Just a couple of weeks ago Americans commemorated the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot. Unsurprisingly, this anniversary did not pass without garnering its fair share of controversy.

President Joe Biden kicked off the day with a short speech delivered in the very same place the protestors had stormed just a year prior. The US Capitol. He spared no time jumping straight into condemning the actions of President Trump. Biden accosted the former president for perpetuating lies regarding the results of the 2020 election and held him personally responsible for inciting a riot on the steps of the capitol. 

This was not met without outrage from President Trump. He promptly released a statement accusing Biden of destroying the nation with open borders, corrupt elections, unconstitutional mandates, and record numbers of Covid cases. 

The Trump faction produces a lot of Trump-fiction. While some believe it was their right as Americans to stand up against perceived injustice and storm the capitol, others believe the riot didn’t happen at all. That it was an Antifa plot to demonize Trump supporters. The spread of misinformation regarding Jan. 6 has only increased over the past year and is a harbinger for further conflict.

If an event that was clearly a conservative attack on the democratic process can be rewritten as far-left political theater, our democracy is in serious danger. We are beginning to write our history in pencil instead of pen, opening ourselves up to revision. If Republicans regain control next election, will they grab the pencil and write off the Biden presidency as illegitimate and unconstitutional? Will they erase the Biden presidency as a whole? 

If we’re not careful, that could be our future. Even if information is factually incorrect, if enough people believe it, it starts to become the truth. It is our responsibility as Americans to ensure that the information that shapes our entire worldview is factual. When we fall victim to misinformation, we open ourselves and American democracy up to chaos.