New polling shows even some Democrats now applaud the Jan 6th riot
Here’s a surprising fact. The percentage of Americans who disapprove of Trump supporters taking over the Capitol building last January 6th has dropped from 81% a year ago to 73% now, according to polls done by The Economist and YouGov.
Put another way: nearly one in ten Americans have changed their mind about how they feel about the riot/insurrection/tourist visit that temporarily halted the counting of the Electoral Vote and the certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
Not unexpectedly, the biggest shift in attitudes toward January 6th was among Republicans. The percentage of Republicans disapproving the attack has dropped 13 points, from 74% to 61%. A stunning 22% of GOPers now says they either strongly or somewhat approve of it.
Most startling are the number of self-identified Democrats who have changed their view. While 94% disapproved a year ago, now that number has shrunk to 86%. A disconcerting 10% of Democrats say they either strongly or somewhat approve of the attack, triple the tiny percentage who felt that way a year ago.
What can explain these shifts?
One clue can be found in a companion question The Economist and YouGov asked in its survey: whether people thought voter fraud took place in 2020, and if so, was it enough to change who supposedly won? (For this question, they were able to compared the answers from the 1,448 voters they surveyed a year ago with 826 people from that group today, to see how their views may have shifted.)
While few Democrats have changed their minds about the outcome, a lot of them now think there was some fraud, with that number increasing from 19% a year ago to 37% now. The portion of independents who think there was some fraud has also risen, from 33% to 44%, though like Democrats, the number of independents who think the fraud could have altered the results hasn’t budged.
If more people think there might have been some fraud, even if they don’t think it was enough to change the results, they might be more inclined to give the January 6th protestors the benefit of the doubt. Which, at least on the face of it, may explain why disapproval for the attack has declined.
Still, how does an unprecedented assault on the heart of our democracy, which involved violent attacks on hundreds of police officers and led to several deaths, start to become something fewer Americans condemn?
The answer is partially right there in the question. It starts with the fact that fewer Republican leaders are condemning January 6th the same way they did in the days immediately following the riot. Then add the diligent efforts of Fox News and other rightwing media to spin a web of lies about what happened that day, claiming that the riot was actually carried out by Black Lives Matter and antifa activists with the help or connivance of the FBI. Gaslighting works. Especially when Democrats from the president on down haven’t been talking as much about January 6th, one strong speech from Joe Biden on the riot’s anniversary notwithstanding.
That may even explain how a growing clump of Democrats have changed their view, since many do watch Fox. According to data from Per Nielsen MRI Fusion, 29% of liberal prime time viewers watch Fox News, compared to 25% watching CNN and 46% watching MSNBC.
However you slice this data, it only adds to the burden faced by the Special Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection and the need to tell a clear and compelling story of what took place and why. For thousands of people tried to violently obstruct Congress from certifying the election that day. And if we don’t want something like that to happen again, we need to make sure that solid majorities of Americans across the political spectrum agree that an insurrection to overturn a free and fair election is wrong.