The Deep State Did It
Five years later, the "truth" behind Jan. 6 is revealed at last
It’s been an exhausting year for those of us who follow US politics on a day-to-day basis. The sheer volume of lies that came out of the White House in 2025 is without precedent. Yes, previous administrations spun tales, obfuscated, or deflected from difficult questions, but never before has there been an administration so averse to objective reality, so contemptuous of basic truth. From delusional scientific claims (Tylenol causes autism) to boldfaced lies (photoshopping tattoos on deported migrants), this administration has proved time and time again that it is not tethered to reality and has no respect for truth. It’s gotten so bad that many, myself included, default to assuming the opposite of whatever the government announces until proven otherwise. For example, the military and Hegseth’s Department of “War” has not offered any proof that the people we’re killing in the Caribbean are drug smugglers (and even if they are, we have no right to simply execute them); until proven otherwise, I can only assume they are simply poor fishermen.
But the most dangerous lie, the one that serves as a litmus test for where we as a nation, as a society, have let the Republicans dictate reality and rewrite history, is the so-called “Big Lie”—which purports that Trump actually won the 2020 election but had it stolen from him by the Democrats. It’s difficult to remember, but there was a time when even many mainstream Republican politicians and elected officials shied away from endorsing such a blatantly false narrative. In the wake of January 6, there seemed to be a moment, however brief, of consensus among policymakers, social media platforms, and major news outlets about just how dangerous this lie was:
As someone who had been following the QAnon movement for years at the time, watching the assault on the Capitol play out on live TV felt both horrifying and vindicating. Finally, the danger of the conspiracy right—which had grown to unprecedented levels under Trump and during the pandemic—was plain for all to see. It was obvious in the Confederate flags and “Camp Auschwitz” shirts, the chants to “hang Mike Pence,” and the smashing of windows and beating of Capitol Police. Here, the consequences of a right-wing demagogue supported by a media echo chamber of disinformation and hate speech were beyond denial for all but the most fringe. Or so I thought.
As I’ve written before, there is genuine blame to be placed at the feet of the Democrats for squandering such a rare moment of national clarity. It’s very likely that an immediate impeachment attempt would have succeeded. We’ll never know, because Nancy Pelosi waited a week to draft articles of impeachment, allowing House and Senate Republicans enough time to remember they had no morals. Soon enough, denial and revisionism were back in full force, settling on the bizarre dual narrative the right has maintained in the five years since: that the riot was simultaneously a peaceful expression of righteous protest by courageous patriots and a Democrat psy-op orchestrated via Antifa agitators.
That Trump, who never admitted his defeat in 2020, was able to secure reelection in 2024 was a keen reminder of how little this lie mattered for American politics. Beyond the myriad failures of Biden’s Justice Department, this put to rest any Republican reservation that this lie could be politically harmful. What has followed was only natural. On his first day of his second term, Trump blanket-pardoned all January 6 rioters who had been charged for the assault, even those who beat police officers. Several have since been rearrested for a variety of crimes relating to gun and drug possession, assault, and sexually abusing children. Others have gone on to capitalize on their near-mythical status in the MAGA movement, appearing on talk shows and podcasts and demanding the “true perpatrators” be “held accountable”.
Over the past year, Trump has continued to assert that he actually won in 2020. In December, he decorated the White House walkway with a series of plaques for each US president, accompanied by biased and revisionist descriptions for each. Joe Biden’s, which features a picture of an autopen instead of any portrait, reads "that he took office “as a result of the most corrupt election ever seen in the United States”.
The Pièce de Résistance
One of the more understated outrages of the second Trump administration has been the weaponization of official government communication platforms for conspiracism, memes, and outright hate speech. The posts made by security departments like the FBI, Homeland Security, or the DOD on X or Instagram are now key vectors for disinformation, fighting randoms in their comments sections and sharing images that range from light trolling to the deliberately sinister. The whitehouse.gov domain has been no exception. Yesterday, on the five-year anniversary of January 6, the White House uploaded “January 6: A Day That Will Live in Infamy,” a press release detailing what “really happened” on that fateful day. The piece features a timeline of events as they played out, and is full of inaccuracies—or rather, lies:
To go through every lie in the document take more words than I care to spare, but here are a few highlights:
That the march to the capitol was “orderly and spirited”
That Trump was consistently advocating for peaceful demonstration and that the Democrats refused his offer for more security
That Ashli Babbitt was murdered in “cold blood” and “without warning”
That “zero law enforcement officers lost their lives.” (One officer died of his injuries later and four more committed suicide in the following months)
That Mike Pence had any power to reverse the certification of the election
The pièce de résistance, in my opinion, is the final graphic on the timeline, which reads that “despite relentless Deep State efforts to imprison, bankrupt, or assassinate him…President Trump emerges triumphant.” There’s something so depressing about seeing the phrase “Deep State” in an official government communication. More concerning is the linkage between the efforts to prosecute Trump for his role in January 6 and the two assassination attempts on his life in 2024, each carried out by lone, disturbed individuals. This document asserts that Trump’s political opponents (including the “RINOs” Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger) are not just politically compromised, but part of a larger, concerted effort by a nebulous cabal to destroy him. To me, seeing such QAnon-level language on the White House website speaks to the triumph of conspiracism over American politics.
The Normalisation of Lies
"Propaganda doesn't isolate you from reality. It overloads you with versions of reality until you stop trusting any of them." Source
By uploading such ridiculous revisionism to the official White House website, the right has inaugurated their false, alternative reality of that day into national canon. Through years of denial and revisionism (thanks in no part to a flourishing conspiracy media ecosystem) MAGA has successfully laundered its version of events as an acceptable and reasonable position. They have done this on other issues as well (immigration and crime, namely) and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. Only this time, instead of “merely” relying on a media ecosystem of conspiracy podcasts, FOX news hosts, and social media algorithms, they also have access to all the power and reach of the United States government. It’s one thing to abuse the ridiculous yet legal pardoning power of the presidency. It’s another thing entirely to use a government website to spread such blatantly false propaganda. In their war against the Democrats, immigrants, and the truth, every tool the government possesses is an asset to be seized and weaponized.
That's why I don't see this White House document as just another series of lies and disinformation. I see it as a declaration that lies no longer matter, that power alone determines truth, and that the government will use every lever at its disposal to shape reality in its image. The shamelessness is the point. The boldness of the falsehoods is the point. This administration lies brazenly on countless topics, but January 6 was the the original sin, the litmus test of just how blatant a lie we as a nation are willing to stomach. We are watching, in real time, the transformation of the American state into an instrument of pure propaganda. From the outside it may look ridiculous, clumsy, even farcical. But look at the complete absence of accountability for January 6, look at the pardons and the rehabilitation of insurrectionists, and tell me, goddamn it, that it isn't working.