This week is the second anniversary of the 1/6/21 Capitol riot, the event that our president maintains was the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War. That’s nonsense, of course, but anyone seriously worried about the decline of America might wonder why our government would expend so much effort over the last two years to convince us that it’s true.

Let me offer in this column an alternative view that sharply contradicts the party line. While my counterview may be unwelcome to many, I believe it to be far closer to reality than the story we’ve been force fed for two years.

The January 6th Capitol riot was ugly, stupid, criminal, and utterly without merit. But rioting was nothing new — the previous summer, the nation endured hundreds of violent riots ostensibly triggered by the George Floyd killings, complete with arson, looting, vicious attacks on police, and the takeover of a police station and a federal courthouse — together resulting in dozens of deaths and billions in damage. We saw the anarchy on TV, night after night, live at 11:00.

But the 1/6 riot was different. Coming from the right, not the left, its political potential was limitless. Instead of just another four-hour temper tantrum by unhinged crazies, accomplishing nothing, was this one not a violent Republican assault on our government? An insurrection even, incited by the villain Donald Trump and acted out by his cult-like followers?

That’s a far more powerful story line, and its selling began that day.

From the first, optics were critical. For the upcoming inauguration and the months to follow, our U.S. Capitol was cocooned in fencing manned by thousands of armed National Guard troops — necessary of course for protection from the hordes of right-wing white supremacists sure to mount another attack. (Those attacks never materialized, and evidently some had long forgotten the actual violent protests just blocks away from the Trump inauguration four years earlier.)

The attack-on-America mythology took instant, specific form. Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick was lionized as the day’s hero, reportedly pummeled to death by the January 6th mob. But while his body was lying in state in the Capitol, with somber TV coverage and sad commentary about his senseless killing, the inconvenient truth was already known, but not publicly divulged — Officer Sicknick had not been murdered, he died of natural causes, the day after the riot.

The 117th Congress, sworn into office only days before, then leapt into action. With only one day’s debate (based on fragments of information that they later concluded would require years to investigate), they impeached the president who’d already been voted out of office.

From that point, the full court press. Having vigorously denied the legitimacy of the 2016 election and actively supporting a preposterous assertion of Russian collusion, congressional Democrats then mounted a multi-year investigation into the January 6th riot. They crammed a few months of fact-finding into 18 months of showmanship, timed perfectly to crescendo just prior to the 2022 midterm elections. It worked beautifully.

Last weekend, the NY Times Sunday magazine’s in-depth feature article, “Inside the Jan 6th Committee,” characterized the House committee’s work as the “most important congressional investigation in generations.” But what strikes me is that their meticulous reconstruction reveals almost nothing about investigation and everything about production and presentation.

Throughout the charade, the committee’s effort was staffed by video professionals. The nine televised “hearings” were not hearings at all. They were scripted and rehearsed performances, with each word and supporting graphic and video snippet selected to convey a carefully constructed message. Remarks by each of the committee members were prepared, word for word, and approved in advance, and each member was instructed not to say anything else.

While there is no doubt about the committee members’ passion and intensity of effort (my guess is that their level of effort far surpassed the norm for congressional representatives), the NY Times authors offer no mention of any effort to find, examine, or disclose anything that does not align with their central, pre-determined message.

Clearly, the committee’s single-minded objective was to confirm its thesis that Donald Trump had inspired a treasonous effort to prevent certification of the Biden victory and thereby retain his office.

Not surprisingly, the NY Times applauds that single-minded focus. For example, “Inside the Jan 6th Committee” explains that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial decision to reject the members nominated by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made it possible for the panel to “proceed with a clean, uninterrupted narrative” (translation: one not clouded by inconvenient counterpoints).

Let’s connect a few dots here. The Twitter Files released by Elon Musk in recent weeks show a chilling interaction among U.S. government officials, big tech, and media to present one side — and only one side — of matters important to U.S. citizens. This is more of the same — media working with Congress to tell us what to think. Orwell, anyone?

The paradoxical downside to Congress’s slanted effort, supposedly conducted to prevent another 1/6/21, is that it actually gives legs to Trump’s claim of partisan treatment by the Democrat House. The last thing the nation needs is another Trump presidential candidacy, but Democrats just gave it a boost.

And woven throughout Congress’s 1/6 extravaganza is the Democrats’ insatiable obsession with all things Trump. The photo that appeared on the front pages of countless newspapers last month — showing the stern committee members seated directly beneath a Jumbotron image of a glowering Donald Trump — says it all.