The Capitol siege was the biggest media spectacle of the Trump era |

Donald Trump’s presidency is ending as it began: in media spectacle. The 6 January siege of the Capitol was the culmination of a presidency defined by media manipulation and networked conspiracism, a presidency that turned politics into media and media into politics.

Trump leaves the news media scrambling to make sense of the post-Trump world, social media platforms reeling to catch up to the new uses and abuses of their technologies, the GOP grasping to keep hold of the Maga patriots who have cleaved from the party, and the nation wondering what the Maga mob will do next.

“The storm” on the Capitol is the result of a new kind of networked conspiracy – a potent brew of disinformation and rumor enabled by platforms, emboldened by politicians and influencers, and defined by a total lack of trust in the news.

The day in Washington began with a rather dreary and long-winded set of speeches, until Trump announced the next location. He said, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

This call to action was the explicit instruction many of the people who had gathered in the capital had been waiting for. They had been told to “trust the plan” and now it was happening.

That lawlessness was part of the plan had been clear to many observers, even though Capitol police have claimed they didn’t anticipate any violence. For weeks, researchers and journalists had documented tens of thousands of social media posts on every platform about “wild” protests ahead. All of this evidence, coupled with the skirmishes in Washington on Tuesday night, when live streamers broadcasted calls to breach the Capitol, and the arrest of the Proud Boys leader who was charged with possession of two illegal high-capacity magazines, should have been enough to call in the National Guard. This inaction cost lives.

What we talk about when we talk about politics

As a nation, we experienced the siege as a “media spectacle”, a momentous social event interpreted through the lens of traditional and social media, where cinema and society collide. It was the most-watched day in CNN history.

When talking about politics, we are really talking about media about politics, an axiom made explicit in the Trump era. And today, what people believe to be the truth is complicated by the structure of new technologies like social media, which have accelerated and fragmented media spectacle into competing alternative realities.

While those who stormed the Capitol seem to come from all walks of life, one faction of older white people stood out, aided by a viral image of Richard Barnett, 60, of Gravette, Arkansas, sitting at Nancy Pelosi’s desk. Online they are called the “boomerwaffen”, a pejorative name for the boomers and…