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A Year After Capitol Riot, Americans Fear for Their Democracy: Polls

One year after the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, Americans remain deeply concerned about the health of their democracy and about a third say violence against the government can sometimes be justified, according to two polls published Sunday.  

The January 6 attack on the seat of Congress, led by supporters of Donald Trump, was “a harbinger of increasing political violence,” and American democracy “is threatened,” according to two-thirds of those surveyed for a CBS News poll.   

Meantime, Americans’ “pride” in their democracy has dropped sharply, from 90% in 2002 to 54% now, a Washington Post/University of Maryland survey found.   

With the January 6 anniversary nearing, the polls offer specific causes for concern: CBS found that 28% of respondents believe force can be used to defend the result of an election, while 34% told The Washington Post that a violent action against government can sometimes be justified — the largest percentage in decades. 

The results underscore the seemingly almost irreconcilable views dividing American society, which President Joe Biden — who took office 14 days after the Capitol rioting — has promised to overcome. 

On Thursday, he and Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver remarks to mark the one-year anniversary of the assault by Trump’s supporters.   

Two-thirds of his supporters continue to believe Trump’s baseless charge that Biden is not the legitimately elected president. 

Trump had addressed thousands of supporters shortly before the Capitol assault, telling them the election had been “rigged” and that they should “fight like hell.” 

Some 60% of those polled say Trump bears heavy responsibility for the invasion of the Capitol just as lawmakers were set to certify Biden’s victory. 

There again, opinion follows partisan lines: 83% of Trump voters placed his level of responsibility at only “some” or “none,” the Post survey found.   

And 26% of Americans want him to run again in 2024, according to CBS.   

A select committee of the House of Representatives has spent months working to establish the roles and responsibility of those who incited or may have organized the protest.    

Despite limited cooperation from Trump’s inner circle, the panel has conducted more than 300 interviews and collected thousands of documents.    

“We have uncovered some things that cause us real concern, things like people trying to… undermine the integrity of our democracy,” the panel’s chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson, said Sunday on ABC. 

“It appeared to be a coordinated effort on the part of a number of people to undermine the election,” he said. “It could be people in the executive branch. It could be people in the Department of Defense… and some very wealthy individuals.” 

He said he would not hesitate to refer any evidence of illegality to the Justice Department.  

Liz Cheney, one of only two Republicans on the panel, on Sunday strongly condemned Trump for waiting hours before urging the Capitol rioters to stand down. 

He could easily have issued such a call, she told ABC. “He failed to do so. It’s hard to imagine a more significant and more serious dereliction of duty.” 
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Twitter Bans US Lawmaker’s Personal Account for COVID-19 Misinformation 

Twitter on Sunday banned the personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for multiple violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy, according to a statement from the company. 

The Georgia Republican’s account was permanently suspended under the “strike” system Twitter launched in March, which uses artificial intelligence to identify posts about the coronavirus that are misleading enough to cause harm to people. Two or three strikes earn a 12-hour account lock; four strikes prompt a weeklong suspension, and five or more strikes can get someone permanently removed from Twitter. 

In a statement on the messaging app Telegram, Greene blasted Twitter’s move as un-American. She wrote that her account was suspended after tweeting statistics from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a government database which includes unverified raw data. 

“Twitter is an enemy to America and can’t handle the truth,” Greene said. “That’s fine, I’ll show America we don’t need them and it’s time to defeat our enemies.” 

Twitter had previously suspended the account for periods ranging from 12 hours to a full week. 

The ban applies to Greene’s personal account, @mtgreenee, but does not affect her official Twitter account, @RepMTG. 

A Greene tweet posted shortly before her weeklong suspension in July claimed that the virus “is not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65.” According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people under 65 account for nearly 250,000 of the U.S. deaths involving COVID-19. 

Greene previously blasted a weeklong suspension as a “Communist-style attack on free speech.” 
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January 6 Riot Probe Wants to Know Why Trump Failed to Call It Off

The congressional investigation into the riot at the U.S. Capitol last January is zeroing in on why then-President Donald Trump did nothing for more than three hours to stop his supporters from ransacking the building and clashing with police as lawmakers sought to certify that he had lost the 2020 election, the panel’s chairman said Sunday.

Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that the nine-member investigative panel wants to know what Trump was doing during “187 minutes of inaction,” as he watched the riot unfold on television from a dining room off the Oval Office at the White House.

“We came perilously close to losing our democracy,” Thompson contended.

One of the committee’s two Republicans, Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a vocal critic of Trump, told ABC’s “This Week” show, “He could have told [the rioters] to stand down. He didn’t do it.”

Thompson said, “The president has been in court trying to prevent us from seeing the record” of his phone calls, other messages and documents as his daughter Ivanka Trump, Republican lawmakers and Trump administration officials urged him to make a statement urging more than 800 of his supporters inside the Capitol to leave the building.

“What he’s doing is typical Donald Trump modus operandi,” Thompson said. “He sues, goes to court, tries to delay. But we’re convinced we’ll have access to those 187 minutes.”

