US Political Fissures Persist One Year After Capitol Riot

One year after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Democrats and Republicans still differ sharply over its key aspects, aftermath and the related congressional investigation, underscoring an increasingly partisan Congress, a more divided country and growing distrust in American democracy.

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The United States has not learned the lessons of the riot which led to multiple deaths, over 100 injuries and damage to the Capitol. As U.S. partisan politics continues to decay, the country still faces the risk of a repeated incident.

CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRY CONTINUES

After six months of intense work, the U.S. House select committee investigating the Capitol riot plans to begin holding public hearings in the new year to continue examining the events leading up to the attack on the Capitol by a mob of then-President Donald Trump's supporters. The nine-member congressional panel is eyeing to publish an interim report containing initial findings by the summer, with the final report expected to be delivered in the fall.

"We hope to be able to tell the story to the country so that they understand it isn't just about that one day, Jan. 6, but all that led up to it. What happened on that day and the continuing danger going forward," House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the select committee, said.

Democrats have denounced the Capitol riot as an attack on democracy as Trump's supporters attempted to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the 2020 election winner. However, most Republicans have downplayed its implications, especially Trump's alleged role in inciting it, and opposed an investigation into the attack. In a letter to House Republicans on Sunday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy emphasized his party's opposition to the Capitol riot, while accusing Democrats of using the probe "as a partisan political weapon to further divide our country."

The select committee faces an uncertain future if Republicans take control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections. Liz Cheney, the committee's vice chair and one of its only two Republican members, has urged Republicans to "be founded on fidelity to the Constitution."

"I think the country needs a strong Republican Party going forward, but our party has to choose. We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both," Cheney said Sunday on "Face the Nation."

Americans are still divided on the performance of the select committee. About 53 percent of Americans say the congressional probe is "important for the future of democracy," while 42 percent call it "a waste of time away from other important issues," according to a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll released on Tuesday.

Specifically, 88 percent of Democrats say the committee's work is important while 78 percent of Republicans call it a waste of time. The poll also showed that a 54 percent majority say they are "not very confident" or "not at all confident" about the findings of the final report prepared by the select committee.

POLITICAL DIVIDES DEEPEN

The mixed view over the select committee mirrors the deep political divides that are reflected in Americans' colliding views on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the outcome of the 2020 election, legislative priorities, as well as mask and vaccine mandates.

Americans still disagree on whether the Capitol riot represented an effort to undermine democracy. The USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll showed that 85 percent of Democrats call the rioters "criminals," while two-thirds of Republicans say, "They went too far, but they had a point."

Just 54 percent of Americans believe that Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, while 47 percent believe that there were real cases of election fraud that changed the outcome, according to a recent survey conducted by Schoen Cooperman Research.

Partisan differences have become more pronounced in terms of how individuals view and experience the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, Republicans are less likely than Democrats to report wearing masks and practicing social distancing, and Republicans make up an increasingly disproportionate share of those who remain unvaccinated, according to multiple surveys conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

More than 57 million COVID-19 cases and over 831,000 related deaths have been registered across the United States, according to the Johns Hopkins University. However, there is no consensus in the country on masking, vaccination and other mitigation measures that would help end the prolonged COVID-19 crisis at an early date.

Despite the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, Republicans have mounted challenges to Biden's vaccine mandates across the country, accusing the Biden administration of overstepping its authority. Furthermore, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been divided for months over legislative priorities including a COVID-19 relief package, new social safety programs, climate initiatives and voting reform.

Republicans say the Biden administration's massive spending plans would cause more inflation and add to national debt. But Democrats and the White House argue that Biden's spending package would help ease inflation by lifting long-term economic growth and reducing the cost of living for low- and middle-income households.

DISTRUST IN AMERICAN DEMOCRACY PERSISTS

While Americans know a lot more today about the planning and execution of the Capitol insurrection, "there is insufficient alarm over what this means for American democracy," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West said.

"There are grave risks facing the country as most Republicans still support Trump. The United States has not learned the lessons of the events from a year ago and face the risk that it could happen again," West pointed out.

Roughly 46 percent of Americans believe that a similar attack on the Capitol is likely to happen, according to the USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll. Meanwhile, a significant chunk of the electorate continues to believe in clearly false conspiracy theories about both the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack rather than grapple with what happened.

Future elections will likely be tainted by the same level of deep distrust that existed in 2020, according to the recent survey conducted by Schoen Cooperman Research. About 31 percent of Americans are not confident that votes in the 2022 midterm elections will be counted fairly and accurately, and 29 percent say they would not trust the results if their preferred candidate does not win the 2024 presidential election. Overall, more than half of Americans say that U.S. democracy is at risk of extinction, including 49 percent of Democrats and Republicans, as well as 54 percent of Independents.

Clay Ramsay, a researcher at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, pointed out that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot illustrated how "the news and information systems of the United States are basically out of order."

"Facebook and Twitter have shown they know how bad it is by banning a few individuals from their platforms -- but they aren't willing to take the more important step of making public the algorithms that are forcing misinformation and over-the-top passions to the front of the political discourse. We know some of the changes to make. If we do nothing, we can only expect more of the same," he said.