WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Since the deadly January 6 uprising on the United States Capitol, former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have been publicizing false and misleading accounts to minimize the event that left five dead and dozens of others injured. His supporters seem to have heard.
Three months after a crowd of Trump supporters invaded the Capitol to try to reverse their defeat in the November elections, about half of the Republicans believe the siege was largely a non-violent protest or was the work of left-wing activists “trying to do Trump looks bad, ”found a new Reuters / Ipsos poll.
Six out of 10 Republicans also believe that Trump’s false claim in that November presidential election “was stolen” from him due to widespread electoral fraud, and the same proportion of Republicans think he should run again in 2024, the 30 poll showed. to March 31st.
Since the attack on Capitol Hill, Trump, many of his allies within the Republican Party and right-wing media personalities have publicly painted a picture of the day’s events shockingly at odds with reality.
Hundreds of Trump supporters, mobilized by the former president’s false allegations of a stolen election, scaled walls of the Capitol building and smashed windows to get in while lawmakers were voting to certify President Joe Biden’s victory in the elections. The rioters – many of them wearing Trump campaign clothes and waving flags – also included well-known white supremacist groups, such as the Proud Boys.
In a recent interview with Fox News, Trump said the protesters represented “zero threat”. Other prominent Republicans, like Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, publicly doubted whether Trump’s supporters were behind the riot.
Last month, 12 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against a resolution honoring Capitol police officers who defended the motives during the turmoil, with a lawmaker saying he opposed the use of the word “insurrection” to describe the incident.
The Reuters / Ipsos poll shows that a large number of ordinary Republicans have embraced the myth. Although 59% of all Americans say Trump has some responsibility for the attack, only three out of ten Republicans agree. Eight out of ten Democrats and six out of ten independents reject the false claims that the siege of the Capitol was “mostly peaceful” or was staged by left-wing protesters.
“Republicans have their own version of reality,” said John Geer, a public opinion expert at Vanderbilt University. “Its a big problem. Democracy requires responsibility and responsibility requires evidence ”.
The refusal of Trump and prominent Republicans to repudiate the January 6 events increases the likelihood of a similar incident happening again, said Susan Corke, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which tracks hate groups.
“This is the biggest danger – normalizing that behavior,” said Corke. “I think we are going to see more violence.”
In a new reminder of the security threats that the United States Capitol has faced since January 6, a driver crashed a car at the Capitol police on Friday and brandished a knife, killing one officer and wounding another and forcing the compound. Capitol to be closed. The policemen shot and killed the suspect.
Allie Carroll, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said its members condemned the attack on the Capitol and referred to a January 13 statement by President Ronna McDaniel. “Violence has no place in our policy … Those who participated in the attack on our nation’s Capitol and those who continue to threaten with violence must be found, held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said McDaniel.
A Trump representative did not respond to requests for comment.
‘DANGEROUS ROTATION IN REALITY’
The disinformation campaign aimed at minimizing the insurrection and Trump’s role in it reflects a growing consensus within the Republican Party that his fortunes remain tied to Trump and his devoted base, political observers say.
According to the new Reuters / Ipsos poll, Trump remains the most popular figure within the party, with eight out of 10 Republicans continuing to have a favorable impression of him.
“Congressional Republicans have judged that they need to maximize Trump’s votes to win,” said Tim Miller, a former spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush. “This is the way back to the majority.”
Republicans in Congress show little sign of breaking with Trump. Shortly after the Capitol’s deadly siege, 147 Republican lawmakers voted against certifying Biden’s electoral victory. The Democratic-led House of Representatives impeached Trump for “inciting an insurrection”, making him the only United States president to be charged twice, but most Senate Republicans absolved him of the charge in a trial.
Last week, Republican Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana said the party must cater to working-class voters who make up Trump’s political base ahead of next year’s midterm elections, which will dictate congressional control.
“Members who want to exchange working-class voters because they resent the impact of President Trump … are wrong,” Banks wrote in a memo to Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy, whose content he posted on Twitter.
Banks was one of 147 lawmakers who voted to block certification of Biden’s victory and later voted against Trump’s impeachment. Banks did not respond to requests for comment.
Some conventional Republicans say that after Republicans lost the White House and control of both Congressional chambers under Trump’s supervision, the party must leave the former president to attract suburban, moderate and independent voters.
In the latest Reuters / Ipsos poll, only about three out of ten independents said they had a favorable view of Trump, the lowest level recorded since his presidency. Most Americans – about 60% – also believe that Biden won the November election fairly, and said that Trump should not run again.
Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of Trump’s top Republican critics in Congress, criticized the pressure to rewrite the history of the Capitol attack.
The disinformation effort is “a dangerous and disgusting version of reality,” wrote Kinzinger in a fund-raising appeal to his supporters last month, “and what is even worse is that it is not contested by so many in the Republican Party.”
The window for the Republican Party to distance itself from Trump appears to have passed, Miller said.
“After January 6, there was a chance that Republican leaders would really step down and say, ‘We cannot be the insurrectionist party,'” he said. “Now that opportunity is completely gone.”
The Reuters / Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, across the United States. He collected responses from 1,005 adults between March 30 and 31. The survey has a credibility range, a measure of accuracy, of about 4 percentage points.
Editing by Soyoung Kim and Alistair Bell