A U.S. appellate court in Washington has ruled that the investigative committee has a “uniquely vital interest” in seeing any documents related to the riot and its planning, but Trump has appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s ruling, saying his White House documents should be shielded from public release.

At a rally near the White House before the January 6, 2021, rioting unfolded, Trump urged supporters to “fight like hell” at the Capitol to keep lawmakers from certifying that Democrat Joe Biden had defeated him in the November 2020 election. More than 725 of the rioters have been arrested and charged with an array of offenses, from minor ones like trespassing to more serious crimes, including attacks on police.

While ignoring initial entreaties to call off the protesters, Trump eventually released a short video calling for the rioters to leave, but telling them, “We love you; you’re very special.”

As he does to this day, Trump mentioned in the video the false conspiracy theory that he actually won the election, saying, “I know your pain; I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it. Especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace.”

After the Capitol was eventually cleared of protesters, Congress certified Biden’s election victory in the early hours of January 7.

Thompson said his panel, which includes seven Democratic lawmakers, Cheney and another vocal Republican critic of Trump, Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, is looking closely at the planning behind the attack on the Capitol as some Trump Republican stalwarts attempted to keep him in office and thwart Biden’s inauguration last January 20.

Thompson said, “We know [Trump] wanted people” to come to Washington, telling them it was “going to be wild.”

Of particular interest, Thompson said, were conversations involving the White House and Trump officials at the nearby Willard Hotel in the lead-up to the rally and during the riot at the Capitol.

“It was not a comedy of errors, I can assure you of that,” Thompson said. “We’ll get to what we believe was the truth.”

“It appeared to be a coordinated effort among a number of people to undermine the election,” Thompson said in an interview on ABC, not a spontaneous protest that got out of hand as protesters stormed past barriers into the Capitol, smashed windows and doors and scuffled with police.

He said the panel is seeking to interview two Trump-supporting Republican lawmakers, Congressmen Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Jim Jordan of Ohio, who played roles in trying to overturn Biden’s victory.

“I would hope they’d come in voluntarily” to testify to the committee, Thompson said, but did not rule out subpoenaing them.

He declined to speculate on whether the committee could refer evidence of wrongdoing in the planning of the January 6 demonstration and Trump’s inaction during it to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. But he said the panel will not shy away from doing so if it decides such a referral is warranted.

Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021, and has continued to contend the election was stolen from him.

Trump has increasingly made political appearances, hinting at a possible 2024 campaign to retake the White House. Trump has announced plans for a Thursday news conference at his Florida retreat along the Atlantic Ocean on the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riot.
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New Year, New Laws for US States

A new year brings a new mayor for New York City and new laws in many of the 50 U.S. states. 

Democrat Eric Adams was elected in November to be the next leader of the largest city in the United States. He succeeds Bill de Blasio, who served two terms as mayor, beginning in 2014. 

An inauguration ceremony planned for Saturday was postponed because of the rise in cases of the omicron variant of COVID-19. 

On the other side of the country, the city of Seattle is getting a new mayor as well, with Bruce Harrell assuming the post Saturday. 

Among the many new laws going into effect at the state level are increases in the minimum wage in a number of states, including California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New Mexico. 

Such laws are the result of legislation approved by state legislatures and governors, and in some cases, the minimum wage increases will go into effect in stages over the course of several years. 

Animal rights, voting rights 

Virginia has a new law preventing cosmetics companies from testing their products on animals. 

In Washington state, people who have served prison time for felony crimes now regain their right to vote as soon as they leave prison. 

Nevada is making it easier for people to cast their votes by mail with a new law requiring that all registered voters receive a ballot by mail for each election.

Helping others 

A new Texas law provides property tax exemptions for certain charity groups that provide housing or other aid to people experiencing homelessness. 

In Illinois, people who work at restaurants and truck stops will receive required training to help them identify potential instances of human trafficking and report suspected cases to authorities. 

A New Hampshire law strengthens penalties against people convicted of multiple offenses of drunken driving in cases where they harm or kill someone. 

A new law in Colorado will make it easier for people who were victims of sexual assault as children to report their assaults, removing the existing statute of limitations for prosecuting such lawsuits. 

Health, wellness 

The state of Connecticut is enacting caps on how much people pay for insulin and other diabetes management supplies. 

Montana is joining the states that allow recreational sales of marijuana. It will be legal in parts of the state where a majority of voters approved it. 

In Pennsylvania, the city of Philadelphia is banning employers from conducting pre-employment testing for marijuana. 

And in Missouri, health insurance providers must make coverage available for certain mental health conditions as part of their plans. 

 
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Black Voters Mull Biden’s Record in Office

African American voters helped propel President Joe Biden to the White House and were instrumental in securing Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. A year later, some of Biden’s most loyal supporters are increasingly frustrated about 2020 campaign promises not realized.

“I voted for Biden but feel disappointed his administration hasn’t delivered more for the Black community,” said Joseph Mitchell, 36, of Silver Spring, Maryland. “There are many places where Black people are hurting, impacted by COVID-19 and the economic downturn from the pandemic.”

Mitchell told VOA he wanted more action on economic empowerment and health care.

“Our community needs a helping hand, especially now,” he said.

