Partisan Perceptions of January 6th, 2021

• In Event: Poster Session: Polarization, Cues and Information, and Public Opinion

Abstract

For the past three years, the attack on the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6th, 2021 has been a frequent topic in political discourse. A partisan divide over the events on January 6th, 2021 emerged in early 2021 at the impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump, with all 50 Democrats and 7 Republicans voting “guilty” and the remaining 43 Republicans voting “acquit.” The January 6th attack tested the democratic norm of peaceful transfer of power, as the attacks attempted to prevent the certification of votes from the 2020 presidential election. Public support for the January 6th attack could be seen as support for violating democratic norms, or it could be a more straightforward case of the public following partisan elite cues when forming political opinion. How has partisanship shaped perceptions of January 6th, 2021 for both political elites and the public? Do Democrats continue to be more united in their opinions on January 6th, 2021 than Republicans? I seek to answer these questions both for political elites and the public using a multimethod approach. I will be using Congressional newsletters to understand how members of Congress frame January 6th when talking to the public. These newsletters have a constituent audience and frequently contain Congressional members’ opinions about current issues and legislative priorities. They provide unique insight into how Congressional members are framing discourse about January 6 for the public. Theories of public opinion posit that people use partisan elite cues when evaluating political information. Thus, public opinion about the January 6th attacks should mirror elite opinion. In the case of divided Republican opinion, people will follow the opinions of partisan elites who have similar opinions on other issues. I expect that Democrats are more likely to criticize the January 6th attacks than Republicans. I expect that Democrats are more united in their opinions about January 6th than Republicans, with some Republicans defending the January 6th attacks and others criticizing the attacks. Because the public uses cues from political elites to form opinions, I expect these patterns hold both for members of Congress and the public. I use three sources of data, Congressional newsletters, public polling data, and a survey experiment. The Congressional newsletters are from the DC Inbox collection. The newsletters all contain the phrase “January 6” and span from January 6, 2021 to January 6, 2024. After verifying that the newsletters actually discuss the January 6 attacks, there are over 700 newsletters. Using textual analysis, I identify the top keywords and topics for each party when discussing January 6th. I use network analysis to understand which Congressional members are writing similar newsletters, to better understand how united the two parties are on this issue. I use public polling data from news organizations asking questions about January 6th from 2021-2024. The survey experiment manipulates the partisan cues of January 6th messages and measures subsequent opinions about the attack to test whether people are following elite partisan cues or the actual content of the messages. Initial results from the Congressional newsletters indicate that Democrats generally discuss January 6th, 2021 in terms of an attack on democracy. Republican topics include legislation related to January 6th, the investigative committees, and the defendants charged with crimes on January 6th. Polling data suggests that there is a partisan divide with Democrats being more likely to condemn the attacks than Republicans. This multimethod project contributes to ongoing research involving the January 6th attacks, and seeks to understand how both political elites and the public view this historic event. This project more broadly contributes to understanding how partisanship shapes both elite behavior and public behavior.

Author

• Jillian Andres Rothschild, University of Maryland