The January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol is expected to play a prominent role in the upcoming presidential election, with the two leading candidates for the White House pushing dueling narratives over the legacy of the day’s events.
For President Biden, the attack on the Capitol – when supporters of then-President Trump stormed the complex in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results – is a reminder of how American democracy is fragile and the danger that Trump represents for her. It’s yet another example of the ongoing battle for the soul of the nation, as Biden said during his 2020 campaign, a theme he has doubled down on as he seeks another term.
Meanwhile, Trump has downplayed the events of January 6 to argue that he and his supporters are being unfairly targeted. He has pledged to pardon those charged with crimes related to the riots and continues to denounce investigations into that day, as well as his own criminal charges regarding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The conflicting approaches of the leading White House candidates reflect how, three years after the riots, the events of January 6 have become a new political tool that elected officials can use to motivate voters.
“I think we’re obviously a few years away, but it still seems to be a priority for some voters,” said Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House official who resigned following the events of Jan. 6 . Biden has kind of geared a lot of his message toward the fact that democracy is at stake, and I think that’s going to be a central theme of his campaign.
Biden is expected to speak Friday in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, using a context associated with the American Revolution to discuss the resonance of January 6 three years later.
“This Saturday will mark the three-year anniversary of the day that – with the encouragement of Donald Trump – a violent mob broke into our nation’s Capitol. This was the first time in our country’s history that a president attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, told reporters this week.
“The threat that Donald Trump posed to American democracy in 2020 has only deepened in the years since,” she added. “Our message is clear and simple: we are running a campaign as if the fate of our democracy depended on it. Because it is.
Biden has been preparing for this speech throughout the week; he had lunch Wednesday with a group of scholars and historians on the subject. The White House said the group discussed “continuing threats to democracy and democratic institutions, here in America and around the world.”
“The president has a tendency – and he has done this before, he has met with historians before – to anticipate an important national moment, which we are about to see certainly with regard to January 6,” l press officer Karine Jean-Pierre. about lunch.
Biden’s re-election campaign released its first paid ad of 2024 the day before the speech, focusing on democracy and attacking Trump. THE 60 second adnarrated by Biden, is set to take place next week in key states and claims that Trump has made efforts to “erode American democracy and excuse – and even promote – political violence”.
Friday’s remarks will be Biden’s fifth major speech focused on democracy. His fourth took place in the critical state of Arizona in September, during which he invoked the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Trump critic and longtime friend of Biden.
The president’s other speeches on democracy took place in January 2022 to mark the first anniversary of January 6, in September 2022 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and in November 2022 in Washington, D.C., just days before the mid-term elections. -mandate.
“(Biden) is not known for his tough political rhetoric or his pearl-clutching efforts, so when he talks about the threats to our democracy, the public listens. His speech on the January 6 anniversary is not important just because of its political ramifications, it is important because we can never forget what Donald Trump did,” said Michael Starr Hopkins, Democratic strategist.
The president has increasingly targeted Trump in his recent remarks and particularly during his speeches to donors at fundraisers across the country.
Biden, while in Philadelphia last month, said Trump posed a threat to democracy and highlighted a notable anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.
“I don’t believe that on our 250th anniversary, this nation will turn to Donald Trump. Friends, imagine, imagine this moment and ask: “What do we want to be?” “, Biden said. “If we do our job in 2024, we will have done something that few generations have been able to say they have done. We will be able to literally say: we saved democracy.”
Trump, meanwhile, is spending his third birthday Saturday on the campaign trail; he planned two events in Iowa before the state’s crucial caucuses. He has invoked January 6 at rallies before, including at his first 2024 campaign event in Waco, Texas, last April, where he placed his hand on his heart while a song was sung by a group of detainees incarcerated for their role in the attack.
But the events of January 6 have also become a major source of various legal problems for Trump as he seeks the Republican nomination and return to the White House in 2024.
Asset was charged in August by federal prosecutors for his efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, which culminated in the Jan. 6 riots, when his supporters tried to disrupt the official process of certifying the results.
The decisions in Colorado and Maine, if upheld, would remove Trump from the ballot on the grounds that he engaged in insurrection, thereby barring him from a second term in the White House under a clause in the 14th amendment of the Constitution. Trump’s campaign is appealing both decisions — and he will remain on the voter rolls in those states until the cases are legally adjudicated.
For weeks after the 2020 election, the former president falsely claimed it was rigged and fraudulent. He then encouraged his supporters to travel to Washington, D.C., on January 6, the day Congress was to certify the results, and at a rally that day near the White House he urged those present to make their voices heard on Capitol Hill. .
Trump downplayed the events of January 6 during his campaign and presented his prosecutions and charges against hundreds of rioters as politically motivated.
“I call them the ‘J-6 hostages,’ not the prisoners. I call them the hostages, what happened. And you know, it’s a shame,” Trump said at a rally in November.
The former president has said he would consider pardoning some of those charged in connection with the Capitol attack, and he spoke earlier this year at a fundraiser for the defendants on Jan. 6.
Some Trump allies consider the Democrats’ focus on January 6 to be overblown.
“I just think Democrats wake up every morning… and they look at the calendar, the iPhone says, January 6, 2021. The date never changes,” Kellyanne Conway, a former senior Trump aide, said during from a recent appearance on Fox News. “And then they get in an electric vehicle and go and have an abortion. I just described the Democratic Party to you in seven seconds.
But polls taken as the third anniversary of the attack approaches suggest that the date of January 6 still resonates with a large swath of voters.
A Washington Post-University of Maryland investigation released Tuesday, 53% of the public say Trump bears at least a “fair amount” of responsibility for the attack on the Capitol.
The poll also found that 55% of Americans say the events of January 6 should never be forgotten, including 86% of Democrats and 53% of independents, a sign that the issue could actually bring together the voters Biden will need to win re-election.
But in a sign of the effect of Trump’s constant claims that the 2020 election was rigged, the poll also found that 62% of Americans said Biden’s victory was legitimate, down 7 percentage points from compared to 2021.
“President Biden has earned the trust of the American people and he owes it to them to ensure that we never forget how delicate our democratic experiment can be when left in the wrong hands,” said Hopkins, CEO from Northern Starr Strategies.
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
