Democrats are fighting hard to make Americans care about their January 6 committee, but polling so far shows that interest continues to fade even as the partisan investigation ramps up in intensity. Republicans, Democrats, and independents are all losing interest in the committee’s work, which Democrats had hoped would be an election-winning weapon for the 2022 midterm elections and a serious check on Donald Trump’s influence.
January 6 committee struggling for attention
Democrats and the mainstream media are desperately struggling to keep memories of January 6 alive and prove that Americans think of the day as a new 9/11.
Liberals have now begun to admit defeat, but the committee was doomed from the start. With the exception of two venomously anti-Trump Republicans, the committee is made up entirely of Democrats.
Republicans and independents were never given any reason to believe that the investigation would be a bipartisan fact-finding mission rather than a political stunt.
Rather that stirring up public outrage over January 6, polling has shown that interest has only continued to decline throughout the committee’s lifespan.
The chances of anyone’s mind being changed by the January 6 hearings are slim, even if Congress can somehow convince voters to pay attention.
Most crucially, Americans in both parties and independents are increasingly likely to say that Trump was not responsible for the event. Assigning blame to the former president has always been the committee’s intended purpose, so this is bad news for the Democrats.
Americans have moved on
More generally, however, Americans are simply not as interested in January 6 as Congress continues to be. Voters have generally moved on and hope to see lawmakers focused on more pressing matters.
The economy is much more concerning to the average voter, and a committee designed to convince Americans that Trump cannot be allowed to return to office falls flat when voters compare Trump’s economy to the Biden economy.
If anything, Democrats have only hurt their cause by insisting on the life or death importance of the January 6 investigation.
The official line that it represented a violent insurrection or terrorist attack on the Capitol that nearly ended democracy has never been convincing to anyone but the most devoted Democratic voters.
Having operated from the beginning under the dramatic assumption that it was an orchestrated coup attempt, Congressional Democrats overreached and set themselves up for failure.
At its most basic though, January 6 fatigue and lack of interest in the committee can be explained by the fact that after a year and a half normal people are simply getting tired of hearing about it all.
