‘Sympathy’ Rising For Jan. 6 Rioters: ‘They Had A Point’

A shocking new survey is bad news for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and members of her partisan former January 6 Committee.

As reported by the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard, “an increasingly divided America is starting to show support for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol rioters, with over four-in-10 believing that they had a point or acted appropriately in forcefully disagreeing with Congress’s certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.”

Bedard was citing a new Suffolk University/USA Today survey that found 43 percent of respondents sympathized with the rioters as the third anniversary of the incident approaches on Saturday. The Biden Justice Department and FBI have arrested, prosecuted, and jailed hundreds of people who participated in the incident, even as rioters who besieged the White House and D.C. — as well as at federal facilities across the country, including a courthouse in Portland, Ore. — when then-President Donald Trump was in office have largely gone unpunished.

“The survey, which was completed shortly before the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Trump, showed sympathy for the rioters has increased among the voting public over the past several years,” said Suffolk’s report on the data.

“Only 48% of voters overall said they thought the rioters were ‘criminals,’ a significant drop from the 70% of voters who thought so in a Suffolk survey conducted just weeks after the attacks. Those who agreed that ‘they went too far, but they had a point’ rose to 37% from 24%, and 6% called their actions ‘appropriate,’ when in 2021 just 2% did,” it added.

Bedard noted further:

Saturday marks the third anniversary of the riots, and there are small events planned in Washington to note it. In the meantime, the Justice Department is continuing to round up over 1,000 it suspects of being involved.

Those who support the protesters just released a time-stamped video of the riots. They said the video provided better context for the actions of the rioters that day. The video is especially notable because it provides a new and clearer angle to the shooting death of protester Ashli Babbitt by a U.S. Capitol Police officer.

He added that the survey sought to take a deeper look into how voters are viewing the upcoming presidential and congressional elections. The results showed a “deep divide among voters, especially between pro-Trump, MAGA voters and those who back Biden.”

Regarding election integrity, 81 percent of self-identified Democrats surveyed said they have faith that the vote counting will be accurate compared to 52 percent of pro-Trump voters.

Citing the survey, Bedard also wrote that many of the respondents expressed concerns about the longevity of American democracy, an issue Biden and Democrats are already playing up even as the current administration prosecutes Biden’s chief political rival. Trump, meanwhile, has also said he plans to use those prosecutions to demonstrate that it is Biden and Democrats, not him and Republicans, who represent the bigger threat to the survival of democracy.

“The poll found that fears about the future of democracy extend across party lines, with the vast majority of voters expressing concerns, although for different reasons. More than eight in 10 voters (83%) said they worry about threats to democracy in the United States,” said Suffolk’s analysis.

“Top responses about the greatest threat included Donald Trump (18%), government corruption/dysfunction (10%), and immigration/open borders (8%). Asked which party is more responsible for threatening democracy, 40% of respondents said Democrats and 40% said Republicans,” the release said.

It also found that while there was a major shift in sympathy for the rioters, there was not much movement in how voters viewed Trump’s alleged involvement. That said, the poll found a dead heat for the White House, with Trump getting 44 percent and Biden 43 percent, well within the margin of error.