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Jan. 6, 2021 is in the rearview. The battle to define it for history is in full swing.

Donald Trump and his allies are attempting to rewrite history. Democrats vow no one will forget.

House Republicans attend the joint session of Congress to certify Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 Presidential election in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2025. | Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO

By Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu

01/06/2025 03:39 PM EST

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The battle of Jan. 6, 2021 was physical, a hand-to-hand fight on Capitol turf to stave off an insurrection aimed at keeping a defeated Donald Trump in power.

The battle of Jan. 6, 2025 is psychological, a struggle by Democrats, prosecutors and victims of the violence to prevent a victorious Trump from erasing the harrowing reality of that day.

That clash over how America will remember the Jan. 6 attack raged Monday even as the actual proceedings at the Capitol — in which Vice President Kamala Harris presided over a drama-free certification of Trump’s election — seemed an afterthought.

“I still believe Donald Trump was the main instigator of what happened on Jan. 6 four years ago. I think over time, history will record that exactly the way it is,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, former chair of the Jan. 6 committee, told POLITICO. “I think that effort to minimize what occurred and the fact that somehow what people saw with their own eyes really didn’t happen, history will record differently.”

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President Joe Biden echoed that message in a Washington Post op-ed Sunday, writing: “We cannot allow the truth to be........

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