Legacy Media Has Memory-Holed January 6

Some tragic, terrible days in American history are remembered as such in perpetuity. Consider the commemorations of 9/11, which never downplay the seriousness of the attacks or the suffering of those who experienced them. Remembrances of Pearl Harbor call to mind the sacrifices of those who served at the time.

Vivid stories of battles and acts of courage become part of this country’s larger narrative—the tale we tell ourselves.

But then there’s January 6, 2021, a day of infamy when a sitting U.S. president fought to overturn election results by force for the first time in this nation’s history, by siccing his rioting supporters to violently attack the United States Capitol. They assaulted and murdered police officers, terrorized U.S. congresspeople and their aides, and threatened to hang Vice-President Mike Pence for choosing to uphold the Constitution.

That day has no similar anniversary commemoration, no attempt to create a collective memory in the minds of all Americans. During this year’s chaotic presidential campaign, it feels like it’s been memory-holed completely.

The insurrection on January 6, 2021 is, to put it as plainly as possible, the most outrageous act of any presidency in American history. It has been the subject of an impeachment, congressional investigations and hearings, federal indictments of dozens of conspirators, a Supreme Court case. Yet it’s barely been mentioned as a factor in the candidacies of Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance.

In the days immediately following the January 6 attacks, newspapers ran headlines in huge typefaces reading DEMOCRACY ATTACKED and RAMPAGE IN CAPITOL and UNDER SIEGE. Media outlets dedicated multiple reporters to describing the events as they unfolded. They focused on injured and murdered police officers, terrorized congressional staffers, and the hateful vandalism of Trump’s violent, racist followers.

The volume of coverage forced Republicans to denounce the Capitol mob, to answer for things their own constituents and supporters had done. Events, for a time, overwhelmed the narrative of Trump as a normal candidate.

And now news organizations have turned their attention elsewhere. With Trump running for president again, editors and producers have decided to prioritize everything but his treasonous actions. Their stories reflect a run-of-the-mill campaign with two people who have differing views on taxes and civil rights.

During the September presidential debates, media moderators asked questions about the economy. They asked questions about abortion. They asked questions about crime and courts and foreign policy and environmental regulations. They pressed candidates on falsehoods and misspeaking, and asked for them to paint pictures of the future they’d create.

Watching, you would think no one had tried to actually overthrow democracy. You’d think Trump was a normal candidate who hadn’t committed treason repeatedly, who hadn’t chosen Putin over the lives of Americans, who hadn’t tried to have his former VP publicly hanged. You’d think he hadn’t alluded to doing it again if he doesn’t win the election.

It took Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz drawing Vance’s attention to the fact that he was going head-to-head with him and not Trump’s previous VP during their debate. There’s a reason there’s been turnover for that job.

“To deny what happened on January 6, the first time in American history that a president or anyone tried to overturn a fair election and the peaceful transfer of power,” Walz said. “And here we are four years later, in the same boat … this has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.

“When Mike Pence made the decision to certify that election, that’s why Mike Pence isn’t on this stage,” Walz said.

He pressed Vance on whether Trump really lost the 2020 election, and Vance refused to answer, whining instead about online censorship of Republicans that isn’t really happening.

The insurrection story hasn’t lacked for news pegs like this. Congressional hearings in the past four years have provided endless footage of violence against elected officials. Armed men roamed the halls of the Capitol on grainy security recordings, eerily calling out for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other female lawmakers who’d become targets for their misogynist rage. Police officers testified about the trauma and injuries they received from Trump supporters who beat them with American flags and called them traitors for defending the government.

And just last week U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s filing in the federal case against Trump over the insurrection was made public, detailing Trump’s encouragement of protesters to riot, his lackeys’ harassment of state election officials, and his disregard for Pence’s safety.

“So what?,” the filing quotes Trump as telling an aide after being advised that his vice president, Mike Pence, had been rushed to a secure location after a crowd of violent Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to try to prevent the counting of electoral votes.

Those same rioters had been chanting “hang Mike Pence” outside the Capitol walls, but Trump didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, Pence had betrayed him, and the sitting vice-president’s life was forfeit.

Contesting votes against him in Detroit, Trump was told, could cause MAGA supporters to get violent, and Trump responded, “Make them riot!” and “Do it!”

How is all of this not the subject of the kind of drumbeat coverage that, say, current President Joe Biden’s age was two months ago? How are there not op-eds on every front page demanding Trump drop out of the race? Why is this outrageous behavior, this criminal behavior, not considered disqualifying for a candidate for the presidency?

What kind of cowardice allows this rampaging animal and his enablers to continue to bellow and trample and flail on the national stage, only to be met with questions like, “Mr. President, Do you believe Americans can afford higher prices because of tariffs?”

American journalism loves to cloak itself in the mantle of democracy when it’s time to avoid editorial criticism from the public it purports to serve. But they are very selective about which events constitute the kind of crisis that require them shifting from Normal Political Reporter Mode to ALL HANDS, WE ARE AT WAR.

They rarely explain the criteria for that change. Hillary Clinton’s email protocols were a national emergency eight years ago. Biden’s jet lag befuddlement in a debate, same type of boiling point, from which we could not move on without national action.

They’ll go to any length to describe Democrats in pejorative terms and Republicans in positive ones. Vice-President Kamala Harris’s interviews, in which she occasionally acknowledges not having all the answers, are described as “bobbing and weaving,” while Trump’s racism is characterized as an “obsession with genes” or a “fascination with race science.”

While the release of Smith’s brief was commented on extensively online, most major news organizations gave it normal-story treatment, covering it perfunctorily and then moving on to other stories. It got a fraction of the coverage Clinton’s email server got:

The papers ran more than SIX times as many combined front-page stories that mentioned Clinton’s server (46) as they did front-page stories that mentioned Trump’s indictment (7!!) over those periods.

There should be no other story when it comes to the presidential race. Polls, policy papers, none of it matters if elections are attacked. Even lifelong Republicans understand this, and that’s why they’ve been endorsing Harris.

If we value the way we choose our leaders, if we want that system or some semblance of it to survive longer than the next month, we need a press that will actually do the defending of democracy it claims to do.