Misread

Print magazines are no less susceptible to a bit of bait-and-switch to lure in readers than online news sources. After all, sometimes, they're the same publication. The cover headline of the February issue of The Atlantic proclaims Donald Trump Wants You To Forget This Happened, under a photograph of January 6th, 2021. Mr. Thompson's actual story is titled: Is this what patriotism looks like? And it's the story of one of the January 6th rioters; one who assaulted police officers, but was pardoned by President Trump.

But let me stick with the cover headline for a bit, because while I think that it will resonate with a lot of people (after all, these things are not chosen casually), I also happen to think that it isn't true. There's a difference between seeking to erase a narrative, and seeking to change one. Historical revisionism is just that... revisionism, and that's closer to what I think that President Trump is after.

For a lot of people, mostly, but not exclusively, Democrats or Democratic-leaning, January 6th 2021 is a story of partisans being sore losers. Deluded, or cynically dishonest, about the nation's opinion of Donald Trump and his performance in his first term in office, they sought to use violence to overturn a free and fair election and act out their grievances against Congress.

Trumpists, unsuprisingly, profess (honestly or otherwise) to see things differently. For them, the President's nationwide popularity is an article of faith; the idea that enough people would vote for the Biden-Harris ticket that Donald Trump would lose the popular vote, let alone the Electoral College, was unthinkable. Malfeasance was the only possible explanation. And so the events of January 6th weren't a crime; they were a principled, even heroic, stand against the forces of corruption and the people who enabled it.

And that's what Donald Trump wants the historical record to reflect. An angelic light on the people who support him. Yes, there are things that the President would prefer to have removed from the annals of history. The Trail of Tears, for instance, is not something that can be readily spun into a narrative of American moral superiority. But revolutions, even failed ones, can be turned into tales of national (and perhaps ethnic) greatness. And so that's the way that Donald Trump, his acolytes and supporters would prefer it to be remembered.

I offer no opinion on whether they will succeed, and, if they do, on what timeline. But that it is the goal, I'm reasonably certain of.