Six months after January 6, Republicans have a new message: Insurrection? What insurrection?
Six months after their leader tried to overturn the election he had lost by more than 7 million votes, Republicans have settled on a message about the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol: Insurrection? What insurrection?
From calls to let bygones be bygones, to punishing dissidents who dare criticize former President Donald Trump for instigating that day’s attack, to literally describing the mob as no different from everyday “tourists,” the Republican Party ― with notable exceptions ― has pushed the idea that the unprecedented attempt to overthrow American democracy was really no big deal.
And, if recent polling is correct, they appear to be succeeding. According to a recent Morning Consult survey, fully 41% of Americans believe that the riot of Jan. 6 has received “too much attention,” compared with 50% who do not. That figure is driven by 68% of Republicans who say that but includes more than a third of independents and even a quarter of Democrats.
Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor who believes the country barely dodged a constitutional crisis on Jan. 6, said many Americans simply would rather not think about that day.
“It’s human nature to suppress terrible forebodings that don’t quite materialize,” he said, adding that the barrage of Trump-inspired crises during his term likely laid the groundwork. “The cascade of terrible events and near-misses over the past four years has desensitized people if not entirely anesthetized them.”
Hans Noel, a political science professor at Georgetown University, said that Republicans also have an active interest in wishing Jan. 6 away.
“Generally, conservatives, particularly those who get their news from other conservatives, will come to downplay the attack,” Noel said. “Some of that is just believing it’s not a big deal. Some of it is not wanting to talk about uncomfortable facts as they come out. But this is the main thing: The partisan messaging on this has been to downplay it for Republicans, Trump supporters and others on the right.”
Whatever its causes, the process of memory-holing that day reflects Trump’s continued success at fashioning an outrageous lie and then browbeating Republican leaders into going along with him. [Continue reading…]