Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Reuters/Getty
When Donald Trump took the stage in Waco, Texas, for a campaign rally last month, the crowd had been warmed up with a startling spectacle: giant video screens showing footage of Trump supporters violently storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump’s presentation of the darkest day of his presidency—and one of the darkest in U.S. history—as a righteous hour to be celebrated marked the beginning of how central it will be to his 2024 presidential bid.
If anything, Trump’s criminal indictment in Manhattan has only supercharged the ex-president’s plans to weaponize Jan. 6.