MAGA's ever-shifting and dangerous Jan. 6 narrative
By Francis Wilkinson / Bloomberg Opinion
The construction of the MAGA counternarrative about Jan. 6 has been something of an iterative process.
The latest version, which exists alongside multiple alternate versions, is contained in a report by Republican Representative Barry Loudermilk’s House subcommittee, released in late December amid the House GOP-Elon Musk-Donald Trump chaos over funding the government. As its title suggests, Loudermilk’s “Interim Report on the Failures and Politization of the Jan. 6 Select Committee” is probably not the final account.
Loudermilk’s report focuses on the workings of the House Jan. 6 select committee, and the voluminous fact pattern that the committee established about Donald Trump’s role in the attempted overthrow of the American republic. (End democratic elections, and you end the republic.) This is a departure from previous MAGA concoctions, which sought to recast the events of the day itself.
In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, some MAGA partisans attributed the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol to radical leftists. “Now, they were likely not all Trump supporters,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham said of the mob, hours after she had pleaded with the White House to call off the Capitol assault. Ingraham then added, “and there are some reports that antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.”
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-magas-ever-shifting-and-dangerous-jan-6-narrative/