Thursday, October 1, 2026
Five years ago, President Trump, then wrapping up his first term, led an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Now, in his second term, Trump is leading an all-out effort to whitewash it from our history.
Jan. 6, 2021, joins other infamous dates — including Dec. 7, 1941, Nov. 22, 1963, and Sept. 11, 2001 — representing sadness or shame in our nation’s annals. Inspired by a speech Trump gave that day, a mob of MAGA-crazed supporters stormed the Capitol, disrupting a joint session of Congress that had convened to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. In the aftermath, the FBI classified the attack as an act of domestic terrorism that endangered the country’s peaceful transfer of power. Under President Joe Biden, federal law enforcement officials went to work, and eventually, one by one, the people involved were prosecuted.
Justice was being served. Until it wasn’t.
On the evening of Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of Trump’s second term, the whitewashing began. As he had promised throughout the campaign leading to his second election victory, Trump started the formal process of eradicating Jan. 6 from our history. Referring to it now as a “day of love” and the participants as “patriots,” he issued a proclamation commuting sentences and granting pardons for more than 1,200 people who were involved and halting the ongoing prosecution of many more.
Just like that, one of the darkest days in our country’s storied history was no longer seen as such — at least by those who blindly and loyally stand with MAGA.
Jan 6 is only one part of the whitewash. The president is trying to rewrite history in a blatantly partisan attempt to manipulate the past to falsely promote his own ideology.
There was nothing good about slavery, which perpetuated a cruel economic system in which white slaveholders mortgaged and sold their own children. Yet on his Truth Social page, Trump wrote, “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was.” He directed the National Park Service to remove material related to slavery and Native Americans, and the administration ordered workers at Manassas National Battlefield Park to remove a sign that noted the mirage of the Confederacy’s prejudicial “Lost Cause” folklore, falsely claiming that states’ rights, and not slavery, was responsible for the “war of northern aggression.”
We must teach our children what really happened in our country’s history, not just the version seen through Trump-colored glasses. That’s why, in response to his unceasing efforts to whitewash what is one of the most disgraceful episodes in our nation’s history, I am sponsoring legislation in the Assembly to require K-12 instruction on the Jan. 6 insurrection and its aftermath.
Not since the War of 1812, when British forces set fire to the Capitol, have the halls of power in Washington been overtaken by violent intruders as they were on Jan. 6. With this legislation, we would ensure that it’s a day that will not be forgotten.
The American Historical Association writes that “teaching today’s events, which are not a ‘moment,’ but the product of a long history, presents a familiar, yet unusually urgent, challenge: How can students use historical knowledge and thinking to understand the present?”
Young people are looking to their teachers to help them understand both history and current events. New York’s educators have a responsibility to help our students understand what happened on that day, and help them analyze the legacy of that historical moment.
Trump’s policy to erase from the memory of time historic material that, in his view, inappropriately disparages people in the past or present, and instead focus on the greatness and achievements and progress of the American people, is simply a construct that corrupts and perverts our history.
I sincerely hope that Americans of good faith will challenge the administration’s attempts to move our nation toward an autocracy by attempting to whitewash parts of our history, and instead fulfill our nation’s solemn obligation to teach our children the truth. Without it, our struggle to establish a more perfect union and our ability to remain, as Lincoln put it, “earth’s last best hope,” is in mortal peril.
Charles Lavine represents the 13th Assembly District.
