Insurrection Day: True Lies, What’s Fair, and Denials of Racism

The 6 January 2021 Insurrection at the US Capitol was many things: an attack on democracy, a public attempt to kill elected officials, a political rally for President Trump, an effort to “stop the steal” of the 2020 presidential election, and a shocking, but not unpredictable political act of American moral racism couched in nationalist rhetoric of what is, or should be, “free and fair.” In a series of six flash ethnography essays of 750 words each, I explore the political lies, middle-class aspirations, and narrative truths that are the conditions of possibility for the Insurrection and its still unfolding aftermath.