Roger Kimball asks,
Is there anything that could have been done to intervene in that exercise of myth-making that surrounded the Kennedy assassination? Anything that could have short-circuited the metamorphosis of the criminal action of a single deranged communist into the group responsibility of nebulous “haters” and “extremists” throughout the country?
I do not know the answer to that. But the same question has come around again with respect to the events of January 6, 2021 and, more generally, with respect to support for Donald Trump.
Here we can witness in real time the effort to enact another myth—the myth that the events at the Capitol on January 6, constituted an “insurrection” as deadly as Oklahoma City, as 9/11, as Pearl Harbor, even (if you are to believe Joe Biden) the “Civil War.” You could see that narrative, that process of mythopoeia, begin to take place even before the protestors withdrew from the Capitol. It was all nonsense. But it has been pursued assiduously by the left-wing political apparatus in the government and their megaphones in the media.
The trick now is to magnify those alternative accounts, disseminate them as broadly and as authoritatively as possible. There is no reason that Nancy Pelosi or Jim Acosta or Joe Biden or Merrick Garland should be allowed to define the reality of what happened on January 6. The work of writers like Julie Kelly at American Greatness and Darren Beattie at Revolver News needs to be echoed and extended as vigorously as possible. Myths can be pernicious as well as illuminating or entertaining. The myth that what happened on January 6 was an insurrection that aimed to “overthrow the government” or “overturn the election” must not be allowed to stand and gain credence. The time to counter that Big Lie is now.
Read more here: https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/25/myth-making-in-the-modern-age-a-primer/
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