Reactive Memories of 1776

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, we situate the riot at the United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021, within the longer history of white-led race riots in the United States, as both state and vigilante actors have twisted the memory of that history toward maintaining an antidemocratic and racist status quo. Motivating such riotous eruptions is what we call reactive memory in reference to the formation of historical mythologies that valorize a “return” to a whitewashed past in response to perceived threats against socioracial domination in the present. We contribute to rhetoric and communication scholarship on memory and far-right nation-building by examining the mobilization of reactive memory in “1776” discourses and the rhetoric of extremist paramilitary groups. In doing so, we demonstrate how reactive memory is conjured to justify the right’s saturation in white supremacy and antidemocratic intervention, including and especially riotous violence – not because its adherents have no other rhetorical recourse in the political state of affairs, but because they situate political violence to be their historically sanctioned prerogative.