Naomi Lim of the Washington Examiner reports on Democrats’ approach toward the Jan. 6 anniversary.
Democrats spent the years after the Jan. 6 riot deeming President-elect Donald Trump unfit for office, but with voters returning him to the White House anyway, party leadership is now left weighing a new defining message.
For Republican strategist John Feehery, the politics of the Jan. 6 riot were never “potent” for Democrats despite prime-time public hearings by the Jan. 6 committee into the incident, during which Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was shot by police and 174 officers were injured, with some committing suicide in the months after.
“Complete waste of time and energy for the Democrats,” Feehery told the Washington Examiner. “Instead of spending time talking about issues the voters cared about, they wasted time talking about a mostly peaceful protest that really only resonated with those who watch MSNBC.”
Still, exit polling from last year’s election found 34% of respondents indicating that democracy was their top concern, whereas 31% said the economy mattered to them most, according to NBC.
Democrats used the Capitol riot to assert that Trump posed a threat to the rule of law.President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris attempted to appeal to that 34% with their respective campaigns’ rhetoric regarding democracy and freedom.
“Nearly 250 years ago, America was born when we wrested freedom from a petty tyrant,” Harris told a crowd at the Ellipse, the site of Trump’s Jan. 6 rally, the week before Election Day. “These United States of America, we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.”
Nonetheless, Trump trounced his way to a 312-226 Electoral College win, pulling in a 2.3 million popular vote margin over Harris. Those results are set to be certified on Monday, the fourth anniversary of the Capitol riot.
