‘It Was a Riot. That’s the End’: How Conservative Media Covered the Anniversary of Jan. 6

By Kipp JonesJan 6th, 2022, 3:53 pm
 
Capitol Riot 1/6

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

On the one-year anniversary of the riot that occurred at the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers were set to certify the results of the 2020 election, wall-to-wall coverage of the event blanketed the airwaves beginning early Thursday morning.

President Joe Biden offered remarks to commemorate the anniversary of the riot. The networks and cable news channels, meanwhile, dedicated the morning and afternoon to what so many characterized as an unrelenting threat to democracy.

The key message was that those who to this day challenge the results of the election that saw Biden come away as the victor are still holding the country hostage a full 365 days later.

But conservative media more or less remembered the day as one in which a small group of people in funny outfits, some of them violent, forced their way into a public building while peaceful, camera-wielding boomers in red caps later followed them in.

Suffice to say, the message was simple on Thursday in the conservative media sphere: Democrats are seizing on an ugly but mostly inconsequential event in an attempt to weaponize it ahead of the midterms.

The top story on Breitbart News in the afternoon billed Thursday as a “DEMOCRAT DAY OF HYSTERIA.”

Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at the Federalist, similarly cited “hysteria” in the both the media and among Democrats in an opinion piece she published early Thursday.

“The media and other Democrats have used the January 6 riot at the Capitol as a way to ignore legitimate concerns about what they did to the election system, and as a way to continue the assault on election security,” Hemingway commented. “As part of their political operation, they have used a propaganda technique of redefining efforts to secure the integrity of elections as attacks on democracy.”

The top story on the Daily Caller was one which was written by Taylor Giles, and had quoted Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R-FL) reaction to the anniversary of the Capitol riot.

“‘This Is Their Christmas’: DeSantis Criticizes Media, Democrats For Celebrating Jan. 6 Riot,” the story was headlined.

In the article, Giles reported that DeSantis had told Business Insider, “This is their Christmas: January 6… They are going to take this and milk this for anything they can to be able to smear anyone who ever supported Donald Trump.”

Stephen Green, writing for PJ Media, took issue with people in government and media comparing the Capitol riot to the Dec. 7, 1941 surprise attack against Pearl Harbor.

“On another date that will live in infamy — although not for the reasons hoped for by those seeking to exploit it for political gain — something quite less happened,” Green wrote. “A few deluded souls, by most accounts encouraged and abetted by agents of the United States federal government, split off from the ongoing peaceful protest and indulged in a minor and short-lived riot.”

Other popular conservatives on social media shared their opinions on the anniversary of the riot.

Matt Vespa, writing for Townhall, launched a strike against Thursday’s media coverage in a post after Harris compared Jan. 6 to both Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Vespa wrote:

Today is going to be nauseating. It’s going to be grounded in all the hysterics of the January 6 riot that occurred last year. CNN and MSNBC are totally juiced to spew some of the most unhinged takes about this day. The guests they have slated will probably act as if “journalists” stormed the beaches of Normandy. They’re not war heroes. They’re not veterans. They’re wimpy drones of the political class who just need to get over it. It was a riot. That’s the end. Everyone else has moved on with their lives because, unlike liberal America, we’re not obsessed with Donald Trump or the 2016 election. We’re also going to be subjected to some classic historical illiteracy as well. Vice President Kamala Harris kicked it off by comparing 1/6 to Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks.

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