Opinion: Ignoring 1/6 Facts Doesn’t Make Them Less True
Attention Must Be Paid to the 1/6 Hearings
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“There are none so blind as those who will not see.” That proverb has been around for half a millennium, but it perfectly describes the attitude of many former supporters of former President Trump toward the 2020 election and the attack on the Capitol.
When the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack restarted its hearings yesterday. Americans heard about “unhinged” attempts by Trump and his outside advisors to have the military seize voting machines. The committee also probed connections those close Trump associates had with extremist groups who stormed the Capitol, and built a case that Trump had intentionally summoned those groups to stop the certification of the election of Joe Biden.
However, after more than a month of hearings, one big question is whether they are having any significant impact in changing opinions.
The answer is no or, at most, negligible. First, people have mostly made up their minds. The conventional wisdom among Trump fans is that the hearings are a witch hunt aimed at destroying him. Trump opponents, on the other hand, see the hearings as a principled and needed investigation into an attempted coup, the most troubling domestic attack on American democracy since the Civil War.
Second, the committee is preaching mostly to the converted, because the unconverted just aren’t watching, despite appeals like those from former Trump Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who wrote in the Charlotte Observer that Republicans should pay attention to the hearings.
A Yahoo/YouGuv survey conducted between June 10 and June 13, after the first couple of hearings, found that 70% of those watching approved of President Biden’s job performance. For perspective, Biden’s approval stands at only 38.5% in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, so viewers are overwhelmingly pro-Democratic. The Yahoo survey also shows that only 9% of Republicans said they intended to watch hearings in the future. No wonder that a Quinnipiac poll released on June 22 found that only 14% of Republicans say they’ve learned new information from the hearings, despite there being plenty of it.
The hearings’ minimal effect on popular opinion is illustrated by an ABC News/Ipsos poll released June 19. It found 58% of Americans think Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the attack on the Capitol, but that’s only up a little from 52% in an ABC News/Washington Post poll released in May, and 54% in an ABC News/Washington Post poll taken just days after the riot.
None of this is surprising, given the reaction I received from “MAGA world” to a column I wrote after the committee’s first hearing.
Titled “All Americans Should Be Sickened by the January 6 Attack,” it focused on the powerful testimony of heroic Capitol Hill Police Officer Caroline Edwards. In graphic detail, she described the nightmare endured by officers during the riot. One argument I made is that everyone, including law-and-order Trump supporters, had to be infuriated by how the 1/6 attack led to the injuries of 140 officers.
Instead, I faced extensive vitriol and vulgarity on multiple social media platforms. Here’s a small sampling of the comments, leaving out the most offensive of them:
“We are all dead but you all are coming with us.”
“Blood is on your hands.”
“Garbage article out of touch with reality.”
“You’re a disgusting person.”
“Far left garbage.”
I was also swamped by multifaceted denials about the importance of what happened on 1/6, including false information and irrelevant points intended to shift blame and argue that the committee shouldn’t exist.
“Swamped” is no understatement. The following items address some of the issues raised and the misinformation being peddled. A second column will follow later this week.
Inflation, Biden Incompetence, etc. One reader wrote: “Don’t we have more concrete and serious issues to face?” Hundreds of comments like that one argued that Congress should not waste its time investigating the events surrounding 1/6 because the country faces far more important challenges. It does. According to the Yahoo/YouGuv poll, inflation is by far the most important issue for Americans, no matter their race, age, gender, or political persuasion.
The new inflation report, released today, shows inflation has yet to peak. The Consumer Price Index jumped to 9.1% in June. The price increases are the worst since December of 1981, above economists’ expectations, and across most sectors. With inflation soaring, interest rates rising rapidly, and the major stock indexes entering bear markets, Americans are feeling serious economic pain.
However, an attempt to stop the certification of a presidential election by Congress is of enormous historical consequence. And it’s silly to suggest that Congress can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Despite its many problems, Congress addresses myriad issues every day. Paying attention to one serious problem does not mean Congress will shut its eyes to another. (Readers also accused me of ignoring other issues by writing about 1/6, even though I’ve written a series of columns questioning Biden’s competence and highlighting inflation and supply-chain issues for almost a year now.)
Racial Justice Riots. In a similar vein, another reader writes: “How can you sit there and crab about January 6th when cities were overtaken with zealots over the whole summer of 2020?” Many others echoed her, arguing that congressional Democrats are hypocrites for investigating 1/6 but not installing a select committee to investigate the vandalism and looting in 2020 that followed the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
Reports indicate that the rioting in 2020 caused as much as $2 billion in insured losses, more than any other violent demonstrations in U.S. history. The total damages could be much higher. I believe it’s fair to say that Democrats did not condemn those riots nearly as emphatically as they’ve denounced the 1/6 attack. And a Rasmussen poll in July of 2021 showed that 66% of likely voters believe Congress should investigate the 2020 violence.
Even if you believe Congress bears blame for dropping the ball on fully investigating the riots following Floyd's death, that does not mean Congress should disregard 1/6.
“Unequal Justice”? Trump supporters argue that the people who invaded the Capitol have encountered harsher justice than the 2020 rioters. One reader said: “What really sickens me is how BLM, Antifa and the protestors involved in the riots and destroying property have never been charged.”
Not only is that another red herring to distract from the hearings, it’s also simply not true. Analysis by the Associated Press extensively rebuts claims that the Justice Department is more harshly treating the 1/6 attackers than the 2020 rioters. Also, a Washington Post tally found that more than 14,000 people across 49 cities were arrested in just the month following Floyd’s death. And analysis by Forbes indicates that authorities in Washington D.C. cracked down harder on racial rioters than on the Capitol invaders.
Other Complaints. Those are just a few of the issues raised by Trump supporters in response to my earlier column about the hearings. In my next piece, which I hope to publish by this weekend, I will look at many of the other arguments raised by Trump supporters.
They include how Newt Gingrich and others have described the hearings as a “show trial;” the roles of Pelosi and Trump in the security issues on 1/6; the alleged involvement of Antifa or other left-wing agitators; whether police opened the Capitol’s door for rioters to enter; whether the rioters had weapons; whether it was an insurrection or coup; and, most outrageously, the assertion that the rioters had the right to invade the Capitol, something a surprisingly large minority believes.
One final point here. In the Yahoo/YouGov poll cited above, more than three-quarters of Americans are concerned about the future of U.S. democracy, thanks in great part to the 1/6 attack. We must not forget that democracy has made this country great, and the American experiment has allowed the best political system humans have invented to spread around the world. Anything that threatens it should be of great concern to all.
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Cover photo: Stephen Ayres (L), who entered the U.S. Capitol illegally on January 6, 2021, and Jason Van Tatenhove (R), who served as national spokesman for the Oath Keepers and as a close aide to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, speak during the seventh hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on July 12, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Demetrius Freeman/Getty Images)