Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past

by Steve Benen

When looking for major events in modern American history that would be easy to whitewash, the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol would appear to be near the bottom of the list. The riot was simply too well understood to be recharacterized as anything other than what it was: insurrectionist violence, fueled by partisan lies, targeting the American seat of government for the purposes of helping a defeated presidential candidate claim illegitimate power. The indelible video and images were simply too powerful to ignore or forget. The rioters on the Senate floor. The guns drawn at the entry to the House chamber. The noose displayed on a gallows. The “hang Mike Pence” chants. The plastic zip-tie handcuffs. The elected officials running to safety. The Confederate flag that never reached Capitol Hill during the Civil War, but which was carried down congressional hallways in January 2021. A rioter grinning with apparent pride as he put his foot on the speaker of the House’s desk. The insurrectionists breaking into the building, climbing its walls, violently clashing with law enforcement, all while Trump flags waved around them. Just as important, there were no ambiguities surrounding Donald Trump, his public pleas for his supporters to join him in the nation’s capital, or the preriot remarks he delivered to a group of radicalized followers at the Ellipse, against the backdrop of the White House. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” the president declared.1 “You ha...

The public had already seen what happened. In the propagandistic rewrite, Americans were expected to believe that the rioters were victims, worthy not only of public support but also pity. Former defense secretary William Cohen, who was also a longtime GOP member of Congress, was among the many who were gobsmacked. “Those members who are trying to say, ‘No big deal on Jan. 6,’ they’re trying to perform a frontal lobotomy on the American people, a side effect which is mental dullness,” the retired Maine Republican said.37 Around the same time, Republican representative Adam Kinzinger added, “When I saw my colleagues speak, you know, it feels like it’s in 1984—something you see out of North Korea, where it’s like, ‘We’re just going to state whatever we want the reality to be.’”38 Kinzinger, who served on the bipartisan congressional committee that investigated January 6, was soon after censured by the Republican National Committee. The Illinois congressman quickly became persona non grata in the party he used to call home.

It was, by many measures, the most serious scandal in U.S. history: a political leader, rebuked by his constituents, acted on his authoritarian desires and took steps to hold power by force. When his party had an opportunity to act responsibly, honor their oaths of office, hold President Madness accountable, and put their corrupted leader behind them, the vast majority of its members refused. The story of January 6 raised compelling questions about whether the contemporary GOP was still a political party at all, or whether it’d made the transition to personality cult indifferent to the rule of law. Rewriting that story was seemingly impossible but politically necessary.

Asked in November 2023 whether he intended to use federal law enforcement to go after his perceived political foes if given a second term, the Republican replied, “Yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse. What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box.”32 Notwithstanding the fact that he probably meant “bottle” and not “box,” Trump described a scenario in which he could exploit a new set of circumstances. If he won in 2024, he could prosecute Biden and other Democrats because Biden and other Democrats had prosecuted him. It was a new day in American jurisprudence, and Trump was prepared to exploit the opportunity and start using federal law enforcement officials as his own personal attack dogs. There were some rather obvious flaws in the argument. For one thing, Biden had nothing to do with Trump’s indictments. For another, the Republican’s logic was flawed: A car thief, caught in the act by the police, would not be justified in trying to later arrest the officer who caught him. The thief could not credibly go to court and argue, “Well, the cop released the genie out of the box.” But more important, Trump was rewriting his own story—erasing the fact that he’d already tried to use federal law enforcement officials as his own personal attack dogs.

When GOP voices tell voters not to believe their lying eyes, using a combination of shameless dishonesty, partisan coordination, and relentless repetition, the rhetorical strategy is predicated on the idea that they can safely get away with it. History tells us, however, that parties change their tactics when an electorate tells them they must. As the American experiment confronts new perils, the time for the Republican Party to hear such a message is now. Time will tell whether voters are willing to send that message or will instead continue to allow the party to lead us further into our own partisan version of Orwell’s forever war.