SUDDENLY JANUARY 6 RIOTERS ARE "POLITICAL PRISONERS"

"It’s a turnaround world where things are all too quickly turned around

It was turned around so that right looked wrong

It was turned around so that up looked down

It was turned around so that those who marched in the streets with bibles and signs of peace became enemies of the state and risk to national security

So that those who questioned the operations of those in authority on the principles of justice, liberty, and equality became the vanguard of a communist attack

It became so you couldn’t call a spade a motherfucking spade..."

A Poem For Jose Campos Torres...Gil Scott-Heron

The New York Times

In the months since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, videos and investigations have underscored how violent it was.

The attack broke windows and damaged offices in the Capitol building. Lawmakers and their staffs, fearing for their lives, tried to hide. The rioters beat and maced police officers, with prosecutors counting about 1,000 physical assaults. About 150 officers suffered injuries, and many are still coping with psychological trauma.

“I felt like I was fighting for my life,” one Capitol Police officer told The Times. “I can tell you, legitimately, I did not think I was going to make it home.”

Yet even as the details of the attack have become clearer, the condemnation of it has become less widespread. Instead, a growing number of Republicans and their media allies have downplayed the riot. Some have begun to treat it as a heroic act.

Tomorrow, the valorization of Jan. 6 will come to Capitol Hill, when supporters of Donald Trump plan to hold a rally, called "Justice for J6" to protest what they call the unfair treatment of people arrested in connection with the attack. The rally is likely to be large enough that the police have reinstalled fencing around the Capitol to protect it, and officials have warned lawmakers and their aides to avoid the area on Saturday.

Trump has played a central role in changing the Republican narrative about that day. He has falsely claimed that the rioters presented “zero threat” and were “hugging and kissing the police and the guards.” He released a statement yesterday saying, “Our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted so unfairly relating to the January 6th protest concerning the Rigged Presidential Election.”

As New York magazine’s Johnathan Chait has written, Trump “has slowly turned January 6 from a black mark that threatened to expunge him from Republican politics, to a regrettable episode that his allies preferred to leave behind, to a glorious uprising behind which he could rally his adherents.”

Many congressional Republicans have tried to distance themselves from tomorrow’s rally without condemning it.

One of the strongest condemnations — but still an indirect one — has come from former President George W. Bush. In a speech this past weekend, he seemed to compare the Jan. 6 rioters to the Sept. 11 terrorists. “There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home,” Bush said. “But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.”

The main message from elected Republicans and high-profile conservative commentators is very different, and it seems to be influencing voters. During the week after the attack, 80 percent of Republicans said they opposed it, according to a Washington Post poll. By the summer, many attitudes had changed. More than half of Trump voters described the events of Jan. 6 as “patriotism” and “defending freedom,” according to a CBS News/YouGov poll in July.

And a CNN poll this month found that 78 percent of Republicans believed that the election was stolen from Trump – which was the original false rationale for the Jan. 6 rally that turned into the attack.