Capitol vs. Capitol

The weapon – as well as terror – of modern-day extremists are the media. When supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in January 2021, they did not forget to livestream their rampage. Director Javier Horcajada used their footage and social media posts to create a collage of voices and texts that is as frenetic as the boundless scrolling in which facts and fabrications merge into a single stream. This symphony of disinformation is interwoven with excerpts from propaganda films from the era of Dwight D. Eisenhower, in which the same concepts invoked by the attackers—justice, law, democracy—are explained. This alarming message about how easy it is in the online age to change the meaning of words and control the crowd is the second part of the director’s trilogy about contemporary America.