By definition, an insurrection is an attempt to violently overthrow the government. But January 6th? It was a protest—publicly announced, covered in the media, and forecast by news outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post to bring as many as 80,000 people to Washington, D.C. that day. If this was truly an “insurrection,” why would they tell everyone exactly when and where it was going to happen?
Let’s be real: true insurrections aren’t planned in the open. The French Revolution didn’t send out press releases. The Bolsheviks didn’t livestream their coup. When Guy Fawkes and his crew tried to blow up the English Parliament in 1605, they didn’t post “Going to be in London on the 5th—bring snacks” on a flyer.
On any ordinary day, the U.S. Capitol is one of the most secure buildings on the face of the Earth—staffed by hundreds of officers, ringed by barriers, and under constant surveillance. Yet on a day when a joint session of Congress was in session and a “planned insurrection” was supposedly about to unfold, 1,583 people—some in horned Viking hats, others with nothing more than flagpoles—breached the Capitol. Not one carried a firearm inside.
“Jan 6 wasn’t an ‘insurrection’—it was the greatest security failure in U.S. history.”
Given that the ultimate responsibility for security lay with Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell, it’s hard not to see this as a planned security failure. As Sen. Ron Johnson put it, “The Capitol was not adequately protected, and those responsible for that failure still haven’t been held to account.” Or as Rep. Jim Jordan said, “You can’t ignore that leadership decisions played a role in the breakdown that day.”
I’ve always said: if you have the facts on your side, why tell lies? The only reason to lie is if your “facts” are faulty. And no one lies bigger or more profitably than the legacy media. They’re a for-profit cancer, milking fear and division for clicks and ratings. They knew flagpoles and megaphones wouldn’t keep the story alive—so they invented their own “facts.” On January 7, headlines from the New York Times and the Washington Post screamed that Officer Brian Sicknick had been “beaten to death with a fire extinguisher.” That story was a complete fabrication. Video shows Sicknick manning a rope line, directing protesters around the Capitol calmly. The truth? He died of a stroke—no evidence of blunt force trauma at all.
Politicians, including President Joe Biden, have claimed “dozens” of officers were killed that day. Not one was. They point to four officers who tragically took their own lives in the weeks and months that followed, calling them casualties of January 6. But none of those officers left a note or told a loved one that January 6 was why they ended their lives. Two of them didn’t even die until more than six months after the event. If you’re going to claim the Capitol was a killing field, you’d think there’d be at least one murder conviction. Yet the number of people convicted for killing cops on January 6 is exactly equal to the number of open homicide investigations: zero.
That’s not to say there wasn’t violence. There was. I have no doubt that many of the officers on duty that day did their jobs bravely and honorably, and in some cases that meant going toe-to-toe with people who were breaking the law. Some officers were injured, some were hospitalized, and I support prosecuting anyone who injures a cop in the line of duty. But what I don’t support is putting lipstick on a pig and calling it anything but a pig.
This wasn’t an insurrection. It was a protest that got out of hand because the people in charge—most likely intentionally—didn’t arrange for proper security. 80,000 protestors were expected, only 20,000 showed up, and they still breached the Capitol. Pelosi and McConnell are as responsible for the injuries to those officers as anyone else. And that’s a fact no amount of media spin or political theater can change.
— Brian P. Fisher