January 6, 2021: It's Not Over

House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack

Remembering ‘J6’

January 6, 2021 was a milestone of a long, deliberate, well-funded campaign to destroy American democracy from the inside. Capitol Police officers were beaten, crushed, tased, hunted, and died. Trauma was endured by those who stood the line for democracy. But if we pretend January 6 began and ended on January 6, 2021, we are lying to ourselves—and guaranteeing it will happen again.

Capitol Police officers are the line between a violent insurrectionist mob and Congress on January 6, 2021.

The First Plan of Attack: August 23, 1971

The insurrection did not begin with a mob. It began with a memo.

On August 23, 1971, corporate lawyer Lewis Powell—who was soon to be elevated to the Supreme Court—wrote what is now known as the Powell Memorandum.

Confidential Memorandum

Powell warned corporate America that democracy itself was a threat to free enterprise—and that business leaders could organize, fund, and control every lever of power: courts, media, academia, think tanks, and public opinion. The memo was a roadmap for billionaire rule. A democracy requires an informed, educated, and engaged public. And all three pillars have been assailed since the Lewis Powell “Confidential Memorandum”.

The Attack on Education: Ronald Reagan

The Reagan Administration: Concentrate wealth to the top, destroy the guardrails of democracy.

Under the Reagan Administration, “big” government was rebranded as the enemy. Unions were crushed. Societal protections (regulations) were demonized. Public institutions were deliberately starved and discredited. “I’m with the government and I’m here to help” was a punchline in an unfunny Reagan joke.

Most importantly, education—the bedrock of a functioning democracy, was transformed from a public good to a private luxury for those who could afford it.

Higher education tuition skyrocketed. The costs were shifted to students and families, leading to the creation of the student loan industry.

An uneducated and underinformed electorate is a breeding ground for authoritarian corruption and tyranny.

In their book, Manufacturing Consent, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky provide a warning: when media power is consolidated, democracy becomes a managed illusion.

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox “News” and important weapon in the destruction of democracy.

Outlets like Fox “News” don’t merely polarize—they package and sell outrage, converting fear, grievance, and identity into profit while insulating wealth and power from scrutiny. At the same time, billionaire buyouts of legacy newspapers—most notably Jeff Bezos’s acquisition of The Washington Post, and Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong’s purchase of the Los Angeles Times—normalize the idea that a free press can coexist with extreme concentrations of private power, even as coverage obscures how destructive wealth concentration is to aspirations of democracy, justice, and equality. The result is a polarized society, arguing over narratives carefully curated billionaires and their political shills, while the underlying structures driving inequality, corruption, and democratic decay remain in darkness as intended. This is manufacturing consent in its most refined form: not silencing dissent, but drowning it in propaganda driving hate, blame, and fear narratives that make the status quo feel inevitable.

Insatiable Billionaire Greed and Media Control.

Media was replaced by propaganda wrapped in an entertainment package. The reporting of news gave way to spectacle, facts to grievance, and accountability to permanent outrage. Fox “News” was not built to inform the public; it was engineered to create a new “reality”, to tell audiences not just what to believe but who to blame and hate. Rush Limbaugh didn’t debate ideas—he replaced respectful deliberative debate by conditioning millions to equate cruelty with strength and contempt with patriotism. Major social platforms owned by Zuckerberg, acquired by Musk, or now controlled by the Ellison family constrain the distribution of meaningful information through proprietary algorithms on Meta/Facebook, the former Twitter, and now the popular TikTok platform.

Strategy center for the destruction of democracy, Constitutional guardrails, and public institutions.

Right-wing “think tanks” abandoned inquiry altogether, glossy reports with conclusions already provided by their wealthy donors: unchecked executive power, tax policies supporting massive tax loopholes, tax shelters, and permanent upward redistribution of wealth, deregulation without consequence, and judicial capture masquerading as constitutional originalism. This was never an argument over values or facts. It was propaganda—professionally engineered, beautifully marketed, relentlessly repeated, algorithmically amplified, and outrage-monetized at industrial scale. And it worked.

A “Koch” and a smile: Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch provided funding and founded several major right wing “Think Tanks” attacking climate action and more.

Attack Engagement: Voter Suppression and Representation

By the 2000s, the multi-faceted attack on the Republic, which is a representative form of democracy—no longer bothered pretending to compete on ideas. When winning voters on the basis of a popular platform became inconvenient, the billionaire-driven GOP strategy shifted to reshaping the electorate itself. Voter persuasion gave way to voter suppression, representation was diminished by gerrymandered maps, and policy was replaced with a constant haze of disinformation engineered to polarize voters or to cause them to self-disenfranchise. Democracy was no longer a competition of policy ideas based on strengthening the United States and improving the quality of life for all; it was procedurally sabotaged—hollowed out through “legal” maneuvers designed to predetermine outcomes before a single ballot was cast.

It is easy to draw a line from the corrupt Roberts Court to immunity for an array of crimes committed by Trump

What couldn’t be neutralized at the ballot box was overwhelmed by money. The horrific Citizens United destroyed the last meaningful guardrails, equating money to free speech and corporations as people—turning elections into auctions and legislation into a return-on-investment free for not all, but a tiny few.

Guessing the thought of justice, equality, and democracy is a punchline in a joke to “Clearance” Thomas and his insurrection funding lobbyist wife.

Into this toxic mix the Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 dispenses with important democratic norms altogether.

