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In a statement, Senator Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, praised what he called the heroic efforts of law enforcement officers who protected the Capitol and delivered a veiled dig at Trump.

Romney was one of seven Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in his historic second impeachment trial for his role in the insurrection.

We ignore the lessons of January 6 at our own peril, Romney said. Democracy is fragile; it cannot survive without leaders of integrity and character who care more about the strength of our Republic than about winning the next election.

Former vice president Dick Cheney, whose daughter Republican Representative Liz Cheney has led the House committee investigating the attack and been among the partys few outspoken critics of Trump, said the anniversary of the attack was an important historical event.

He told ABC that he was deeply disappointed we dont have better leadership in the Republican Party to restore the Constitution.

In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Jan. 6 was a dark day for Congress and our country, adding he was grateful as ever for the brave men and women of the U.S. Capitol Police who served our institution bravely for that day and every day since. In the statement, which did not name Trump, the Kentucky Republican criticized Washington Democrats who he said are trying to exploit this anniversary to advance partisan policy goals that long predated this event.

It is especially jaw-dropping to hear some Senate Democrats invoke the mobs attempt to disrupt our countrys norms, rules, and institutions as a justification to discard our norms, rules, and institutions themselves, the statement continued.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham took to Twitter to criticize Biden after his speech for his brazen politicization of January 6.

Graham used the opportunity to reference the United States chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in which 13 troops were killed in a suicide bombing at Kabuls airport as they attempted to evacuate American allies and Afghan citizens.

The statements issued on the anniversary of the riot marked a departure from the way some Republican members of Congress behaved in the hours following the attack, when they did not shy away from criticizing Trump and his role in inciting the violence. In the months since the riot, many Republican members of Congress have sought to rewrite the events of that day.

After order was restored at the Capitol, Graham notably took to the Senate floor to deliver a speech in which he said Trump bears responsibility for the attack, and he attempted to distance himself from the then-president.

Count me out, enough is enough, Graham said.

In the days following the insurrection, McConnell said on the Senate floor that the mob was fed lies, and that they were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government, which they did not like.

In a speech in February, McConnell said Trump was morally responsible for the attack.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said during a press conference on Thursday that Jan. 6 is Christmas for the media and accused journalists based in Washington, D.C., and New York as being obsessed with the attack.

They are going to take this and milk this for anything they could to try to be able to smear anyone, whoever supported Donald Trump, DeSantis said.

See more reactions from Republican members of Congress here:

Amanda Kaufman can be reached at amanda.kaufman@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandakauf1.

Excerpt from:
Republicans reactions to Jan. 6 anniversary ranged from somber to flippant. Heres a look - The Boston Globe

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pauses for a moment of silence alongside fellow lawmakers and congressional staff members during a vigil Thursday evening to commemorate the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images hide caption

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pauses for a moment of silence alongside fellow lawmakers and congressional staff members during a vigil Thursday evening to commemorate the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It was an effort to stop the procedural certification of a presidential election that Joe Biden won and Trump lost. The mob was egged on by conspiracies and Trump's lies about that 2020 election.

Those are facts. One year later, and a day after the commemoration on Capitol Hill of that attack, those facts should be indisputable.

And yet millions on the right do dispute them. They've been convinced by Trump, reinforced by right-wing media and enabled by Republican elected officials that his meritless lies about a stolen election are somehow true.

They are not. The independent judiciary, with many judges who were appointed by Republicans and Trump himself, as well as audits in state after state, have rejected Trump's false claims.

How did this happen? A couple of reasons:

The media landscape is fractured. Confirmation bias is real if people believe something, there's likely a link on social media that shows them why they're right (even when they aren't).

There's fertile ground for that landscape, as trust in the media has declined over the last few decades. It hit 32% just before the 2016 election, the lowest ever recorded by Gallup. (As of 2021, it was a similar 36%.)

The decline in mass media coincides with the advent of Fox News, the conservative cable channel. Fox was created in 1996, about when Gallup found a majority of Americans said they had trust in the media.

Now, there are even more and even more extreme voices and outlets on the right, rife with misinformation and disinformation, that are gaining traction.

An NPR/Ipsos poll released this week showed that a majority 54% whose primary source of news is Fox News or conservative media believe falsely that there was major voting fraud in the 2020 election.

