The sun shone brightly on 6 January 2021. The birds chirped, children frolicked and thousands of unarmed patriots gathered peacefully in Washington DC for a “day of love”. It was a beautiful gathering in support of US democracy. In the words of incoming president Donald Trump, “nothing done wrong at all”.
Perhaps that’s not quite how you remember the scenes of violent mobs storming the Capitol that were broadcast around the world four years ago. Perhaps that’s not how you, personally, would characterise an event in which more than 140 police officers were viciously assaulted and four people died; a furious riot in which crowds chanted “hang Mike Pence” and set up a makeshift gallows. But it’s certainly how a significant number of people seem to remember it: 6 January seems to have been alarmingly normalised – a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll published last year found about seven in 10 Republicans think too much fuss is being made about the event and that it is “time to move on”.
Other polls also show that, as the years go by, Republicans are less likely to believe 6 January participants were “mostly violent” and that Trump bears responsibility for the attack. A collective amnesia appears to have set in. Across large swathes of the US, a brazen coup d’etat seems to have been successfully recharacterised as a protest that just went a teeny bit awry.
To be clear: when I say “coup” I’m not talking solely about the events that unfurled on 6 January. One of the key reasons, I suspect, that Trump’s insurrection attempt is not taken as seriously as it should be in some quarters is that still, there is too much focus on the riot itself, rather than the broader scheme that it was part of. And the riot, while violent, can easily be characterised as a haphazard, almost absurd, affair. One of the poster boys of 6 January, after all, was Jacob Chansley, AKA QAnon Shaman, who ran through the US Senate chamber sporting a horned headdress, face paint, and a bare chest. (After being arrested he also famously demanded an all-organic diet in prison.) It’s tempting to look at him and think: “bunch of weirdos who got out of control”, rather than “complex insurrection attempt”. But, again, the riot at the Capitol wasn’t the coup attempt: it was just one part (albeit the most dramatic part) of a broader campaign by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election via misinformation, intimidation and a number of complicated legal manoeuvres. Rather than being spontaneous chaos, 6 January was part of a calculated plan.
The seeds for the coup, you could argue, were planted the moment Trump won the 2016 election, when he insisted (with zero proof) that he would also have won the popular vote were it not for people voting “illegally”. Trump continued to baselessly warn of voter fraud throughout his presidency, reinforcing the idea in his supporters’ minds that his enemies were intent on undermining him. When Trump did lose the 2020 election, he immediately cried foul and complained that the election had been stolen. Then the more serious shenanigans began: according to a New York Times analysis, Trump put pressure on state and government officials to overturn the election results in more than 30 phone calls or meetings, starting in mid-November. He also memorably asked Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, to “find” 11,780 votes for him, and tried to persuade justice department officials to open investigations into election fraud.
While all this was going on, the “fake electors” strategy was unfurling. After the 2020 election, a group of 84 people in seven states won by Joe Biden signed false documents claiming to be electors for Trump. The idea seems to have been to create the illusion of a contested election so that on 6 January, the day a joint session of Congress was due to convene to formalise president-elect Biden’s victory, vice-president Pence would have an excuse to block Congress from recognising Biden as the winner, or to delay the ceremonial vote count.
As the critical date of 6 January approached, Trump started focusing his efforts on pressuring Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes for Biden and block congressional certification of Biden’s victory. On the morning of the 6th, when it seemed clear that Pence wasn’t going to play ball, Trump upped the intimidation tactics by urging his supporters to converge on the Capitol building. As the riots got under way, Trump kept tweeting, suggesting Pence was a coward who “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country”.
The rioting delayed the certification process, but Trump didn’t quite pull off his coup that day. At around 8pm, the Capitol was secure and the Senate reconvened. Pence returned to the dais, saying: “To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win.”
That may have been true in the moment. But four years later, it’s hard to agree with Pence’s assessment. Trump’s insurrection attempt has not touched him politically: he’s now the (legitimate) winner of not just the electoral college, but the popular vote. Meanwhile, many of the “fake electors” from 2020 were nominated by state Republican parties to serve again as Republican party presidential electors last year. As for the rioters? While about 1,400 people were charged with felony or misdemeanor crimes for their alleged roles in the 6 January attack, Trump and his allies have recast them as martyrs who were unfairly persecuted. Many of the insurrectionists are now anticipating pardons. Some have even asked courts for permission to return to Washington on 20 January to attend the inauguration of president-elect Trump.
Not only have the insurrectionists seemingly won, the “big lie” persists. On the 2024 campaign trail, incoming vice-president JD Vance repeatedly refused to say whether or not Trump had lost the 2020 election. Nor is the idea that Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him the only lie to stubbornly endure. The moment that the riots kicked off, very deliberate revisionism from certain media outlets and individuals began. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson used selective security video from the riots to portray it as a peaceful gathering that was, in Carlson’s words, “neither an insurrection nor deadly”. The violence that did occur, the likes of Fox News and uber-influential podcaster Joe Rogan insinuated, may have been instigated by leftwing activists, or been an FBI-led false flag designed to undermine Trump. Those conspiracy theories (or “alternative facts”) spread so successfully that, according to the Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released last January, 25% of Americans say it is “probably” or “definitely” true that the FBI instigated the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. Among Republicans, 34% said the FBI organised and encouraged the insurrection. And a full 39% of Americans who said Fox News is their primary news source believe the FBI organised and encouraged the 6 January attack.
Trump is a unique political talent. His shamelessness is a superpower that lets him get away with things lesser mortals could not. I’m not sure many other politicians could have pulled off a 6 January then gone on to reclaim power. (Jair Bolsonaro certainly failed.) Still, the way this has all panned out isn’t just about Trump’s talents: it’s all about misinformation and a fragmented media ecosystem. We may all exist on the same planet, but the way we see the world can be very easily manipulated. That has happened. That is happening. The 6 January coup drama happened four years ago, but it’s so much more than history – it also serves as a lesson for our future.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist and the author of Strong Female Lead
