Republicans try to whitewash Jan 6 legacy as snow-covered D.C. airs grievances

The snowstorm that descended on Washington, D.C., and other parts of the mid-Atlantic region on Monday marked a surreal fourth anniversary to the January 6 attack of 2021.

And with Donald Trump now set to return to the White House in exactly two weeks, the day has taken on a kind of Festivus-esque vibe as liberals and even some members of the press participate in an unofficial Airing of Grievances.

If the Seinfeld-glorified holiday’s motto is “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re going to hear about it,” January 6’s felt similarly accusatory: “Hey Republicans: guess who’s not storming the Capitol today?”

The return of Trump to the presidency means an end to the two prosecutions of the 45th president pursued by the Justice Department. Fulton County’s case against him looks to be in tatters thanks to what can only be described as the intimate escapades of District Attorney Fani Willis.

In short, save for a potential sentencing in his New York criminal fraud trial, Donald Trump has wriggled his way free from every remaining major legal consequence stemming from his last four years in office and his years in business. The liberal dream of seeing America’s justice system deliver a knockout blow is dead. Worse than dead, actually: Trump may well pardon some or all of the defendants charged with crimes for the violent assault on the seat of U.S. democracy.

That sense was palpable across social media on Monday as a frozen nation’s capital came to terms with reality.

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January 6 left a kind of permanent shock on the minds of many in Washington who’d never expected such widespread unrest to play out not just in the Capitol but across pockets of the whole city that day. That shock and the residual anger stemming from the twin failures (in many minds) of the justice system and the Democratic Party to stand up to Trump in an effective manner this year led many to focus their outrage on the anniversary of the attack.

Lawmakers met on Monday afternoon to certify the presidential election results for the first time since that attack. For the third year in a row, black metal security fencing surrounded the Capitol complex, and for the third time there wasn’t even a hint of protests.

Republicans were hard at work, once again, rewriting history in preparation for the return of Trump to the capital.

Mike Collins won the title of the GOP’s chief anti-historian for the day with his newest kindly descriptor for the rioters who injured dozens of officers on January 6.

“On #ThisDayInHistory in 2021, thousands of peaceful grandmothers gathered in Washington, D.C., to take a self-guided, albeit unauthorized, tour of the U.S. Capitol building,” he wrote.

“The election certification today is vastly different than 2020 — no COVID lockdowns, high GOP engagement on election integrity, and a historic win by President Trump,” added Marjorie Taylor Greene.

With their party now consigned to the minority in both chambers and denied four more years of White House control, Democrats meanwhile resigned themselves to a series of statements essentially congratulating themselves for not attempting a coup.

There was Jim Clyburn, a key ally to President Joe Biden, speaking with the latter’s former press secretary Jen Psaki on MSNBC: “It is a very unnerving moment. I do not believe we will have a repeat of [Jan 6].”

“We will have a Vice President who believes in the peaceful transition of the office. She will preside over her own defeat. I saw Al Gore do that some years ago,” he continued. “This is what makes America great. I hope the American people will take time out to watch this tomorrow and, hopefully, have their faith in this great country renewed."

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The digs from his colleagues were sharper.

Eric Swalwell, who frequently jousts with Republicans, commenting on the weather: “Man, January 6 would have been a different day if it looked like today. No way Trump’s goons fight the cops if it’s freezing and snowing.”

Adam Smith, on Fox News, needling the show’s anchor: “I do find it interesting that Fox News is only concerned about Democratic election deniers. It seems like the Republicans took that whole thing a little bit more seriously in terms of storming the Capitol.”

A slew of reporters tweeted clips of the worst violence from the attack, and cable news saw the return of a familiar cast of Jan 6 “heroes,” former Capitol Police officers Harry Dunn, Aquilino Gonell and Daniel Hodges, who all found their way back in front of the cameras this week.

And there was even the vice president (and Trump’s failed opponent) herself. Kamala Harris on Monday released a video message previewing what could well be her last big act on the political stage: a grim, nonpartisan certification of her own defeat.

“As we have seen, our democracy is fragile,” says Harris in the video. “And it is up to then each one of us to stand up for our most cherished principles.”

Washington’s liberals are making it clear: they’re not entirely ready to move on. The onset of the Trump presidency just may not give them a choice.