It’s only March. That may seem a bit soon to be rewriting the history of events that happened in January, but the truth is Republicans began breaking out the revisionism pens even before the insurrectionists were cleared from the Capitol. Despite having just been cleared away to make room for a deadly assault on democracy, Republicans filed back into the chamber and proceeded to keep spreading lies about the election and to dismiss the seriousness of what had just happened.
On Thursday, twelve Republicans in the House voted against honoring police involved in protecting Congress on Jan. 6 because they didn’t like the term “armed insurrectionists” being applied to people who smashed their way into the Capitol carrying weapons while seeking to overturn the election. But really, that was just the latest attempt to give kid glove treatment to people who attempted to carry out a change of government through lynching.
In the Senate, Ron Johnson has earned an outstanding performance in a perverse role award for his constant attempts to redefine events on Jan. 6 as peaceful, cheerful patriots who caused him no worries because they weren’t Black. And on Thursday, Rep. Lauren Boebert complained that all this fuss was being made over people attempting to “petition the government” just like the Constitution allows. But also on Thursday, the FBI released additional videos showing just how not-peaceful and not-patriotic events on Jan. 6 really were.
There’s a good reason that the video of events from that day begins with a warning. Because the level of violence displayed is just part of what makes these clips disturbing.
The video shows officers being punched, beaten with objects, doused with bear spray, and being literally crushed by a crowd working together to grind them between a closed door and a wall of shields. Trump supporters rip away officer’s masks, hurl heavy objects, smash down on officers with stolen shields, and drag them along the ground while genuinely grunting in anger and effort.
Contrast this with the celebration at CPAC, with Roger Stone dancing along as the insurrection was described as “Patriots, coming up knocking on the Capitol.”
Or Boebert complaining that people can’t petition the government by assaulting police, smashing open doors, and searching out a few officials to hang.
Or Ron Johnson describing the people who stalked through the halls of Congress with guns, tasers, baseball bats, clubs, spears, and handcuffs as “people who love this country.”
Johnson claimed that he wasn’t at all concerned that a deadly riot was going on outside and inside the Capitol building. Because white Republicans on a rampage is just good American fun. On the other hand …
SEN. RON JOHNSON: Now, had the tables been turned, Joe, and this’ll get me in trouble—had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election, and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.
Republican efforts to downplay Jan. 6 will continue. Because they have to. They can’t both support Donald Trump and acknowledge the level of antidemocratic violence that occurred on Jan. 6, because the two things are absolutely wedded. It doesn’t take the latest FBI video to know that what happened on Jan. 6 was violent. Everyone in Congress—including Boebert and Johnson—know the truth.