When Trump first took office and was still allowed on Twitter, he would write lots of controversial things.

When Republicans in Congress were asked about them, the answer routinely was along the lines of, "I didn't read the tweet."

It became something of a joke. Actually, Paul Ryan, who was House speaker at the start of the Trump administration, made the joke himself.

"Every morning, I wake up in my office and scroll Twitter to see which tweets I will have to pretend that I didn't see later," Ryan said in October 2017 at the annual Al Smith Dinner, which includes a political roast.

Six months later, Ryan announced he would not run for reelection.

Ryan and plenty of other Republicans had, during the 2016 presidential campaign, criticized Trump's views and behavior. But when he won, almost all GOP officials swallowed their criticism.

As Trump went largely unchallenged from his party, he demanded fealty from Republicans, they gave it to him, and his hold on the base grew.

So the path was paved early for Trump's lies as outlandish and baseless as they are to speed down the road to rank-and-file Republicans.

A similar trend has emerged this past year, since Jan. 6, as Republicans have largely avoided criticizing Trump's role and response to the insurrection.

"In many ways, except for a number of people who've emerged as true leaders, like [Rep.] Liz Cheney [R-Wyo.], against their party interest, a lot of this is ink-blot politics," said Kevin Madden, a GOP strategist and former senior adviser on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. "You see what you want to see on Jan. 6 based on your already-defined political persuasion."

Supporters take part in a vigil outside a Washington, D.C., detention facility to protest the treatment of prisoners charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Samuel Corum/Getty Images hide caption

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy didn't mince words in his criticism of Trump days after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

"The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters," McCarthy said plainly, a week after the siege. He had even called Trump on the day of the riot telling him to call off the insurrection.

But instead of keeping up the criticism and casting Trump aside, less than two weeks later, McCarthy flew down to Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida residence, and made amends. He released a statement and now-famous photo of the two of them, apparently having reconciled.

McCarthy wants to be the next House speaker and Republicans are favored to take back the House after the 2022 midterm elections.

In May, McCarthy came out against a bipartisan, 9/11-style commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack. This week, in a letter to his GOP conference, McCarthy derided the "actions of that day" and said the "Capitol should never be compromised and those who broke the law deserve to face legal repercussions and full accountability."

But there was no mention of Trump and his responsibility. Instead, McCarthy accused Democrats of using Jan. 6 as a "partisan political weapon to further divide our country" and pivoted to criticizing Democrats for being "no closer to answering the central question of how the Capitol was left so unprepared and what must be done to ensure it never happens again."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy watch as a military honor guard carries the flag-draped casket of former Sen. Bob Dole from the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 10, 2021. Greg Nash/AP hide caption

McCarthy is just one example. Two weeks after the Jan. 6 attack, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell went right after Trump.

And though McConnell in some instances has kept up his criticism of Trump, drawing attacks from the former president, McConnell's statement Thursday on the Jan. 6 anniversary mentioned nothing about Trump. Instead, he called Jan. 6 a "dark day," a "disgraceful scene" and also criticized Democrats.

"[I]t has been stunning to see some Washington Democrats try to exploit this anniversary to advance partisan policy goals," he said.

For Madden, Trump has this hold on the party base because Republican leaders aren't challenging him en masse.

"I think it's because he's directly communicating with the base and is really the only one," Madden said. "Everyone else is reacting to the Trump factor. ... Every force like Trump, where you to try and counter it, you'd have to do so relentlessly. Name one person who's done that."

Madden rattled off Republicans who might want to run for president in 2024, people like former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

"No one's taken him on directly," Madden said. "They've all been reactionary, and they've all ceded the rostrum to him."

Now, multiple surveys show Americans are sharply divided by party about what happened on Jan. 6.

For example, a December NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found 9-in-10 Democrats described what happened that day as an insurrection and threat to democracy. Just 10% of Republicans did.

A recent YouGov survey conducted for Bright Line Watch showed that only a quarter of Republicans said they believe Biden is the rightful winner of the 2020 election.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney walks with his daughter Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., vice chair of the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, in the Rotunda at the Capitol on Thursday. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP hide caption

Former Vice President Dick Cheney walks with his daughter Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., vice chair of the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, in the Rotunda at the Capitol on Thursday.

