“Anarchy in the USA”: Win McNamee’s Capitol Riot Photographs and the Rhetoric of Desecration

Abstract

Abstract The almost universal response to the US Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, has been righteous indignation. Democrats and Republicans alike have called it a defilement or a desecration of the nation’s sacred house. This article adds to the literature on Capitol riot rhetoric by proposing a theory of desecration as a rhetoric in motu because desecration enacts movement across a sacred boundary. We outline key features of a rhetoric of desecration and analyze Win McNamee’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Capitol riot photographs to illuminate why the riot aftermath has elevated legal action to the status of spiritual warfare.