The Coming Fight Over the Story of the MAGA Insurrection
We can’t be too confident about how history will record the events of January 6
Even as the first draft of the history of the January 6 insurrection is still being written, it’s not too early to consider the version that will be memorialized in high school history and social studies textbooks a decade from now. Will it tell the story of a defeated president who incited a seditious mob to attack the Capitol? Or will it show a president who stirred patriots to act based on the claim he was cheated of a second term by election fraud?
It would be short-sighted to conclude the second story will not gain currency over time. According to a PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, 69% of Republicans say the president is at little or no fault for the events at the Capitol. Americans who get their news from Fox, One America News Network, Newsmax, and other right-wing outlets are already hearing that the riots were the work of antifa disguised as Trump supporters. The past five years have demonstrated that the right-wing narrative of any events unfavorable to Trump will mutate into conspiracies unhindered by facts or evidence.
The MAGA insurrection has made one thing clear: The United States is at war with a toxic ideology that has taken root among more than a third of…