This picture is a model of the diversity embraced by Heritage and Project 2025.

Project 2025 is a blueprint to destroy democracy altogether. It represents a 900+ page blueprint to seize the administrative state, purge experienced and dedicated civil servants, centralize executive power, and perpetuate white billionaire minority rule regardless of electoral outcomes. Loyalty replaces competence. The state is converted from a public trust into a political weapon.

Pam “Bribe Me” Bondi has subverted the Department of Justice. Instead of enforcing protections embodied in the Constitution, Bondi pursues Trump’s revenge wish list.

The three-prong siege of education, information, and engagement represents a long, disciplined campaign to convert democratic governance into managed consent—where courts are captured, independent agencies are hollowed out, media is weaponized, and elections are tolerated only if they deliver the “correct” result, and “stolen” when they do not. Democracy hasn’t lost in a single moment; it was carefully eroded, privatized, and sold to the highest bidders and most ruthless planners.

“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” -Peter Thiel

Remembering J6 -as a Culmination of Attacks

January 6, 2021 did not fall out of the sky—it arrived on ground carefully prepared for collapse. “Stand back and stand by” said Donald J. Trump, America’s criminal elect.

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith testified before the House Judiciary Committee in a closed-door deposition that lasted more than eight hours on December 17, 2025. During that marathon session, Smith defended his decisions to prosecute Donald Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020 election and repeatedly emphasized that the January 6 attack “does not happen without” Trump’s actions and rhetoric — characterizing him as the most culpable figure in the events of that day.

The election was delegitimized before a single vote was cast, sabotaged through lies, intimidation, and manufactured doubt. When those lies failed, the certified results were attacked. And when the law, the courts, and the Constitution still held, the Capitol itself was assaulted—because violence was the last remaining tool. This was not spontaneous rage or a misunderstanding of process; it was escalation. Each stage was a contingency plan for the failure of the previous one.

An armed and violent mob was incited by a sitting president, directed at the Vice President and Congress, and unleashed to stop the peaceful transfer of power. It was a live-fire test of authoritarian seizure: could intimidation override law, could terror substitute for ballots, could force succeed where propaganda finally broke down? The chants answered the question with chilling clarity—stop the count, hang the vice president, overturn the election. The violence was not incidental. The deaths were not accidental. The intent was explicit, broadcast, and enjoyed by Trump for hours while he remained safely sequestered in front of a TV in the West Wing.

The Trump family -enjoying the violent insurrection for over three hours.

This is what the end stage of democratic erosion looks like. Not a sudden collapse, but the final convulsion of a system hollowed out over decade. Lies are normalized, loyalty replaces law, and power is unchained. We shouldn’t remember January 6 as the beginning. It was the moment the mask was removed from the robed klansman in the White House.

Normalizing the Insurrection

The greatest threat today is not Trump alone, but the insistence that January 6 was an “isolated event” of passionate “tourists” a tragic anomaly rather than the inevitable result of a long, methodical campaign instead of the logical outcome of multiple generations spent dismantling education, eroding truth, hollowing out institutions, and degrading democratic guardrails until the system could no longer defend itself.

Through Trump pardons, justice was undone. Violence was absolved, intent was ignored, and extremist ideology was licensed to flourish.

In that world, January 6 is not a closed chapter or a cautionary tale. It is proof of concept. When those who carried out the attack are forgiven and those who planned it are protected, the message is unmistakable: the crime was not the assault—it was not succeeding. History will not remember January 6 as a warning we failed to heed, but as a rehearsal that taught its authors exactly how to attempt again.

Translations

If a massive wave of voters begin to properly translate political rhetoric and disinformation into its meaning, there will be a reckoning in the United States.

Tax cuts and tax loopholes create jobs: Translation -concentrate wealth to the already wealthy to perpetuate plutocracy.
We can’t afford healthcare for all: We value money over people.
Public education is grooming and indoctrination: We don’t want critical thinking citizens -we only want undereducated, obedient hyper-consumers.
Regulations weaken the economy: Societal protections diminish executive bonuses and investor returns.
DEI programs are bad: We are a racist society.
Religious Freedom: You are free to devoutly practice Christianity wherever you want.
They are eating our dogs. They are eating our cats.: We are desperate and believe we might lose this election.
If exposed to these books, our children will change genders.: Assault rifles are cool.
An oil spill.: It’s an environmental catastrophe.
It’s a military action.: It’s an illegal declaration of war.

What We Do Now

What we do now is stop pretending this can be fixed by patience, civility, or waiting our turn. We name the project for what it is: an authoritarian movement sponsored by billionaires and built on a foundation of lies, grievance, and concentrated wealth.

We defend elections aggressively—by fighting suppression in courts and in the streets, by funding frontline organizations, by refusing to legitimize anti-democratic actors as “just another side.”

We rebuild civic education and public higher education as a democratic necessity, not a lifestyle choice.

We dismantle the propaganda ecosystem by calling lies lies, by abandoning platforms and advertisers that fund disinformation, and by refusing to normalize sedition if it is wearing an expensive business suit, or is married to a corrupt member of the bent Roberts Court.

We demand accountability for those who incited, financed, and enabled January 6, from media executives to members of Congress to the violent extremists themselves.

And we organize relentlessly, locally and nationally, because democracy will not be saved by norms, nostalgia, or courts alone. It will be saved only if enough of us value democracy over tyranny and decide that this is the line, that there is no going back, and that surrender dressed up as “unity” is still surrender.

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