Trump administration
Trump administration
Trump Administration
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The elected president and his allies have spent 4 years reinventing the attack of the Capitol, spreading conspiracy theories and weaving a history of martyrdom for his political benefit.
By Dan Barry and Alan Feuer
In two weeks, Donald J. Trump will have to emerge from an arched doorway of the United States Capitol to take the workplace presidential oath again. As the Inauguration Day ritual conveys the nonviolent movement of force, it will take place where the worst of the chaos of January 6, 2021 took place, largely in his name.
Directly, Trump will be the steel and glass doors where protesters, inflamed by his lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, stormed the Capitol with batons, chemical irritants and other weapons. To their left is the position where the outnumbered rioters and police fought hand-to-hand. To his right, where the prostrate body of a dying woman was pushed into the bloody tumult.
And in front of him, a dozen marble steps descending to a lectern adorned with the presidential seal. The same marches where, 4 years earlier, Trump flags were brandished above the delirious crowd like Spears; Where one officer crawled face down to be hit with an American flag on a pole and someone else dragged into the fray to be punched and stomped on.
In the wake of the attack on the Capitol, Mr. Trump’s volatile political career gave the impression of being over, his incendiary words before the insurrection went to the leaders of his own Republican party. Myriad points to his startling resurrection, but notably the extent to which he and his loyalists whitewashed the story of January 6, turning a political nightmare into a political asset.
What began as a strained attempt to absolve Mr. Trump of responsibility for Jan. 6 gradually took hold, as his allies in Congress and the media played down the attack and redirected blame to left-wing plants, Democrats and even the government. Violent rioters — prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned — somehow became patriotic martyrs.
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