Harry Enten delivers some truth that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up:
The events of January 6 and its aftermath can be difficult to fathom. A number of Republicans don’t seem to comprehend them at all. They have fallen back on the lies that the riots we all saw on television and online that day were not an insurrection by supporters of Donald Trump.Dangerously, the base’s reaction to January 6 are part of a larger worldview about the 2020 election and its aftermath, all steeped in mistruths in an effort to protect Trump’s legacy.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll from late March found that an astounding 55% of Republicans agreed that the January 6 riots were led by left-wing protesters trying to make the former President look bad. Just 30% of Republicans disagreed with this statement.
What arguably makes this stat even worse is that people don’t believe or are choosing to ignore their own eyes. There is video literally showing rioters pumping up Trump and denouncing now President Joe Biden and Democrats.
There is no real proof that liberals were behind the insurrection. It’s a lie by some conservatives that was made up to excuse the violent actions of Trump supporters that day.
Republicans are also trying to perform some mind jujitsu by trying to separate out the insurrection from the larger January 6 protests. While it is true that some January 6 protesters were not rioters, many of them were.
Yet 51% of Republicans believe that the protesters were mostly peaceful and law-abiding. Put it together, a majority of Republicans think that the protesters were mostly peaceful, and a majority think those who rioted at the US Capitol were put up to it by left-wing agitators.
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Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that many Republicans are able to believe two things that seem to be in paradox with each other.
Republicans have believed unbelievable things about the election and its aftermath for more than half a year now.
The 51% and 55% are part of a larger package of lies propagated since the election. The majority who have false thoughts about January 6 is similar to the percentage of Republicans who believe, falsely, that President Joe Biden didn’t legitimately earn enough votes to beat Trump in the election.
These statistics being so similar makes a lot of sense. When you believe something ridiculous, it’s not the toughest jump to believe something else ridiculous on the same topic.
Moreover, if you are wrongly of the belief that the election was somehow stolen, you might too be OK with a riot to protest those results.
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We shouldn’t lose sight of how crazily high these stats are. They’re not normal, even in our deeply partisan age.
Biden clearly won the election with room to spare. In similar elections outcomes since 2004 (competitive but not too close), only about 10% to 15% of the losing candidate’s backers had no confidence that the votes were counted fairly. Following this past election, it’s around 50 points higher than that.
The difference between those elections and this one seems pretty obvious and is the same as the linking factor between the reaction to the 2020 election and the events of January 6: Trump.
Most Americans seem to recognize that link. A clear majority, 55%, told Quinnipiac University back in February that the riots wouldn’t have happened if Trump had not spent months lying about how the 2020 election was stolen. Not surprisingly, 59% of Republicans think the riots still would have happened without Trump saying anything about the election’s legitimacy.
Many Republicans can’t believe anything bad about Trump. Most, 68%, said that Trump did everything he could to stop the events of January 6. Just 25% of Americans overall believe that.Trump still has this almost hypnotic spell over most Republicans. This has led him to not only leading in the 2024 Republican primary polls, but puts him in the strongest polling position of any former President who could run for another term.
And because so many Republicans are willing to believe so many lies that make Trump look good, it’s a big reason you should take his polling advantage seriously.
Yes it is. I know I’m about to get boring with this but it’s just so important. Democrats are making a huge mistake if they hang everything on “economic recovery” for 2022. These economic upheavals are important and will obviously have an influence on the body politics, but unless they alert their voters to the danger coming from the right wing, they may just think everything’s coming up roses, no need to vote! The other side is working themselves up into a frenzy over the Big Lie and will come out in droves. It could 2010 all over again and that’s not good, not good at all.