January 6: Worse Than Pearl Harbor, War of 1812, 9/11?
Was the January 6 storming of the Capitol the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War,” as Joe Biden has asserted on more than one occasion? In her introduction to Biden’s speech on the first anniversary of the event, Kamala Harris compared the four-hour Capitol occupation to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. We have likewise heard repeated assertions that the J6 melee was the worst attack on our Capitol since the British Army burned it during the War of 1812. Countless politicians, reporters, and editorial bloviators have echoed these absurd claims.
Let’s cut through the hyperbolic propaganda and outright lies the authoritarians are using to incite the fear and faux outrage they hope will succeed in driving us into their planned American gulag. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor left 2,403 Americans dead and 1,143 wounded. Non-public school graduates may remember this was the event that precipitated our entry into World War II. The 9/11 terrorist attacks took 2,996 lives and injured more than 6,000. How many were “killed” at the J6 riot? According to most media accounts, four — but that was one of the early (and persistent) media lies. Two of those four were men who died outside of the Capitol and were ruled by the D.C. medical examiner to have died from “natural” heart failure. Both men, in their 50s, suffered from hypertension. The two who were killed inside the Capitol were women. Ashli Babbitt, 35, an unarmed Air Force veteran, was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer. The death of Rosanne Boyland, 34, remains the subject of controversy. Was she trampled to death due to actions of the Capitol Police, or did she die due to an accidental drug overdose?
One of the most notorious lies about the J6 riot that has been thoroughly debunked is the complete fabrication by the New York Times claiming that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick had been “killed by a pro-Trump mob,” savagely beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. This lie was endlessly repeated even though Sicknick’s own family members, including his mother, told reporters he had called on the evening of January 6 to report that he was fine. Later that night he collapsed from a stroke and was taken to a hospital. He succumbed the next day to the stroke, which the coroner ruled to be from natural causes, with no evidence of blunt trauma to the head. But the story that he was a martyr who had been “murdered” by evil Trumpists was just too politically useful to pass up, so the media continued running with it. It became a key element of the House impeachment charges against President Trump.
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