January 6 was one of the single most devastating days in American history. In the months and years after, Donald Trump and MAGA manufactured a nearly inconceivable whitewashing of the whole insurrection. Now, Trump and his supporters are engineering a direct reversal of the underlying plot, as a further means to criminalize the left, leaving their opponents flailing.
A 21st-century iron curtain is descending on American democracy — but there is little hope for resistance without understanding the gravity of the latest moves.
Trump and MAGA are promoting a cynically manipulated reading of an FBI document pertaining to plainclothes federal agents present at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to claim such agents agitated the crowd in a "fedsurrection."
The now all-too-familiar rewriting of history marches on, unabated.
As most know, FBI agents were present within the crowd on January 6 in order to gather intelligence on potential threats, not to incite violence. Trump and MAGA are using a reverse-reading of an email simply noting that informants provided tips on Proud Boys/Oath Keepers plans. But the FBI never spurned anyone on. Real reports have always shown that only four to eight agents entered the Capitol with the rioters, all passively observing.
But Trump supporters, and Trump himself, are using the misreading of documents to further undermine the FBI as another "deep state" actor attempting to thwart Trump. Of course, Trump et al fail to explain why any anti-Trump agent would help attack the Capitol, thereby hindering Congress's certification of Joe Biden's win in the 2020 election.
The fact that this reading makes absolutely no sense is simply papered over.
On Saturday, Trump posted: “It was just revealed that the FBI had secretly placed, against all Rules, Regulations, Protocols, and Standards, 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during, the January 6th Hoax.
“This is different from what Director Christopher Wray stated, over and over again! I want to know who each and every one of these so-called ‘Agents’ are, and what they were up to on that now ‘Historic’ Day.
“Christopher Wray, the then Director of the FBI, has some major explaining to do. That’s two [FBI directors] in a row, [James] Comey and Wray.”
Clearly, Trump simply wants his supporters in a rage. The fury-fueled war drums beat to better buttress support for Trump's next step in his personal retribution tour — one that threatens the very foundation of democracy in the United States.
He is doing nothing less than criminalizing opposition, then and now.
After all, Trump already manipulated facts to demand that Comey be prosecuted. This move would have once been seen as automatic grounds for impeachment. Trump has normalized it such that the stage is set for more dictatorial criminal charges by a radicalized Department of Justice.
Rightwing influencers on X are already demanding that Wray and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (speaker of the House on January 6) be prosecuted.
One guesses that Trump's earlier characterization of January 6 as "peaceful" with "a lot of love in the air" is no longer useful and thus tossed aside as if he never uttered the words.
All of the above is set forth only to emphasize an overriding point. Trump and MAGA are using Soviet-level propaganda to take this country down a dark path, one in which nearly every prominent figure who publicly opposed any Trump narrative is labeled an enemy who must go down. Trump's post expressly states that the country "can never let this happen again." He is saying he wants prosecutions over it.
But what he more fully means is that anyone daring to aggressively oppose his personal ambitions will face the almost unlimited power of his personalized government. It all conjures Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Notice the call to prosecute Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who merely opposed Trump in his work in Congress.
Where we stand now is bad enough, but look to the future.
Democrats and independents place their faith in the 2026 and 2028 elections to reverse course and restore sanity. But given Trump's fact-free war against all opposition, faith in elections becomes terrifyingly tenuous. Is there any indication that Trump and his supporters will allow a mere vote to push them aside? Because that is what this is about, every bit as much as it is a personal vendetta.
Project 2025 was always about laying the foundation for permanent authoritarian one-party minority rule, not unlike Russia. The GOP now controls the entirety of the government. The old maxim that possession is nine-tenths of the law, married to a fact-free movement, and a vindictive president could shatter a lot of hope.
Many might now lose faith that democracy will retake its place in American government.
It is almost comically ironic that the left's best weapon against this foreboding future almost surely includes a partnership with the business elite. In such a desperate hour, Democrats might not so much Occupy Wall Street as hug those rascals. Big Corp. might rebel against such volatile rule, perhaps draining much of the financial support needed to throw the country beyond the point of no return.
There is also the chance that the Trump administration's unadulterated incompetence in governance may sour some MAGA mystique.
And "We the People" are powerful in many unexplored ways, making it absolutely critical to retain conviction and hope no matter how dark reality may be. After all, if history shows us anything, it is that things change. But anyone fully committed to a democratic America better do it with clear eyes.
Such needed vision includes understanding that the full power of the federal government is now utterly twisting January 6th's entire fact-based premise around to support the possible prosecution of people who simply opposed Trump- a blindingly bright light blinking red over the American horizon.
Opportunities to thwart this drive to a Saddam-type future are narrowing. Violence is never acceptable, it is immoral, it is counter-productive, it must be utterly rejected by all. But a near-battle-like conviction better take hold if democracy remains the goal.
We all watched January 6 play out on live television. Trump supporters cheered the attack on the Capitol, hoping it would stop Congress. The level of insanity and the danger it represents in reversing the story, all in order to prosecute more Trump enemies, had better be fully understood to counter this new outrage.
The people must wake, rise, and peacefully partner with all powerful opposition to turn this around. It can be done, but not without fully understanding the MAGA rationale for a breathtaking rewrite of January 6.
- Jason Miciak is a past Associate Editor of Occupy Democrats, American attorney, author, and can also be found on Politizoom. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com
