Editorial: A year after US Capitol riot, 2022 shapes as big year for Republicans

Police with guns drawn face off against rioters trying to break into the House Chamber at the US Capitol in Washington, on January 6, 2021. Photo / Scott Applewhite, AP

Editorial

It's nearly a year since hundreds of people attended a rally in Washington and then violently ran amok in the seat of Congress at the United States Capitol building.

Last January 6 was the day Congress was due to ratify the Electoral College vote for the 2020 US election won by Joe Biden.

Outgoing Republican president Donald Trump lost by 232 EC votes to Biden's 306 and the popular vote by 74.2 million (46.8 per cent) to the Democrat's 81.2 million (51.3 per cent).

Trump spoke to the crowd before many of them marched to one of the symbols of American power and democracy. As part of his efforts to overturn an election he claimed was rigged, he urged followers to "fight like hell".

Seventy-one people have so far been sentenced for crimes committed from more than 700 charged. At least 220 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding officers at the Capitol.

A House of Representatives committee made up of seven Democrats with two Republican critics of Trump - Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger - has been investigating the events of that day and the planning and financing that preceded it. The committee has interviewed hundreds of witnesses and collected 35,000 pages of records so far, including texts and emails from people linked to Trump.

Its findings will be revealed later this year but it will have a hard task persuading the polarised US public to view the conclusions as based on fact and not politically motivated.

A Washington Post poll with the University of Maryland found that the public was deeply divided over what happened on January 6 and what responsibility Trump bears for it. One of the findings is that 40 per cent of Republicans and independents, compared to 23 per cent of Democrats, say that violent action against the government is sometimes justified.

A year on, Trumpism is the uniting feature of the Republican Party and internal critics are drowned out. The Midterm elections in November will dominate the political calendar and Republicans stand a good chance of making gains in Congress. Historically the party holding the White House usually loses congressional seats in the first Midterms of a new presidency.

The fact that the party has rebounded so quickly from the debacle of a year ago, speaks volumes about what a difficult year it has been for Biden and Democratic leaders.

The new president made early strides with the US vaccine rollout but then hit a wall. About 73 per cent of the total US population is either partially or fully vaccinated, compared to 78 per cent for New Zealand.

Now the US, like other countries, is going through a Covid surge, just as the public feels exhausted with the entire pandemic.

As with New Zealand, there's concern about high inflation. After early success, Biden's economic and policy agenda has been stalled by opposition from Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress such as Senator Joe Manchin.

From a high of 55 per cent approval last January, Biden has slumped to 51.6 per cent disapproving of him, according to a FiveThirtyEight.com average of polls. It's a virtual tie with Trump who has unfavourable ratings of 52.6 per cent.

After a mostly quiet 12 months in a pandemic-dominated year, 2022 will likely see a major return for Trump - the Republican Party's biggest influencer.