During the events commemorating the attack on the Capitol, barely any Republicans showed up. The only ones were Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.

"I'm deeply disappointed we don't have better leadership in the Republican Party to restore the Constitution," the elder Cheney said.

Let's just pause for a moment. That's Dick Cheney saying this.

On Thursday night, members of Congress gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol for a candlelight vigil to remember what happened a year ago.

But it was missing all those Republicans.

Imagine if all 535 members of Congress had been there and the message it would have sent about democracy's resilience.

See original here:
How false GOP views of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack came to be - NPR

I have a confession to make. I am contributing to the harmful alarmism that Susan Collins has identified as further eroding confidence in our elections by making too big of an issue of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, soon to be considered by the Senate.

I am alarmed that Republicans, including Sen. Collins, think it is OK for certain state legislatures to pass laws allowing them to overturn the election results in their states. It is alarming that Republicans, including Sen. Collins, are fine with their deafening silence, a silence so bold and alarming that it makes me want to do as John Lewis once said and make good trouble. I never thought that protecting voting rights was creating harmful alarmism, but if Sen. Collins believes so, it must be true.

Or is it? Perhaps Sen. Collins is herself alarmed that if too many people vote, as they did in the last presidential election, Republicans will lose. That would certainly be harmful to her and her Republican colleagues, who are eager to regain control of both houses and do who-knows-what with elections.

So, in fact, I guess, I am not causing harmful alarmism Susan Collins is. Why else would she be so against doing all she can to ensure all citizens can vote safely? Perhaps she should stop her harmful rhetoric and do her job, to defend our Constitution and defend the right of all people to vote. It is the American Way.

Gail DanckertKennebunkport

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Letter to the editor: Sen. Collins, fellow Republicans must break their silence - pressherald.com

Those early moments of the focus groups were a taste of the unexpected, illuminating and nuanced opinions that surfaced over the course of the discussions, which weve published today as edited transcripts (along with video clips). By using roughly the same questions for each group, we saw some of the predictable partisan divides, but also some overlap: Not only Republicans, but Democrats had some empathy for some of the Americans who stormed the Capitol, seeing them ordinarily as people who had real, understandable frustrations with the system. The rioters took it too far, but their frustrations, with the parties, with Washington, seemed recognizable to some of the Democrats, as my colleague Laura Reston pointed out.

These focus groups are the first in a new series by Times Opinion: We want to explore the views of Americans on the most critical and urgent questions and issues of the moment. While we publish dozens of guest essays and columns a week by experts and veteran writers, we also wanted to find new ways to explore and hear the opinions of wider cross sections of Americans. The focus groups are one small way to listen to the unfiltered voices of people talking about how they see America and its future, and to expand the role of commentary and opinion journalism to include voters who often feel voiceless in the national conversation.

We wanted to kick off the focus groups with a discussion of the health of American democracy, a core priority for Times Opinion and a subject explored with great depth in several guest essays this week about Jan. 6. Rather than hold one focus group featuring just Democrats or Republicans (generally, Ive learned, focus groups dont mix them!), we decided to hold two groups to be able to hear from members of both parties. The firms of Omero and Soltis Anderson oversaw the selection of the participants, striving for a diverse mix that reflected the makeup of the parties. The Times paid Omero and Soltis Anderson to organize and lead these focus groups; they do similar work for political candidates, parties and interest groups.

There were plenty of divisions: The Democrats largely rated the health of our democracy as in critical condition, while the Republicans veered largely between poor and fair. Several Democrats were focused on blaming the system of government and politics in America for the state of democracy and the events of Jan. 6., and there was strong hunger among them for radical change amendments to the Constitution, the abolition of the Electoral College, more term limits, lobbying reform. For some Republicans, the threat to democracy came more from government mandates and guidance on Covid-19, and an unfounded claim that Democrats would use the pandemic to push for more mail-in voting in 2024.

But there was also dissatisfaction with their own party leaders.

Republicans were frustrated with G.O.P. officials whom they viewed as driven purely by self-interest. Several Republicans were willing to criticize Donald Trump, but they did not like the shows of disloyalty by his cabinet members and allies who publicly criticized him. And, as Soltis Anderson noted, some Republicans argued that the rioters were separate from the Stop the Steal protesters on Jan. 6. (Trumps people dont act like that, one Republican said of the rioters.)

