Four years after the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol, the Republican narrative that what happened was peaceful and legitimate appears to be gaining some ground.
Not only because Donald Trump — widely credited as the instigator of the attack on Congress — has been elected to return to the White House but because Trump’s persistent denials about the events of that day appear to be taking hold. They have been repeated by his closest allies in Congress — even among some Republicans who were in fear of their lives that day — and sold as fact to the MAGA faithful.
One measure of the changing attitudes about this historical event comes from a series of polls conducted by YouGov and the The Economist.
In 2022, the poll found 51% of Americans saw January 6 as violent insurrection; 27% saw it as legitimate political discourse; and 21% said they weren’t sure.
There was a slight uptick in 2023 among those who saw the day as a violent insurrection, with 54% seeing it that way and 25% saying it was legitimate political discourse, still with 21% saying they weren’t sure.
But now, in a poll taken just weeks before the fourth anniversary of January 6, the same poll found only 46% of Americans believe the events of that date in 2021 were a violent insurrection, while 29% now say the mob at the Capitol engaged in legitimate political discourse. More significant, perhaps, is that the share of Americans who say they don’t know which story is true has grown by four points to 25%.
Despite photographic and video evidence showing the violence of that day, despite the number of people injured and killed, despite the report of the January 6 Select Committee, more than half of Americans do not see those events as a violent insurrection.
Writing for the research firm Statista, Felix Richter explains: “Trump’s political comeback, which seemed impossible in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the Capitol, was accompanied by a gradual re-telling of the events of January 6. Back in 2021, Trump himself described the events as a ‘heinous attack on the United States Capitol,’ promising that the protesters who had ‘defiled the seat of American democracy’ would pay for their actions.
“And pay they did. As of Dec. 6, 2024, the U.S. Justice Department had charged more than 1,500 individuals for federal crimes associated with the Capitol breach, of which almost 1,000 pled guilty to at least some of the charges and another 255 were found guilty in trial. And yet, in October 2024, Trump — now the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election — no longer condemned the events of January 6, instead calling it ‘a day of love,’ much to the outrage of the 138 police officers injured during the attack.”
And now Trump has promised to pardon the “peaceful protesters” once he’s back in the White House.
Digging deeper into the YouGov/Economist polling from late December 2024, the idea of Trump pardoning those convicted of crimes on January 6 is favored by only 33% of Americans — overwhelmingly Republicans (63%) rather than Democrats (7%).
And despite Trump’s attempt to reshape the story, the latest poll found 49% of Americans say Trump has some or a lot of responsibility for the January 6 events — including 83% of Democrats and 17% of Republicans.
Put another way, however, there is a discrepancy between those who disapprove of what happened January 6 and those who think it was a violent insurrection: Only 15% of Americans currently approve of the January 6 Capitol riot, including 9% of Democrats and 27% of Republicans.
Further, only 6% of Republicans think Trump did something illegal around the events of January 6.
“Winners write history, and Trump won. And his version is that it was a peaceful gathering. Obviously completely untrue.”
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., told the Associated Press all evidence of the January 6 riot has been removed from the Capitol. “It’s been erased,” he said. “Winners write history, and Trump won. And his version is that it was a peaceful gathering. Obviously completely untrue.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges after January 6. She told AP that was “a very, very dark time” and some lawmakers “do want to really put that behind us.”
The shifting narrative on what happened that day has made any effort to memorialize it politically divisive.
“If you’re starting to put plaques up, it looks like it even further emphasizes the divide on the issue. And maybe the biggest remedy is just to keep moving forward,” former Republican Sen. Mike Braun told AP. Braun now serves as governor of Indiana, a role once held by former Vice President Mike Pence, whom rioters on January 6 sought to hang.
There are no markers to the January 6 event on the Capitol grounds.
Law enforcement officers attempt to block rioting supporters of Donald Trump from breeching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (via CBS News)
In March 2022, Congress passed a law requiring “an honorific plaque listing the names of all of the officers of the United States Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and other federal,State, and local law enforcement agencies and protective entities who responded to the violence that occurred at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
The law stated this memorial was to be installed within a year. Yet nearly three years later, no such plaque is displayed.
New York Rep. Joe Morelle told AP refusing to display the plaque is part of an effort to “deny January 6 happened and the harm it caused to the U.S. Capitol Police force.”
On this fourth anniversary of the attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president of the United States, The New York Times devoted its podcast, “The Daily,” to a report on how Trump and his allies are rewriting the story.
“Donald Trump and his allies have set out to sanitize the events of that day,” host Sabrina Tavernise says.
The show includes audio clips of Trump calling January 6 “a day of love and peace” and explaining his intent to pardon those convicted of crimes that day who are being held as “hostages” by the federal government.
“It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful January 6 protesters or, as I often call them, the hostages,” Trump says. “They’re hostages.”
BNG coverage of January 6 from 2021:
Pastors respond to unbelievable events at Capitol on Epiphany 2021
Toxic masculinity, 24-hour news and complacency fed the Jan. 6 riots | Opinion by John Jay Alvaro
It’s past time to admit the hard truths behind the Capitol riots | Opinion by Wendell Griffen
Denominational leaders denounce Capitol violence while evangelicals offer mixed responses
Broken churches, broken nation: Will evangelicals ‘recalculate’ or rebel? | Opinion by Bill Leonard