The President marked the first anniversary of the Capitol riots by criticising his predecessor’s ‘web of lies’.
As part of commemoration events on Thursday 6th January, Biden spoke from Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building. A year earlier, Trump supporters had rioted here, hoping to overturn the presidential election result. In his speech, Biden repeated his condemnation of those involved, and those who continue to spread misinformation about the election.
‘We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie’, said the President. At the start of this year, 70 per cent of Republican voters still believed that the election was stolen. This followed a series of lawsuits and recounts, that each confirmed the election’s reliability.
President Biden stressed how pro-Trump conspiracy theories undermine the voting system. One myth claims that thousands of deceased people were able to vote in the election. Another accuses poll workers of throwing out ballots, a theory fuelled by the former president’s rhetoric. By jeopardising American democracy in this way, Biden claimed that Trump values ‘power over principle’.
Similarly, Biden refuted Trump’s claim that an insurrection actually took place on the day of the 2020 election. In defence of the rioters last October, Trump argued that the storming of the Capitol was a legitimate protest, and that the election was the true moment of ‘insurrection’. The current president called this an attempt to ‘rewrite history’. He added that the real patriots were the Americans who fairly exercised their right to vote.
In her address, Vice President Kamala Harris also criticised the attack and warned that American democracy was threatened. Unlike Biden, she specifically referenced the voting rights bill that the Democrats have been fighting to enact. This legislation would make voter suppression more difficult, yet it has been repeatedly blocked by Republicans. Biden is seeking to overcome this obstacle by changing a legislative rule, known as the filibuster. If he is successful, he won’t need a 60 out of 100 majority to debate the bill in the Senate.
Predictably, public reactions to the January 6th commemorations have been mixed. Many Trump supporters believe that the Democrat’s message is simply part of a continued hoax to dupe Americans. Some of Biden’s supporters believe that this was his best speech yet. Others claim that the President’s language was too divisive, coming at a time when the country desperately seeks unity.
The events of last year are still a dark memory for many Americans. A federal employee in D.C., who wishes to remain anonymous, told me: ‘I don’t deal with politics, but I believe that what they [the rioters] did was wrong.’ He added that by ‘desecrating one of our political landmarks’, the perpetrators acted in a way that was un-American.
Rohan, a student from New Jersey, was living in the UK when the Capitol Building was stormed. He said: ‘I watched in despair and shock, sitting 3000 miles away, seeing my fellow Americans unravel their own democracy.’ Although he voted for Biden in the election, he explained how the riots encouraged him to become more involved in US politics. ‘Even though I have been living abroad for the last 4 years, America was still mine to call home and I will never take my duty as a citizen for granted again.’