, I imagine.
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