Trump’s lies on Jan. 6 White House website portend a totalitarian future | Opinion
On Jan. 6, 2021, and in the months before, President Donald Trump tried to overthrow American democracy with a blizzard of falsehoods that fueled a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The United States Constitution came within a single heartbeat of ending its run as our governing law when Vice President Mike Pence oversaw the certification of the free and fair 2020 election that made Joe Biden our president after rioters called for Pence’s death.
This is the line between a populist conservative administration I can sometimes disagree with but ultimately support, and one that is so un-American that I have to vote for Kamala Harris. I am not willing to give our democracy up.
Now Trump says I have it backward. He has reworked the official White House website to tell a different story of that day. Secret government saboteurs, a violent Capitol Police department, an incompetent Nancy Pelosi and Pentagon foot-dragging combined to create a rioting mob that came within minutes of killing members of Congress. Trump had nothing to do with it. If fact, WhiteHouse.gov argues, Trump is the one who stopped it.
This is ludicrous. While a few leaders, like fist-raising Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, always stood by Trump’s side, even Trump’s most ardent backers knew what happened while the riot was under way and in the shock that lasted for weeks afterward.
“This is literally an insurrection. The fact that the US military hasn’t secured the seat of our government already is a failure of leadership by the commander in chief,” wrote CNN’s famous Trump-backer Scott Jennings on Jan. 6: “President Donald Trump caused this insurrection with his lies and conspiracy theories about the election process being rigged against him. It was not stolen, but this madness was fomented by the president and his top advisers over the past several months. His attorney Rudy Giuliani, at a rally on Wednesday, called for ’trial by combat’ to a roaring crowd.”
At the core of Trump’s claim is the idea that Trump tried to call out the National Guard beforehand to protect Congress from potential protests, but that Pelosi stopped him and once the violence started he tried to deploy the Guard again, but this time officials at the Pentagon ignored and then delayed his orders.
That is the most ridiculous falsehood. As speaker of the House, Pelosi never had any power to block deployment of the National Guard, which is solely an executive branch function.
Do you know how I know? Because that is what the Trump administration argued in public and in court to support the deployment of the National Guard in his second term. Trump can’t have it both ways — arguing that Pelosi blocked him from calling out the National Guard at the same time he argues no one has that power.
Claim Pentagon blocked National Guard
Trump’s claim that the Pentagon blocked deployment of the National Guard is equally preposterous. The White House website now says “Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller dismissed President Trump’s January 3 directive to deploy any necessary military assets, including the National Guard, to ensure safety during the demonstrations, viewing it as non-binding. Instead, restrictions were imposed over concerns about ‘optics,’ leading to delays in the Guard’s response despite urgent requests from Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.”
Do you know who appointed Chris Miller to be acting Pentagon chief? Donald Trump did. Do you know who Miller’s right-hand man was? Acting Pentagon Chief of Staff Kash Patel, also a Trump appointee. If they did anything wrong, it is Trump’s responsibility, not Nancy Pelosi’s or anyone else’s.
Indeed, it is very hard to explain how Patel was simultaneously part of a seditious conspiracy of Pentagon bureaucrats to ignore the commander-in-chief’s orders but is now trustworthy enough to be director of the FBI.
The fact is Trump knows all this excuse-making is a farce. He’s too lazy to even bother to make his lies plausible. That’s what has me worried.
The totalitarians of the past didn’t bother to make their lies plausible either. The Soviet Union said it was a democracy. Only useful fools, communists and paid stooges pretended to believe it.
The fact that we’ve come to the useful fools stage of the Trump revolution makes me think totalitarianism is the way we are going. We’ve already got the masked secret police, a rubber-stamp Congress that lets politicians rig more and more elections and a leader who expects his supporters to live in an alternative reality.
Jan. 6 may have been just the warmup for what will happen after our next presidential election.
David Mastio is a national columnist for The Kansas City Star and McClatchy.
This story was originally published January 8, 2026 at 12:53 PM.
