Four Years After the Capitol Attack of January 6 : A Violence Appeased, or Simply Deferred?

January 6, 2025 saw the certification of the 2024 presidential election take place in the most orderly calm. A joint session of Congress with the Senate - presided by defeated candidate Vice President Kamala Harris - fulfilling its Constitutional duty to officialize the will of the people and officialize Donald Trump’s victory to become the country’s 47th president. During the process, no objections were made to any of the states’ tallies, and the procedure was completed with little fanfare in just 30 minutes.

The tone and tenor of this day were at extreme odds with the exercise just four years ago, when a mob of 2,000-2,500 Trump supporters marched on Washington DC and stormed the Capitol to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory. Proponents of the "Big Lie", these rioters engaged in an act of symbolic and literal violence rarely seen in the United States. Their efforts to "stop the steal", "provoked" or encouraged by Trump, led to the deaths of five people (including one police officer) and the assault of more than 140 police officers. Within seven months, four responding officers from that day died of suicide. More than 1,500 participating individuals have been charged in court. Beyond the dramatic human toll lies the lasting imagery of the desecration of one of American democracy’s most hallowed and solemn sites, carried out by the very people it is meant to represent. The breach of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, remains one of the darkest days in American history. The memory of that violence continues to loom large over American society.

Election denial, particularly when normalized and cultivated by political leaders, represents a core threat to the integrity of the democratic process while also eroding public trust in institutions. Election denial rooted in the 2020 presidential election outcome occupies a central - and largely uncontested - place within the Republican party.

Since 2020, Republican leaders have increasingly come to embrace the Big Lie and the January 6 attack that followed. Within the party, support for both has become a veritable litmus test of loyalty to Donald Trump and to the party more generally. One prominent example of such a shift comes from Marco Rubio, Florida Senator and Donald Trump’s nominee to be incoming Secretary of State. Rubio voted to certify Joe Biden’s win in 2020, yet would not commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election. Throughout 2024, Rubio went on to publicly repeat several of Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Further, a number of early election deniers have seen their national prominence increase. Instead of being ostracized by GOP leadership or by American voters, they have in many instances been rewarded with political ascendency. A key example is Mike Johnson, current speaker of the House, who helped to orchestrate Trump’s legal challenge to Biden’s victory, relayed 2020 election conspiracy theories, and failed to certify the Biden victory following the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Elsewhere in American politics, election denial has been proven to pay. As of April 2023, 40 of the 50 US states saw nearly 230 Republican "2020 election skeptics or deniers" elected to important national or statewide positions such as US Congressperson or Senator, governor, lieutenant governor, state attorney general, and state Secretary of State among others. One third of current members of Congress either supported Trump’s attempt to overturn the election results or participated in questioning the election’s legitimacy. 

Donald Trump has played a central role in ensuring that January 6 is a rallying factor for both leaders and voters. He has carried out a years-long effort to both requalify the events of January 6 as a defense of the United States and to rehabilitate the rioters as patriots. The promise of pardoning those individuals convicted of January 6-related crimes during the first hour of his presidency was a central element of Trump’s campaign. In his own words, it would be his "great honor to pardon the peaceful January 6 protestors, or as I often call them, the hostages…a group of people treated so harshly and unfairly." Real, too, has been his threat to pursue and punish those in Congress - like former Congresswoman Liz Cheney - who investigated the events of the day, namely via the US House Select Committee specially created for that purpose. The new narrative constructed by Donald Trump in the weeks - and now years - following the January 6 attack is one of devoted Americans fighting to protect their country, and corrupt politicians - on the Left and the Right - unduly hijacking the people’s will. This discourse has been accepted widely by GOP leadership just as it has resonated with a majority of rank-and-file Republican voters.

Like their leaders - or perhaps because of their leaders - a large majority of Republicans continue to believe that the 2020 election was stolen by Democrats. On the heels of that election, 82% of Republicans said that Biden’s victory was due to fraud, compared to 68% in 2023. This number has remained remarkably stable in the face of extensive proof to the contrary. More notably, these voters’ perceptions of the January 6 attack and its perpetrators have since softened: in 2023, fewer Republicans agreed that the acts that day constituted a "riot" than did in 2021 (44% vs. 62%). And fewer Republicans in 2023 agree that the events could be qualified as an "insurrection" than did in 2021 (15% vs. 33%).

If Republican voters were subdued following the 2024 election and during the recent certification process, the very sparse polling data availablewould indicate that they are pleased with the outcome rather than newly confident in the US political system. Just days before the November 2024 election, nearly 9 out of 10 Trump supporters strongly or somewhat agreed that voter fraud would be a serious issue in determining the election result. After the election, less than 4 of 10 Trump supporters agreed that fraud indeed was a critical issue. Regardless, they continue to harbor resentment toward Democrats (and conversely). A YouGov poll shows that 88% of Republicans view the Democratic party unfavorably, marking an increase from 74% in 2023. The number of Republicans who view the Democrats "very unfavorably" jumped 20 percentage points during the same period (these numbers are similar for Democrat perception of the Republican party). Among Republicans who believe Trump won the 2020 election, three-quarters believe that Democrats are "evil" (compared with slightly less than half of all Democrats regarding Republicans). Further indicators show Americans remain deeply polarized with little to reconnect them: 64% of Republicans believe that Democrats do not share their values or goals (this figure is lower among Democrats), and among self-identified MAGA the number jumps to over 80%. Perhaps one of the few areas of common ground among the Right and Left is a dismal perception of US politics and its institutions more generally: among all voters, more than 6 in 10 express little to no confidence in the future of the US political system.

Since 2016, the progression of political violence in the United States has been an ever-climbing arc. While some highly visible acts have garnered media attention (such as the one against Paul Pelosi), countless others have remained relatively unseen by the general public. Yet, officials at the state and local levels have increasingly been subject to threats and violence. Between 2016 and 2021, for example, the number of threats received by Congresspeople increased by 1000%. Eight of ten local elected officials declare having personally experienced harassment, threats or physical violence. Since 2017, the number of threats against federal judges quadrupled. New statistics are not yet available for the short period since the 2024 presidential election. It is too early to tell if these more "banal" incidents of violence will drop meaningfully and durably with the victory of Donald Trump.

Perpetrators of political violence now tend to commit these acts in accordance with the electoral calendar. Conversely, individuals on the Left who partake in violence are much less likely to identify with the Democratic party and generally conduct their behavior outside of all electoral reasoning. And the average profile of the perpetrator of political violence is no longer a member of the fringe, radical Left; but rather a 40- to 60-year-old man, married with children, employed and part of the Middle Class, often members of Evangelical churches. This was indeed the main profile of those involved in the January 6 attacks. Instead of being ostracized for their participation in political violence, their communities - and political leaders - continue to embrace them.

Since the reelection of Donald Trump, the most public markers of political violence such as those seen on and before January 6, 2021, are notably absent. Nonetheless, the relative calm may merely be temporary. Indeed, the primary conditions allowing for the spread of political violence in the US remain fully intact: intense polarization of American society, mistrust of the opposing party and political institutions, mainstreaming of the authors of such violence, and the representation of election skeptics and deniers at the highest levels of political leadership. All of these factors seem to indicate that the re-eruption of violence is still looming on the horizon, simply waiting for the right occasion to present itself.

Copyright Image : Saul LOEB / AFP

Vice President Kamala Harris with Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives, during the certification of the presidential election result, January 6, 2025.