A Big Lie fueled Jan. 6 because America can't face the pain of truth

Attempts to whitewash the Capitol attack are an opiate of the masses.

It’s snowing in Washington, DC this morning, and the city is shut down by the storm. I’m preparing to trudge to the studios of WAMU, DC’s NPR station for an interview and, later, I’ll take a turn shoveling the walkways of my apartment building. It’s a weird day, to be honest. One, it doesn’t normally snow this much in DC. And two, it’s the fourth anniversary of the gravest attack on the U.S. Capitol since 1814.

Four years ago, I was at the Capitol, wearing a bullet proof vest, dodging tear gas, flash bang grenades and men and women treating journalists like me as traitors to the nation. It was a day that would change my life, as it would for many others. Others, like the 1,561 people federally charged with crimes committed during the siege and Aquilino Gonell, a former sergeant in the Capitol Police who defended the building and the lawmakers in it. Gonell, battered by armed rioters, wrote in the New York Times that he required multiple surgeries, years of rehab and treatment for recur…