In the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, it seemed at least small that the republican party would finally come to his senses. The rioters whom former President Donald Trump had urged Congress to threaten the electoral vote count had the pillars of the GOP have been shaken. It was a window to finally reject Trump and the lies he peddled about widespread fraud in the 2020 election against Joe Biden.
But this window quickly closed while the Republicans adopted a defensive position. Three years later, Trump is the favorite to win the Republican Party nomination for the third election in a row. And one new poll from the Washington Post and the University of Maryland shows that Republican voters are more sympathetic than ever to the Jan. 6 mob and the man who spurred them into action. And while it is tempting to place the blame solely on the shoulders of Trump and the MAGA faithful, the supposedly “moderate” wing of the Republican Party shares its complicity in these results.
As my colleague Steve Benen As one of the poll’s most troubling results underscored Tuesday, Republican support for Trump’s election lies has been trending in the wrong direction for the country. Surveyed last month, only 31% of self-identified Republicans told pollsters they believed Biden’s election was legitimate. That’s down from 39% of Republicans in a The Post survey carried out in December 2021.
This decline can be partly attributed to the continued reach of conspiracy theories that Trump circulated following his defeat in the 2020 election. Far-right politicians and media figures have also boosted claims that would exonerate Trump, no matter how far-fetched. -they. Even claims completely debunked like the idea that Georgia poll workers were pulling fake ballots out of their suitcases are still canonical occurrences among Republicans, according to voters interviewed by the Post.
And then there’s former Fox New host Tucker Carlson. selective editing of security footage from the Capitol — which he received from former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Carlson’s edited recordings helped promote the narrative that the rioters were actually “mostly peaceful,” no matter what the findings of the Jan. 6 House committee and other investigations say. In the Post poll, only 18% of respondents said people who entered the Capitol were “mostly violent,” up from 26% two years earlier.
But the poll’s most discouraging results were the many Republicans who say the country should simply “move on” of the January 6 attack. It’s a position that has become orthodoxy within the GOP. Seventy-two percent of Republicans surveyed think that “too much praise is being given to the storming” of the Capitol, compared to only 24% who believe that it is an “attack on democracy that does not must never be forgotten.”
These results echo the timidity of Republicans who remain outside MAGA’s sphere of influence – or at least are desperate not to alienate themselves from it. Look no further than the channel the supposed contenders for the 2024 nomination who insist that the charges against Trump for his role in launching the attack are evidence of Democrats’ “militarization” of federal law enforcement. The same goes for those who tried to characterize the January 6 committee investigations as partisan, ignoring the two Republicans who agreed to participate and signed them.
In the same way, the Republican elites have taken every possible opportunity over the last three years to try to redirect the country’s attention away from the attacks and towards something a little more electorally acceptable. “We need to talk about the future, not the past,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. said in October 2021. “I hope the 2022 election will be a referendum on the performance of the current administration, not a rehash of suggestions about what might have happened in 2020.”
In some ways, this constant call to look to the future is more insidious than conspiracy theories. There is something seemingly noble about calling for letting the past stay in the past and moving forward – but to do so without learning lessons is simply begging for the past to repeat itself. Suggest that the country moves forward without confronting its immediate history offers absolution without repentanceallowing voters to turn a blind eye to the reality of what happened and the threat Trump poses to democracy.
It speaks volumes that this position is one of centrism among Republicans, even among those like McConnell who correctly characterized the attack as “violent insurrection”. They prefer not to talk about January 6th, from the few denouncing Trump to those actively labeling those accused of January 6th. “political prisoners” Or “hostages”. And yet it remains just as dishonest, a lie by omission. Without forcefully addressing the factors that led to the January 6 attack, there is no room for plausible deniability when Trump also attempts to overturn the upcoming election.
Fortunately, the polling is a little less horrible outside the GOP ranks. Democrats and, to a lesser extent, independents are more united than Republicans on the seriousness of the Capitol attack and Trump’s attempt to overturn an election. It is encouraging that a majority of Americans I believe that January 6 was an essential turning point in the history of our country. But without the support of Republicans, particularly those who preferred to remain silent, the reconciliation that would allow the country to truly move forward is still far away.
