In the year since the January 6 attack against the U.S. Capitol, the public’s view of the legitimacy of the results from the election has remained remarkably unchanged. The attack, driven by Donald Trump and his political machine, sought to intervene in the constitutional process of certifying the results of the election with the goal of installing Trump as president despite losing the election.
A comparison of NPR polls held first in January 2021 and in December 2021 provides a chilling perspective. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, almost 6 in 10 Americans said they blamed Trump for the violent insurrection. Not surprisingly, this view is highly partisan. Eight in 10 Republicans disagreed that Trump is to blame for the violence while 92% of Democrats blamed Trump. Moreover, 78% of Republicans last January did not trust the accuracy results of the 2020 election in contrast to almost all Democrats (92%) trusted the results.
In the recently released NPR poll, more than half of Republicans still refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election despite all the evidence and court decisions confirming the legitimacy and accuracy of the election. Indeed, two-thirds of Republican respondents agree with the false claim that “voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election,” a key pillar of the Trump political machine.
These two polls point to several crucial lessons emanating from the January 6 attack: First, the potential for political violence remains high. In the recent poll, one-third of Republicans agree that “it is OK to engage in violence to protect American democracy.” The Trump political machine now is a large tent that includes white supremacists, the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and others who often participate in political violence. Trump’s rhetoric before and after the election advancing the Big Lie about a “stolen” election is a main driver behind this violence. Trump used the language of conflict when he said on January 6 to “fight like hell” and to “take the country back.”
We have learned that even after he was aware of the violence at the Capitol that he told the crowd to go home and then said he loved them and believed they were “very special.” Thanks to his rhetoric, one-third of Trump voters say the attack on the Capitol was actually conducted by “opponents of Donald Trump, including antifa and government agents.” According to this poll, most Republicans believe they were “exercising their correct legal right to contest the election,” or that they “did not go far enough.”
Second, in the year since the attack, we have seen a record number of state legislative attempts to restrict voting rights and to intervene in the electoral process. Republicans have introduced at least 216 bills in 41 states to give legislatures more power over elections officials. Of those, 24 have been enacted into law across 14 states to seek control over state election boards and to make it easier to overturn election results.
These legislative moves followed Trump’s infamous call to the Georgia secretary of state when he said “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.” Recently in Arkansas, Republicans wrote new legislation that allows a state board of election commissioners to investigate and “institute corrective action” on the voting process instead of their respective county clerks and local prosecutors.
Finally, since January 6, the culmination of violence, partisan electoral interference, Trump’s continued refusal to concede the 2020 election, and his rhetoric that led to the violent attack against the Capital has created such a lack of trust in the Constitutional process governing our electoral system that our democracy is at risk. The recent NPR poll found that 64% of Americans believe U.S. democracy is “in crisis and at risk of failing.” However, heightened risk is different from democratic implosion.
One potential bright spot is whether Trump’s political machine may be weakened after this year’s elections. If those candidates endorsed by Trump lose this fall, this may signal the decline of Trump’s grip on the GOP and a move back towards a constitutional framework of our elections. Let us hope so.
| Courtesy Howard Lehman, op-ed mug.
Howard Lehman is a professor of political science at the University of Utah.
