by Sherman Gillums, Jr., U.S. Marine Corps Veteran

It won’t take long before the historical revisionists begin the work of recasting the failed insurrection that took place on Wednesday as some sort of noble stance against a tyrannical government. Make no mistake about it though: Trumpism lost. 

The attack on the Capitol building had the opposite of its intended effect, by essentially expediting the electoral certification process. Republican loyalists have backed away from President Donald Trump in droves. Trump himself has finally conceded defeat as his coalition fell apart. Those who boasted about their involvement in social media are being tracked and arrested. Police officer Brian Sicknick and Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, reportedly two staunch Trump supporters, are among the dead. 

But let historians tell it — or better put, sell it — Trumpism won and has changed history. Their message will be that lawmakers were sent an obvious message and the people have spoken, no matter how ineffective, counterproductive, and even immoral the insurrection actually was. How do I know? Because we’ve seen this movie before, a couple times.

We first saw it during the American Revolution, which we rarely associate with the 1772 Somerset vs. Stewart decision in London that had abolished slavery in the British colony of Jamaica, thus raising concern among colonists in America that the crown would also deny them the right to enslave Africans. No, the celebration of “independence” just wouldn’t land right if presented through the lens of this tangle of contradictions.

Similarly, the lesser noble aspects of the Civil War, as they relate to slavery, are well acknowledged. Yet, there are still those who romanticize the period as a time when “patriots” could justify an insurrection against the government to preserve the freedom to take away the freedom of another human being based on skin color. Despite the obvious connection between “state’s rights” and slavery, many are content to contort facts to conflate the morality of self determination with denying the rights of others to the same, under the mythical banner of “heritage”. 

Today, we see the same people who criticized former NFL player Colin Kaepernick for kneeling during the National Anthem now advocate the suspension of the U.S. Constitution. The same folks who angrily argued against claims that Trump was helped by Russia during the election now want to overturn the results of a democratic election based on empty, unproven claims of fraud. The same election where prominent republicans had won their consequential races and various benches across the country consistently ruled against Trump’s surrogates, including a Supreme Court where three of nine justices were appointed by Trump. 

Now, the narrative that this was just civil disobedience that simply got out of hand, following an attempt at a parliamentary coup, is being belied by images of police officers taking selfies and Oregon lawmaker Mike Nearman opening doors for protesters. This was a high level, coordinated insurrection, period. Some remaining questions are more interesting than others, at least for me. From how the agitators found Speaker Pelosi’s office so quickly (the halls of Congress leaves most feeling like rats in a maze no matter how many times they visit) to why so many felt emboldened enough to put their involvement in this illegal mass attack on public display.

More importantly, how was the crowd allowed to penetrate a building where the sitting and incoming U.S. Vice Presidents were housed and the Senate chamber? Also, why are coordinated attacks at other state capitals going under-reported? In Arizona, they erected a guillotine outside the state capital, and similar hostilities took place in about a dozen other cities where crowds sought to intimidate lawmakers in coordinated “Arab Spring” fashion.

On balance, one may legitimately question the validity of the election based on statistical anomalies related to the unsolicited mail-in ballots. But the constitutional remedy is the courts in a nation of based on the rule of law, as we saw in Bush v. Gore in 2000. No matter how one feels, especially those in public service who took the Oath of Office, our status as citizens REQUIRE all of us to subordinate our feelings to that law. The same law many claim to love and invoked during President Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton’s war on drugs — or when people of color who get shot didn’t “just comply”. 

What will be different about this event is the manner in which they documented it in actual time by the participants? Except now we’re already hearing that BLM and ANTIFA were the lead agitators despite, as with the claims of election fraud, no evidence supporting such. In fact, the MAGA army has shown no desire to share credit, except among those having buyer’s remorse because of how it has all unfolded. Time will soon tell whether a more charitable interpretation of this insurrection will eventually become emblazoned in history by torturing fact and truth.

If past is prologue, some history book will eventually hail those who unsuccessfully tried to “stop the steal” on January 6, 2021, in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party or shots fired at Sumpter. Or worse, some state or states, where insurrection and patriotism traditionally make for strangely comfortable bedfellows, may go as far as making it a holiday. Turning a blind eye to what happened on Wednesday is a choice that cannot be forced upon us, no matter how hard the revisionists try.