It has now been five years since Donald Trump incited a mob of rioters to storm the United States Capitol, causing millions of dollars in damage, and sending 140 police officers to the hospital, five of whom died. All in a treasonous effort to undermine Democracy and overturn the results of a free and fair election.

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That day is a black mark on American history that is recalled by patriots with sorrow, anger, and shame. And it was made all the worse when glassy-eyed voters with short-term memory loss returned Trump to the White House last year. The result has been more horrendous than even the most pessimistic advocates of democracy predicted. For instance…

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Immediately following the events of January 6, 2021, most of the nation was appalled and stricken by the audacity of Trump and his out of control supporters that he refused to call back for more than three hours. There was nearly unanimous condemnation of the lawlessness and violence that the StormTrumpers engaged in. And remarkably, that was even true of Trump’s fawning sycophants on Fox News.

On this solemn anniversary it is a good time look back on some of the most striking examples of hypocrisy by the Fox News propagandizers. Let’s begin with one that came from Fox’s Greg Gutfeld, who unleashed a stirring rebuke of the rioting Trumpists. On his afternoon program the following day, “The Five,” Gutfeld said that…

“What pisses me off is what happened yesterday. We’re supposed to be the gate against the barbarians. and yesterday we looked like the barbarians. And it doesn’t help anybody. But you will not see Republicans bailing out those who were arrested. See, that is a vital contrast. And Americans know this. Americans do not need lectures from hypocrites.”

just a reminder of the initial, in the moment, right wing reaction to jan 6 my favorite is greg gutfeld saying republican condemnation of the jan 6 rioters is an example of their moral superiority over the leftwww.mediamatters.org/media/4018641

— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew.bsky.social) 2026-01-06T14:58:55.879Z

Seriously? Gutfeld exploited the tragedy to lavish praise on his fellow right-wingers for being so adamantly devoted to peaceful protests and the rule of law. He presented that as a criticism of Democrats who he asserted were less respectful of those principles.

However, it was Trump who later did “bail out those who were arrested,” and even convicted after pleading guilty to charges ranging from assaulting the police to seditious conspiracy. In fact, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of them indiscriminately. And Gutfeld has never bothered to revisit his remarks of January 7th. Instead, he has reverted to the standard Fox News stance of gushing adulation of Trump.

Gutfeld, though, was not alone. Pretty much the entire Fox News roster was critical of the Trump insurrectionists. But today they are slathering the same sugary sappiness on Trump, and excusing him and his marauding hoards of any wrongdoing. Media Matters compiled some of the commentaries from Fox Newsers before they they fell back into their state of Trump worship…

• Sean Hannity: “All of today’s perpetrators must be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
• Laura Ingraham: “But those who breached the Capitol Hill security today, whoever they were, they were criminals.”
• Jesse Watters: “You can’t smash windows, spray police with chemical agents, assault police officers, loot, and vandalize.”
• Mark Levin: “What they did was criminal. I want to know who these people are. I want to know if they’re going to be charged. Because they should be. They broke the law. What they did was criminal.”
• Jeanine Pirro: “The actions at the United States Capitol three days ago were deplorable, reprehensible, outright criminal.”

Today, all but one of those people are still on the air at Fox News. And each and every one of them have dispensed of all of those opinions that the rioters were criminals. The one no longer with Fox, Jeanine Pirro, is now Trump’s U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

For his part, Trump has sought to persecute everyone involved with bringing the January 6th rioters to justice. He has fired the prosecutors and prosecuted members of Congress. And on this anniversary Trump posted a timeline of the day’s events that is wholly removed from reality. In a blatant rewriting of history, Trump’s website states that the protesters were peaceful, that it was the police who escalated the violence, and that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.

As we remember the horror of that day, we must also be conscious of the future. Trump wanted to violate the law in order to cling to power five years ago. And he still wants that today. In a speech to Republicans he fantasized about running for a third and, far more troubling, canceling the upcoming elections. So we have been warned. And we must be prepared to defend American democracy. Because Trump and Co. are preparing to terminate it.

Trump fantasizes about canceling elections. And he admits that the only reason he won't say that is because the press will call him a dictator.Not because it's grossly unconstitutional and undemocratic. #TrumpIsADictator

— News Corpse (@newscorpse.bsky.social) 2026-01-06T20:09:34.828Z

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