The Importance of Optics and Rhetoric
January 6, 2021: The day will live on in infamy as the occasion of a violent, armed insurrection designed to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power and possibly even overthrow the U.S. government, all masterminded by none other than Donald J. Trump. At least that is what the Left wants us to believe.
The truth, as readers of The New American know, is quite different. Donald Trump did not orchestrate, or try to orchestrate, an “armed insurrection.” Of the thousands of people who (unwisely, it turned out) gathered on the Capitol grounds that fateful day, only a very few engaged in any illegal actions. There is video footage of Capitol Police allowing the mob to enter the Capitol. There are photos and video of known Antifa agitators among the crowd posing as Trump supporters and trying to whip the people into a frenzy to cause a violent riot. There is evidence of federal agents provocateurs among the “patriots” marching on the Capitol. And, most importantly, the “mostly peaceful protesters,” to borrow terminology from the Left, were absolutely not a crowd of “armed insurrectionists.” Patriotic Americans know that a true “armed insurrection,” with the aim of marching on the Capitol and overthrowing the government, would have looked much different — we’ll leave it at that.
Nevertheless, over the past two years we’ve been inundated with constant messaging about January 6 — coming from the mainstream media, the Democratic Party, and social media — insisting on a certain narrative of the event. The “official” story of January 6, and the government’s response to the protest, is a perfect example of the Left’s use of optics and rhetoric to gain and maintain power over the American people. The image of the event, i.e., how it was packaged and made to “look” to the American people, was carefully chosen to accomplish the Left’s goal. The narrative around the event, particularly the words used to describe it, was also carefully curated to paint a certain picture in the minds of the people.
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