It’s a familiar message aimed at Biden, who campaigned on delivering on a broad range of economic, health and social policy reforms to improve the lives of African Americans.

Those promises helped him win 92% of the Black vote in last year’s election, according to a Pew Research Center study.

Biden, a former vice president and longtime senator, can point to key economic initiatives enacted during his time in the Oval Office, including pandemic-related federal stimulus and a bipartisan infrastructure bill. But ambitious social initiatives that would address long-standing complaints by African Americans have stalled in Congress, including protecting voting rights, enacting police reform and winning passage of a massive social safety net and environmental spending plan known as Build Back Better.

Biden’s pledge

“You’ve always had my back, and I’ll have yours,” said then-President-elect Biden as he thanked Black voters in a victory speech last year.

After taking office in January, Biden took executive action on several fronts, issuing orders to spur investment in minority-owned businesses, boost minority home ownership and solidify funding for historically Black institutions of higher learning.

But getting more substantial initiatives through Congress, even though Democrats hold narrow majorities, has proved difficult. Congressional negotiations have failed to yield a bipartisan police reform bill. Senate Republicans have blocked voting rights legislation. Senate Democrats have yet to achieve unified support for Build Back Better.

Some observers fault Biden’s approach and see him as too passive in the face of congressional inaction.

“I think President Biden may appear tone deaf in the way he’s approaching trying to implement these social policies,” said Jatia Wrighten, a political science professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

“Democrats have a majority in both the House and the Senate, but Mr. Biden is so busy trying to ensure that everyone is on the same page to compromise and negotiate,” Wrighten told VOA, adding that impatience and building frustration in Black communities pose a political danger for Biden and Democrats more broadly heading into the 2022 midterm elections. “I think the president is losing the voters who got him there because he doesn’t come off as taking a stronger stance on issues of race.”

Role of Congress

At the same time, some Black voters say they understand Biden can’t enact transformative legislation on his own.

“I feel the frustration, but he needs the help of Congress,” Leighton Newlin, an African American councilman-elect in Princeton, New Jersey, told VOA. “Biden promised these things because he thought he was going to get better reaction and cooperation from members of his own party. Biden has failed to deliver on some things important to Blacks, but I don’t put all the blame on the president.

“I think the president’s policy approaches may have been a little more effective in a different time,” said Wrighten. “But in this political climate, they’re just not resonating with the Black community as being serious, effective and strong.”

Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have cheered the stymieing of major planks of Biden’s agenda, arguing that the federal government should not dictate to individual U.S. states how to run elections and that supercharging social spending would further kindle inflation in the United States.

Legislative battles ahead

The coming year is expected to see renewed efforts by Biden to win congressional approval of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. The bills, which would counteract state-led efforts to limit or scrutinize voting in ways seen by critics as making it harder for minority voters to cast ballots, passed the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives but have been held up in a politically divided Senate.

Republican lawmakers call the measures a “power grab” that would benefit Democrats at the ballot box.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, has pledged to bring the bills to the floor for votes in January. Biden continues to signal strong support for both.

“There’s nothing domestically more important than voting rights. It’s the single biggest thing,” Biden said on December 16 while touring tornado damage in Kentucky.

The administration’s push for voting rights comes after a year in which several Republican-controlled state legislatures enacted restrictive voting laws.

“I think when he took office the president should have started his agenda with voting rights because it’s the foundation of our democracy,” Newlin said. “Without that, we have no democracy.”

Despite the holdups, Biden told students at South Carolina State University, a historically Black college, earlier this month that he was not giving up on strengthening voting protections.

“We must pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We must,” Biden said. “And we are going to keep up the fight until we get it done.”

Civil rights activists want more than words.

“Don’t forget that Black voters landed a victory for this president and this Congress, so don’t fail us again,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson, head of the nation’s largest civil rights organization, in a prepared statement responding to the Senate’s late-October failure to pass federal voting rights legislation.

For its part, the White House insists the fight is not over.

“Our agenda for the Black community is not about one or two bills,” said White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at a briefing with reporters last month. “Clearly, the voting rights and police reform bills are critical and important, and we’re going to continue to work very hard towards them, but it is weaved throughout numerous policy initiatives, executive orders, legislation.”

Jean-Pierre added, “Equity is at the center of everything Biden does as president.”

Ratings fall

Biden’s approval ratings have dipped in recent months and now stand at just 43% nationwide, according to an average of polling data compiled by fivethirtyeight.com. Polling data reported last month also showed a decline in Biden’s approval ratings among African Americans.

Such data has Democrats fretting and Republicans salivating as the nation heads into an election year. Political observers note that bipartisan cooperation typically becomes even more difficult as an election season heats up.

“With the midterms coming, these sorts of initiatives [important to Black voters] will face major obstacles, and overcoming them is going to be a difficult job for President Biden,” Wrighten said.
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2021 Saw Blinken Facing Coups and Conflicts, Repairing Key Alliances

The Biden administration came into office vowing “America is back,” with Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledging to work closely to boost ties with allies. But unexpected crises, coups and conflicts in Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine have also commanded the top U.S. diplomat’s attention in 2021. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.

Produced by: Rob Raffaele
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