He just can’t quit January 6th
The loss of the 2020 election was such a blow to Trump’s fragile psyche that he perpetuated the Big Lie and tried to overturn the election culminating in his incitement to insurrection on January 6th. He can’t let it go even though it constantly reminds the nation of the worst day of his presidency:
The rallies start with a recording of January 6 prisoners singing the national anthem. Campaign staff hand out pre-made “Too Big to Rig” signs to supporters. When the candidate takes the stage, he calls the rioters “people who love our country” and “hostages unfairly imprisoned for long periods of time.”
There is nothing subtle about how central Donald Trump has made January 6, 2021, to his campaign. More than just continuing to feed denialism and conspiracies about the 2020 election, he is constantly distorting the reality of what happened that day, preaching vindication to his base of voters.
In ways big and small – but often overlooked because they have become so commonplace at his events – the former president glosses over the violence. He promises pardons for the people who committed it.
On this, Trump and President Joe Biden agree: January 6 itself is a central issue of the 2024 campaign and will be even if Trump’s trials on related indictments get delayed past Election Day.
It’s Biden’s campaign aides who have been surprised how much that’s true.
“People know what happened on January 6,” said Mike Donilon, one of Biden’s closest advisers. “I think most of the country is going to say, ‘We don’t embrace political violence. We do embrace democracy. We do embrace the rule of law. We’re not interested in pardoning people who ransacked the Capitol, and we’re going to have a real problem supporting someone who embraces all that.’”
Though Donilon and a few others — including Vice President Kamala Harris, in private conversations to CNN — had been adamant for three years that January 6 would continue reverberating, Biden aides use words like “stunning” to describe the way Trump has not just kept January 6 present, but burrowed ever deeper into conspiracy theories that are embraced in the right-wing echo chamber but push away more mainstream voters.
And while Biden aides in the Wilmington reelection office have been closely monitoring Trump’s rallies, stockpiling clips for future use to likely pair with the many disturbing videos of the mob breaking down the doors and attacking police, they don’t need to go further than keeping an eye on Trump’s Truth Social account.
Some Biden aides say they were shocked that January 6 keeps coming up in every focus group, to the point that Democratic operatives these days tend to use words like “indelible image” or “scar tissue” to describe how the memories still hit.
“We were all surprised,” acknowledged one senior Democrat involved with the reelection effort, asking not to be named to describe private strategy development.
“Anyone who is being honest was surprised Jan. 6 continues to be this resonant,” the person added. “But in hindsight, when you combine extreme rhetoric, extreme policy and lasting imagery, that ends up being a pretty powerful memory.”
He thinks a majority of the country is represented by the adoring worshipers at his rallies. He’s wrong.
And I’m not surprised that it’s still resonant and not just because Trump won’t shut up about it. It’s because it was a shocking, unprecedented event that most of us will never forget. Those pictures of people scaling the walls of the capital, beating police and the QAnon Shaman standing at the podium in the US Senate were indelibly imprinted on our minds. Srue, some people remember it fondly as a great day. But most people don’t and Trump is foolish for reminding them of it all the time.
The problem is that most people aren’t paying enough attention to any of this to even know about it. It’s important that we tell them.