July 29, 2021

By Bill Berkowitz

Millions saw the televised right-wing assault on the Capitol building on January 6. Now, apologists for the terrorist attack are facing a huge burden: How to paper over these violent actions by former President Donald Trump’s supporters, white evangelical Christians, QAnon followers, and white nationalist groups? The solution: Create multiple and competing narratives, the zanier the better. Insist that the riot was blown out of proportion by the left-leaning mainstream media. Criticize, and vote down, the formation of an independent bi-partisan investigative commission. Keep banging away on the It-Was-Antifa-And-Other-Leftists-Disguised-As-Trumpers who initiated the violence. Claim the demonstrators came with love in their hearts. Blame the assault on Nancy Pelosi. Mock the Capitol police officers; more than 140 of whom were assaulted. Accuse Democrats of milking the January 6 Capitol riot for political purposes.

And, when all else fails, claim victimhood. That’s the narrative brewing among Christian nationalists; jailed demonstrators are being treated unfairly.

In response to searing testimony from officers on the opening day of The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the US Capitol, MAGA heads and several Fox News Channel hosts threw it all against the wall. With smirks and smarmy smiles, Tucker Carlson cast doubt on the officers’ testimony. On her program, Laura Ingraham called it “performance art.” Several conservative Congressional representatives held a news conference outside the U.S. Department of Justice, and blamed the violence on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

While most mainstream Christian groups condemned the attack, some Christian nationalists are busy weaving quilts of lies and disinformation. OneNewsNow, a right-wing website run by the longtime Christian right group, the American Family Association, recently “ran a sympathetic story about the Capitol insurrectionists, asserting that they’ve been mistreated while locked up,” Americans United’s Church  & State’s Rob Boston reported. As Boston reported, the American Family Association has an annual budget of more than $20 million, and owns a bunch of radio stations.

“The assault by a pro-Trump crowd should have posed something of a dilemma for Christian nationalists, who often pose as ‘law and order’ conservatives, given that police officers were assaulted by an out-of-control mob,” Boston stated. “But the same Christian nationalists who had assailed Black Lives Matter over anti-police-brutality protests just months earlier couldn’t bring themselves to condemn the violence at the Capitol. They either peddled conspiracy theories, remained silent or implied that the attack was somehow payback for violence that had erupted in some cities the previous summer. For them, “law and order” conservatism apparently includes attacking police protecting people or institutions they don’t like.”

According to Boston, the OneNewsNow report “bemoaned the fact that some of the men and women who participated in the attack on the Capitol are still behind bars as they await trial.” OneNewsNow claimed that the insurrectionists “are languishing in solitary confinement in the nation’s capital.”

In the July-August issue of AU’s Church & State magazine, Boston writes that “the insurrectionists still behind bars in D.C. are far from political prisoners, and they’re not being punished for speech. They are locked up because they’re accused of committing serious crimes during the attack” ().

According to Insider.com’s searchable database, as of July 27th, 591 people have been charged in the Capitol insurrection. “Most of the rioters have been charged only with misdemeanors, and many of them are out on bail,” Rob Boston reported. “But roughly 200 of them are facing more serious charges, and in some cases are eligible for a maximum 20 years in prison if convicted. Many of the latter remain behind bars in correctional facilities in Washington, D.C.”

Defense of the Capitol rioters provides new opportunities for right-wing opportunists

Conservative organizing icon Richard Viguerie, known as the Godfather of Right-Wing Direct Mail, and long out of the headlines, has reemerged. Viguerie worked to publicize mid-July demonstrations – that ultimately had few attendees -- organized by Look Ahead America (https://lookaheadamerica.org), on behalf of the insurrectionists in jail awaiting trial.

“Viguerie, whose own D.C. activism dates back to the 1970s,” OneNewsNow reported, “says many of the prisoners are charged with minor offenses but are being held without bail. Others have not even been charged with a crime, he says, but prosecutors are hoping to wear them down. That sickening tactic, he says, makes it political imprisonment akin to Gestapo tactics or the KGB. “It’s just outrageous,” he says, “and I'm shocked that the Democrats are doing this."

Matt Braynard, Executive Director of Look Ahead America, also supported these demonstrations in support of the Capitol rioters: “I am so proud of all of the brave patriots who participated in these rallies under the same threat to their rights of so many who are being held in prison now for a non-violent expression of their First Amendment rights. It required great courage to participate in these rallies. And as so many are still being persecuted by the FBI, denied bail by a corrupt judiciary fed lies by our Department of Justice, and while the death of Ashli Babbitt remains uninvestigated, we have much to do.”

Braynard, the former Director of Data and Strategy for the Trump campaign, is using the insurrection to build the future, claiming that the mission of Look Ahead America is “to register, educate, and enfranchise these [millions of rural and blue-collar patriotic Americans] disaffected citizens and ensure that their voices are not just heard but heeded and that the American Dream becomes their dream again.”

As Rob Boston noted in his July-August article, for Capitol assault apologists, “it has been one lie after another.” As with Trump’s Big Lie, these narratives will certainly take hold with a number of Republicans and conspiracy theorists.

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