On the anniversary of January 6, Biden declares: “We cannot allow the truth to be lost”

In the days leading up to the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, President Joe Biden made little effort to hide the fact that the insurrectionary riot was on his mind. In fact, last week, the outgoing incumbent awarded Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the leaders of the now-defunct bipartisan Jan. 6 caucus, with the Presidential Citizen Medal.

A few days later, during an exchange with reporters at the White House, Biden saidin reference to the January 6 assault, “I think it should not be rewritten. “I don’t think it should be forgotten.”

On the anniversary of Trump-inspired violence, the Democratic president went further, writing an op-ed for The Washington Post.

A relentless effort has been made to rewrite (even erase) the history of that day. To tell us that we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes. Dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it as a protest that got out of control. This is not what happened. In time, there will be Americans who did not witness the January 6 riots firsthand, but will learn about them through the images and testimonies of that day, from what is written in history books and from the truth that we pass on to our children. We cannot allow the truth to be lost.

Part of what makes this so notable is the degree to which it captures the situation in relation to public discourse. Four years after the violence, we could certainly have another conversation about Donald Trump waiting for hours while a mob of his supporters attacked his own country’s Capitol, as part of an attempt to reclaim illegitimate power after an electoral defeat. We could take another look at what the rioters did, their intentions, their motivations, their weapons, their enablers, their willingness to violently clash with law enforcement, and even their terrifying proximity to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

But on the fourth anniversary of one of the most significant examples of domestic political violence in our nation’s history, perhaps no element of the conversation is more important than the ongoing crusade to subdue American memory.

On January 6, 2021, Trump and his allies engaged in a war on democracy. On January 6, 2025, the conflict evolved to include a war against the recent past.

Four years ago, Trump was a defeated failure whose pathetic political career was in ruins, and there was broad agreement among officials in both parties that he deserved to be held accountable for his role in inciting the attack. The riot was so indefensible that the initial line of some Republicans was that the violence should be attributed to far-left Antifa radicals who, the absurd theory posited, were only pretending to be Trump supporters.

Variations on these ridiculous conspiracy theories remain popular in conservative circles, with related nonsense about the FBI being secretly responsible for encouraging rioters to commit crimes.

Paradoxically, while too many Republicans have implicitly admitted that the attack was heinous (while trying to shift the blame to those who actually bear responsibility, of course), others in the party have decided to recast the villains as heroes and victims. The New York Times published a surprising report about the “inverted interpretation” of the Republican Party, which “challenged what the country had seen unfold.”

That day was an American calamity. Lawmakers huddled together for safety. Vice President Mike Pence dodged a mob chanting that he should be hanged. Several people died during and after the riot, including one protester from a gunshot wound and four police officers who committed suicide, and more than 140 officers were injured in a prolonged hand-to-hand combat that nearly upended what should have been the routine certification of Trump’s election victory. His opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr. But with his return to office, Trump now has the platform to further whitewash and turn the attack on the Capitol into what he has called “a day of love.” He has promised to pardon the rioters in the first hour of his new administration, as his supporters in Congress push for criminal charges against those who investigated his actions that chaotic day.

Given my recent book Regarding Republican efforts to rewrite recent history, this is a topic of particular interest to me, and my January 6 chapter is arguably the most important in the text. In fact, part of what makes the right’s tactic so extraordinary is the obvious fact that rewriting history seemed impossible at the time.

The video and indelible images were simply too powerful to ignore or forget. The rioters on the Senate floor. Guns pointed at the entrance to the House chamber. The rope displayed on a gallows. The chants of “hang Mike Pence.” Plastic handcuffs with zipper closure. Elected officials run to safety. The Confederate flag that never made it to the Capitol during the Civil War, but was carried through the halls of Congress in January 2021. A rioter smiling with apparent pride as he placed his foot on the Speaker’s House desk. The insurrectionists broke into the building, climbed its walls and violently clashed with law enforcement, all while Trump flags waved around them.

The chilling images were seen by too many people, nationally and around the world, for reality to give way. The details surrounding the attack – from its perpetrators to its instigators, from its purpose to its effects, from its organizers to its victims – were all too well documented by researchers, policymakers, journalists and prosecutors.

The idea of a political party even trying Rewriting the history of the assault seemed absurd. It wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen.

That is, until Republicans decided it had to happen.