Democrats and media have repeated the claim that the January 6th, 2021 Capitol Riot was an insurrection. The Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center published last week a study discrediting their claim. The analysis revealed that most of the rioters were loyal to President Trump.
Yet, it’s likely that you have never heard of this.
The Harvard Crimson reports that Shorenstein Center researchers conducted the largest study yet of what drove Trump supporters to attack Capitol. They found that 20.6 per cent of the rioters were motivated by Trump’s fraudulent claims. “Another 20.6 per cent of the rioters claimed that Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election were rigged to be their main reason for taking part in the Jan. 6riot.”
The study’s authors knew this was not what they expected. Kaylee Fagan, one the study’s authors, stated that she didn’t expect the results to be so stark. “I didn’t think those motivations would come up as frequently as they did.
The study stated that “documents show that Trump and his associates convinced an unquantifiable amount of Americans that representative democracy was not only in decline but in imminent, existential risk.” This belief led to a widespread fear about democratic and social breakdown that drove hundreds of Americans from all corners of the country to DC in what they believed was the nation’s most desperate hour.
It is clear that the researchers were not pro-Trump. They dismissed allegations of irregularities in election results as “lies about fraud” and appeared shocked that QAnon was not a major motivator for the rioters.
Jonathan Turley, constitutional scholar, notes that it is possible to express regret about Jan. 6th but not claim that it was an insurrection or attempt to overthrow our nation.
The memo has not yet been sent to the J6 Committee.
