January 6 and the Triumph of the Justification Machine

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

52% : Tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which had generally allowed Trump to post whatever he wanted throughout his presidency, temporarily suspended his accounts from their service.
43% : The famous footage of a Capitol Police officer heroically leading the mob away from the door to the Senate was "proof" in MAGA world that Trump supporters were being coaxed into the Capitol by the cops.
41% : During this past election season, for example, anti-Trump influencers and liberal-leaning cable news stations frequently highlighted the stream of Trump supporters leaving his rallies early -- implying that support for Trump was waning.
39% : News cycles are shorter, and the biggest stories in the world -- such as the near assassination of Trump last summer in Pennsylvania -- burn bright in the public consciousness and then disappear.
39% : When the Democratic Party chose to make the 2024 election about Trump, his threat to the rule of law, and the "battle for the soul of this nation," as President Biden once put it, it was under the assumption that the indelible images of January 6 would be able to maintain their resonance nearly four years later.
38% : Trump and the MAGA media complex used the insurrection to portray Democrats as a party of scolds, obsessed with the past, droning on about democracy.
37% : Trump, now president-elect, is pushing for an FBI probe of former Representative Liz Cheney for her involvement in the commission.
34% : This wasn't true, but such videos helped Democratic audiences stay cocooned in a world where Trump was unpopular and destined to lose.
33% : On TV, a Fox News host argued that Trump supporters don't wear dark helmets, or use black backpacks, so the mob couldn't be Trumpist.
31% : With the justification machine whirring, the riot became just more proof of the radical left's shocking violence or the deep state's never-ending crusade against Trump.
31% : Only hysterical Democrats, obsessed with taking down Trump, could not move on.Democrats -- and the two Republicans on the committee -- were right to seek accountability for January 6, but it proved exceedingly difficult to do so in an information environment that is constantly stuck in the now and the new.
29% : Last week, in the hours after a mass murderer ran a car into civilians on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Trump began tossing out lies and speculation about the suspect, suggesting that he was a migrant (information later arrived indicating that the driver was a U.S. citizen and Army veteran).
20% : It is also hard to remember that -- for at least a moment -- it seemed that reason might prevail, that those in power would reach a consensus against Donald Trump, whose baseless claims of voter fraud incited the attack.

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