On January 6, 2021, four years ago to the day, the United States experienced one of the biggest crises in its modern history. While Donald Trump refuses to admit the result of the American presidential election, several hundred individuals, heated by the billionaire, launch an attack on the Capitol to prevent the validation of the vote. A scene of total chaos then begins within the seat of the American legislative power, between deadly clashes between demonstrators and the police and particularly violent material destruction.
But this attempted coup, from which many predicted that Donald Trump would never recover, ultimately transformed over the months into a real driving force in his political narrative. Until becoming a trump card in his presidential campaign, won hands down last November. A rewriting of history in several acts, which testifies to the “Trump method” of always turning the facts to his advantage.
Act I: clearing oneself of all responsibility
On January 6, 2021, the situation is more than tense for Donald Trump, whom all the facts seem to incriminate for having largely contributed to this outbreak of violence on the Capitol. In question, we find in particular his more than ambivalent speech the same day, where he encouraged his supporters to march “peacefully and patriotically” towards the Capitol, while reminding them to “fight like hell”.
Once back at the White House, the man who was still president refused to call on the crowd to withdraw as the violence only increased. He finally posts a video, in which he persists on the rigging of the presidential election, but declares: “We must have peace. So go home. We love you. You are very special.” Before adding another message on Twitter: “Remember this day forever!”, as recalled by New York Times.
These more than contradictory messages, but in no way strongly condemning what was taking place in Washington, had earned Donald Trump strong criticism even from his own camp. A firm front raised against him, which finally led the outgoing president to describe this riot as a “heinous attack on the Capitol of the United States”, as well as a “calamity” for which those responsible “will pay”. It was the one and only time that he so strongly denounced the January 6 attack. Because the rewriting of history using the Trumpist method was already beginning.
Act II: denouncing a frame-up by his opponents
Very quickly, another version of the story began to rise in the Republican camp to clear President Trump, the target of impeachment proceedings from January 13, 2021 for “incitement to insurrection”. This is then the beginning of a second phase: the denunciation of a plot staged by its opponents. And with a very clear and identified manager. Even before the Capitol was definitively secured, Republican Representative Paul Gozar asserted that the events of January 6 had “all the characteristics of an antifa provocation.”
This narrative quickly spread in the Trumpist sphere, from Fox News columnist Laura Ingraham claiming that “there were reports that antifa sympathizers were scattered throughout the crowd” to Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz claiming that some rioters ” posed as Trump supporters and were in fact members of the violent terrorist group antifa.” The MIT Technology Review, cited by the New York Timesclaims that this fabrication was repeated online more than 400,000 times in the 24 hours following the attack on the Capitol, amplified by a group of MAGA influencers, Republican officials and members of Donald Trump’s family.
This rewriting gradually became the quasi-official narrative propagated by the Trumpist camp. Even those in the Republican camp who openly accused him a few days after the assault on the Capitol, like the leader of the senators Mitch McConnell, went back on their word and blamed everyone.
But the ultra-left was not the only one blamed by the Trump camp. In mid-June 2021, another theory emerged, coming more specifically from Fox News star host Tucker Carlson: the January 6 assault was in reality an operation orchestrated by none other than the FBI. A theory which was very quickly taken up by the Trumpist ecosystem, happily fueling the theory of a “deep state” which would act in the shadows to bring down the billionaire. And Donald Trump himself very quickly gave support to this theory. During a rally in Florida in July 2021, he was outraged by the death of one of the demonstrators, Ashley Babbitt, who was killed by a Capitol police officer as she attempted to enter the Capitol grounds. the House of Representatives. “Shoot, boom. There was no reason for it. Who shot Ashli Babbitt?”, he falsely wondered, before declaring a month later that the police officer who killed her was “a murderer” .
Act III: reclaiming the facts
But it was from 2022 that the narrative began to profoundly evolve, becoming over time the one that was exploited by Donald Trump until his victory last November. Then begins a third phase: the reappropriation of this event as proof of the relentlessness of the judicial, political and media systems against him and his camp. From 2021, the billionaire began to nourish this reading of the facts, describing this day as a “day of love”.
Thus, the people imprisoned or killed on January 6 gradually became martyrs, dead or put behind bars because they were fighting to save democracy. This glorification notably found its peak in a detention center in Washington, where around ten men renamed themselves “the Patriot wing” and met every evening to sing the American anthem. Their first supporter turned out to be Donald Trump himself, calling them “persecuted political prisoners”, and promising that if he were re-elected to the White House, he would issue them presidential pardons “because they are being treated very unfairly.” He even went so far as to produce a song in March 2023 with this so-called patriotic choir, broadcast in all his meetings and which became the symbol of the resistance and its narrative of a rigged election.
Even if it means sometimes appearing very confused, accusing the “deep state” of being at the origin of the excesses of January 6, 2021 as much as glorifying the patriots who defended American democracy that day in the face of an alleged rigged election. “In many ways, January 6 became part of his brand, one in which an attack on the symbol of American democracy became a defense of that same democracy. A part of the brand that, in November, helped Donald Trump to be elected 47th president of the United States”, finally summarizes the New York Times.
Act IV: joining actions to words
But Donald Trump’s rewriting of January 6, 2021 cannot stop with his simple re-election to the White House. If his version of the facts therefore seems to have convinced a majority of Americans, it remains to match actions with words. Thus, the fourth phase will begin on January 20, and his inauguration on the same steps where his unleashed supporters were ready to overthrow American democracy.
There is obviously the promise to pardon all those who participated and were sentenced following the assault on the Capitol, sometimes to very heavy prison sentences. An act which would definitively erase any participation in January 6 as an attempted coup d’état, and would definitively confirm the story of political persecution on the part of the Democratic administration.
But there is also revenge against all those who had the presumption to want to condemn Donald Trump and his supporters following the events of January 6. Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who led the federal investigation against Donald Trump, abandoned after the latter’s re-election to the White House? “He must be expelled from the country.” Liz Cheney, elected Republican who actively participated in the parliamentary inquiry into the January 6 investigation? “She needs to go to jail.”
Between what Donald Trump and his supporters promise and what they can actually do, the gap is likely to be significant. If Joe Biden called this Sunday, January 5, not to “forget” or “rewrite” the events of January 6, describing Donald Trump’s attitude at the time to the press as “a real threat to democracy”, the president outgoing Democrat seems to have already lost the rhetorical battle: the billionaire will indeed have succeeded in rewriting the history of January 6, 2021