On Jan. 6, 2021, the nation was rocked by the disruption of the certification of Joe Biden as our next president. With Donald Trump set to return to the White House in 2025, it is astonishing how much of that day remains a matter of intense debate.
Those divisions are likely only to deepen after a slew of recent reports that have challenged the selective release of information from the House January 6 Committee.
January 6 remains as much a political litmus test as it is a historical event. Whether you refer to that day as a riot or an insurrection puts you on one side or the other of a giant political chasm. I viewed the attack on that day as a desecration of our political process,, but I did not view it as an insurrection. I still don’t.
It was a protest that became a riot when a woefully insufficient security plan collapsed. And that is a view shared by most Americans. One year after the riot, a CBS poll showed that 76 percent viewed it as a “protest gone too far.”
A Harvard study also found that those arrested on that day were motivated by loyalty to Trump rather than support for an insurrection.
A recent poll found that almost half of the public (43 percent) felt that “too much is being made” of the riot and that it is “time to move on.” Of course, that still leaves a little over half who view the day as “an attack on democracy.”
The continued distrust of the official accounts of Jan. 6 reflects a failure of the House Democrats, and specifically former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to guarantee a credible and comprehensive investigation.
Read more at Thehill.com
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