One year after the violent assault on the US 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 6 January 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. Meanwhile, Americans’ ‘pride’ in their democracy has dropped sharply, from 90 percent in 2002 to 54 percent now, a Washington Post/University of Maryland survey found.
In the meantime, after six months of intense work, the House committee investigating the insurrection is preparing to go public. In the coming months, members of the panel will start to reveal their findings against the backdrop of the former president and his allies’ persistent efforts to whitewash the riots and reject suggestions that he helped instigate them.
The committee also faces the burden of trying to persuade the American public that their conclusions are fact-based and credible. But the nine lawmakers – seven Democrats and two Republicans – are united in their commitment to tell the full story of 6 January, and they are planning televised hearings and reports that will bring their findings out into the open.
The Justice Departmentās investigation of the riot has now entered the punishment phase. So far, 71 people have been sentenced for riot-related crimes. They include a company CEO, an architect, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, a gym owner, a former Houston police officer and a University of Kentucky student.
Many rioters have said they lost jobs and friends after their mob of Donald Trump loyalists disrupted the certification of Joe Bidenās presidential victory. Fifty-six of the 71 pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Most of them were sentenced to home confinement or jail terms measured in weeks or months, according to an Associated Press tally of every sentencing. But rioters who assaulted police officers have gotten years behind bars.