Joe Biden heads to the Capitol this Thursday, one year after the assault on the Chambers, to set off the alarm bells about the attacks on democracy in the United States. “Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as the norm? One where we allow partisan electoral officials to override the legally expressed will of the citizens? One that is not guided by the light of truth but by the shadow of lies? ”, He asks citizens in his speech. Addressing Donald Trump, he affirmed: “He does not accept that he has lost.”
On January 6, 2021, a crowd of supporters of then-President Donald Trump, defeated in the elections, invaded Congress to try to boycott the confirmation of Biden’s victory. The Democrat also plans to direct his darts at the Republican in his speech on Thursday, the White House advanced on Wednesday. The current president has addressed the nation from Statuary Hall, the noble hall through which that same day men and women with Trump flags and hats paraded, some of them disguised, such as the popular Jacob Chansley, headdressed with bison horns. and nicknamed “the Shaman of Qanon”.
Trump is not singled out only for his long campaign of discrediting the US electoral system, but because that same damn day he took hours to ask his followers to leave the Capitol and because until the last moment, he justified the violence. “These are the things and events that occur when a sacred and overwhelming victory is aggressively wrested from great patriots who have long been mistreated and unjustly. Go home in peace and love. Remember this day forever! ”He wrote on his Twitter account. It would be one of his last messages, before being expelled from the social network. Five people died that day.
The Democrats have wanted to color the anniversary with solemnity, with seriousness. The Congress will host prayers and moments of silence. Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham will also take the floor to “establish and preserve the story of January 6,” as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, said a few days ago. Not everyone has the same story.
The episode of a year ago showed the fracture of society, among other things, and the way in which that moment is remembered also exposes that growing distance between citizens. Republicans and Democrats look at the January 6 riot and its aftermath with different eyes. 92% of adult Democrats believe Trump is to blame for what happened, compared to 27% of Republicans, according to a recent poll by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland. And 40% of Republicans believe that violent action against the government may be justified at times, compared to 34% Democrats.
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