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US President Joe Biden: On the anniversary of the storm on the Capitol
Photo: Chris Kleponis / POOL / EPA
On January 6, 2020, radical supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Washington Capitol. Previously, the loser had publicly questioned Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election. A year after the dramatic events, American society is still deeply divided. A survey by Axios-Momentive now shows that more than 40 percent of Americans do not believe that Biden legitimately won the election.
According to the survey, only 55 percent of respondents said they believed in a legitimate victory for the Democrats. The US website Axios conducted a similar survey a good year ago. The values have hardly changed since then. Just prior to the Capitol storming, 58 percent of those polled said they accepted Biden as the legitimate winner of the presidential election.
Despite Biden's inauguration, the attack on the Capitol and the numerous investigations that have exposed the former president's fraud allegations as lies, the poll suggests that grave doubts remain among the US population.
"It's disheartening to see that this shocking thing we all witnessed over the past year hasn't changed people's perceptions," Laura Wronski, a senior executive at the Momentive opinion agency, told Axios news site.
Majority fears new violent actions
According to the survey, a majority of US citizens also expect events like the deadly assault on the Capitol to recur. Hundreds of radical Trump supporters stormed the Capitol a year ago when Biden's victory in the presidential election in November 2020 was to be certified there.
Immediately beforehand, Trump had renewed his often refuted election fraud allegations and called on his supporters to march on the Capitol. The storming of the seat of Congress with five dead caused horror worldwide and is considered a black day in the history of US democracy.
About 37 percent of those surveyed said they had lost confidence in American democracy, while 10 percent said they had never believed in the system.
Another 49 percent said they had confidence.
For the survey, which was conducted from January 1st to 5th of this year, nearly 2,700 adults were interviewed.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will be speaking in the Statue Hall of Congress on Thursday morning (3:00 p.m. EST).
Speeches by the Chairwoman of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, a minute's silence and a discussion with historians on the events of January 6 are also planned.
Up until now, Biden had largely followed the strategy of ignoring his predecessor and his ongoing allegations of election fraud, but now he wants to tackle the right-wing populists sharply.
In his speech, the president will highlight Trump's “responsibility” for the “chaos and bloodbath” of January 6, Biden's spokesman Jen Psaki told journalists on Wednesday.
He will also "vigorously oppose the lies spread by the former president to mislead Americans and his own supporters."
asc / dpa
