Recalling Jan. 6: A national day of infamy, half remembered

Capitol_Riot_Remembering_80674 FILE - People listen as President Donald Trump speaks during a rally Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_87389 FILE - Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Vice President Mike Pence officiate as a joint session of the House and Senate convenes to confirm the Electoral College votes cast in November's election, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_18512 FILE - President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_69757 FILE - With the Washington Monument in the background, people attend a rally in support of President Donald Trump near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_63394 FILE - A man dressed as George Washington kneels and prays near the Washington Monument with a Donald Trump flag on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_81443 Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., top center, arrive along with other senators for a joint session of the House and Senate convenes to confirm the electoral votes cast in November's election, at the Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_51967 FILE - Supporters of President Donald Trump riot outside the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_15288 FILE - Police keep a watch on rioters Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_39642 FILE - Supporters of President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_86712 FILE - Supporters of President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_57455 FILE - Supporters of President Donald Trump gesture to U.S. Capitol Police in the hallway outside of the Senate chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_31359 FILE - U.S. Capitol Police try to hold back rioters outside the east doors to the House side of the U.S. Capitol, Jan 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_09251 FILE - People shelter in the House gallery as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_25157 FILE - U.S. Capitol Police with guns drawn watch as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_39934 FILE - U.S. Capitol Police with guns drawn stand near a barricaded door as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_29856 FILE - U.S. Capitol Police hold rioters at gun-point near the House Chamber inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_51926 FILE - Supporters of President Donald Trump are seen outside the Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_83143 FILE - Supporters of President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_13924 FILE - The House chamber is empty after a hasty evacuation as rioters tried to break into the chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_43646 FILE - Violent protesters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_65320 FILE - Rioters break television equipment outside the the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_92025 FILE - A flag left by supporters of President Donald Trump outside the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
Capitol_Riot_Remembering_06589 FILE - District of Columbia National Guard stand outside the Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, after a day of rioting protesters. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
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NEW YORK (AP) — Beneath a pale winter light and the glare of television cameras, it seemed hard not to see the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot for what it was. The violent storming of the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters bent on upending the election of Joe Biden was as clear as day: democracy under siege, live-streamed in real time.

Yet a year later, when it comes to a where-were-you moment in U.S. history, there is far from national consensus.

A Quinnipiac poll found that 93% of Democrats considered it an attack on the government, but only 29% of Republicans agreed. A poll by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 4 in 10 Republicans recall the attack — in which five people died — as violent, while 9 in 10 Democrats do.

Such a disparity in memory may be inevitable in our hyper-polarized politics, but it’s striking given the stark clarity of Jan. 6 at the time and in its immediate aftermath. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said then that “the president bears responsibility” for the attacks. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., then the majority leader, said: “They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed.”

But since that day, separate versions — one factual, one fanciful — have taken hold. The Capitol riot — the violent culmination of a bid to delegitimize the 2020 election and block its certification — has morphed into a partisan “Rashomon,” the classic Japanese film about a slaying told from varying and conflicting points of view. Indeed, the act of remembering can be a highly mercurial thing — particularly when deep-seated political views are involved.

“We keep using terms like post-factual, but it almost feels like there’s this national psychosis or amnesia about what happened a year ago,” says Charles Sykes, the former conservative Wisconsin radio host and founder of the website The Bulwark. “It’s not just that we’re two nations. It’s as if we live on two different reality planets when it comes to the memory of Jan. 6.”

Nations remember the way people do: imperfectly. Neuroscientist Lisa Genova, author of “Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting,” describes how even the most searing memories are edited each time they’re revisited. An original memory is replaced with a 2.0 version, a 3.0 version and beyond.

“Outside influences can sneak in every time we revisit and recall a memory for what happened. So for these collective memories, we have a lot of chances to revisit them,” says Genova. “Depending on your political point of view, the news channels you watch, what this meant to you, this memory is going to have a different slant based on the story that you tell yourself.”

And a lot of people have been working hard to chip away at the memory of Jan. 6. Rep. Andrew S. Clyde, R-Ga., has described the siege as like “a normal tourist visit.” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has claimed the rioters were leftist militants “masquerading as Trump supporters.” Trump has continued to insist that the election — Biden won by a wide margin, with scant evidence of fraud — was the real insurrection.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has attempted to frame the Capitol attack as a “false flag” operation, orchestrated by the FBI. Carlson created a series on the riot that aired on Fox News’ subscription streaming service.

To counter such misrepresentations, other documentary projects have tried to capture Jan. 6 in rigorous, methodical detail. Jamie Roberts’ HBO documentary “Four Hours at the Capitol” was motivated in part to firmly establish a visual chronology of that day, with the rampage following Trump’s incitement to his followers to “fight like hell.”

Roberts interviewed witnesses and participants. Some of those in the mob praised his film only to later complain after seeing Carlson’s series.

“I had people who were in the film texting me saying: ‘Why the hell didn’t you put that in your film? You’re liars,’” Roberts says. “What I was hoping with the project was to put some very hard and fast facts together with people who can tell the story from a witness perspective. But for some people, it’s still not going to reach them.”

Alexander Keyssar, a professor of history and social policy at Harvard and author of “Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?”, believes a full-fledged investigative commission, like the one that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, might have fostered more national consensus on Jan. 6. In May, Senate Republicans used their filibuster power to block the creation of such a commission. (A House committee is to soon make public some of the findings from its six-month investigation.)

Instead, many Trump supporters have adopted the former president’s denial over the 2020 election. In the last year, Republicans have passed dozens of laws in 19 states to restrict voting. More election battles loom in the 2022 midterms and beyond.

“It’s obviously dangerous because it becomes precedent,” Keyssar says of the Capitol riot. “It has become a prism through which events are viewed. The prism for a large segment of Republican adherents is that you can’t trust the outcome of elections. If you can’t trust the outcome of elections, that will be true in the future as well. It becomes, as the great historian Bernard Bailyn once said, ‘a grammar of thought.’”

Instead of receding into the past as an anomalous threat to the heart of American democracy, the history of the Capitol riot is yet to be fully written. Some projects are ongoing. To tell the story of Jan. 6, the Capitol Historical Society is creating an oral history. Some of the stories — like those of staffers who have since quit government and returned home — are particularly haunting for the society’s president, Jane L. Campbell.

Meanwhile, the Capitol remains closed to the public. Where tours once regularly paraded, now only those with an appointment may enter.

“When people say ‘Oh, it’s never been this bad,’ well, we did have a civil war. That was bad. That was truly bad,” Campbell says. “But during the Civil War, Lincoln made a decision to finish the dome of the Capitol. We tell that story a hundred times over.”

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

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