Read the rest here:
Opinion | What Democratic and Republican Voters Really Think About the State of America - The New York Times

Alicia Preston Xanthopoulos| Columnist

Former Chief Justice John Broderick is one of the smartest, kindest, thoughtful gentlemen our state is graced with and his recent words in this paper are something we should all read and take heed.

While I may not agree with every assertion in Make no mistake. America is broken., it is something to consider thoughtfully, as he clearly did while penning his opinion on the state of American discourse and our democracy.

Justice Broderick poses several questions and Id like to take a stab at answering two of them. Where are the Republican voices with the courage to speak up? Why are so many good Republicans remaining silent or objecting only in whispers or among a small circle of safe friends? While he may have been referring to our elected Republican leaders, let me answer from the perspective of a regular Republican folk. The answer is quite simple: We've been silenced.

More: Broderick: Make no mistake. America is broken.

The vast majority of we Republicans, and it is the majority of us, love our country, our democracy and dont demonize the opposition. We have friends on both sides of the political aisle and we are dismayed at the current discourse from the fringe of the Grand Ole Party. But, anytime we discuss it, we get attacked, ferociously and not just from our own side.

I expect extremists in my party to get angry when we call them out for being extremists, but, we get arrows shot at us from every angle.Ive been vocal about my thoughts on the Insurrection, and I believe it was indeed an Insurrection, and Ive been told by those on the rabid left, too little too late. Ive been told the fact Im still a Republican shows complacency for everything Trump may have done or saidit is a silent support of the violent acts of those at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to not leave the Republican Party. No words are strong enough, no sentences long enough, to be simply enough to appease those that actually agree with you on certain topics, if you are members of different political parties.

If I put hypocrite or hypocrisy into the search bar at the top of the email account attached to this column, I get literally dozens of past emails sent to me responding to something Ive writtenalmost every single one of them is in response to a time I disagreed with or condemned something done by my own party, or members of it. Every time in that instance, it is by a self proclaimed liberal or Democrat who is the sender.

The reality is, while Justice Broderick is authentic in his seeking for Republicans to rally against the unAmerican acts of perpetuating The Big Lie or not calling out Jan.6 and its participants and motive, the vocal Democrats on the far left are not. They don't want us to speak out as Republicans, they simply want us to become Democrats. The problem is, being a member of a political party is not like joining a social club. Im not a Republican to have cocktails with friends. Im a Republican because I believe in conservative principals and a free market and I am not responsible for every word or act of others in my party any more than Democrats are responsible for every word or deed of theirs.

More from Alicia Preston Xanthopoulos: Beautiful memories, an ugly lamp and a beloved uncle

So, to answer your question, Justice Broderick, why do so many of us stay quiet when sometimes we want to scream at the top of our lungs for the world to hear? Because, it's not worth it, man.

Life and we should all know this more than ever before is simply too short to keep walking into the wolves den, particularly when every known breed of wolf is laying in wait. The country is just too angry.So, we stay quiet, at least more than wed like to. More than we wouldve in years gone by.

We are remaining silent or objecting only in whispers or among a small circle of safe friends, because it is no longer worth it to speak out.We wont convince anyone of anything except that its a good idea to send a nasty email saying things like, Your life is filled with hate and ugliness ruled by greed, fear, hate and ignorance. You are a pathetic role model. That came from a self-proclaimed progressive in response to my fierce condemnation of the Jan.6th attack and Trumps role in it. And, yes, that email started with telling me to save my hypocrisy.

So we, the majority of conservatives and Republicans, (yes, majority regardless of what silly polls say,) stay quiet more often than not. We take solace speaking with each other and knowing how most of us feel. Its quite simply, just healthier that way and as I noted, we arent changing anyone's mind right now. Heck, Trump can't even change his own supporters minds about the vaccine, what could be expected of the rest of us?

More from Alicia Preston Xanthopoulos: Social justice warriors ruin fun teacher fundraiser

While I have the greatest respect for Justice Broderick and I know he loves this country that he has served in many honorable ways, let me point out one place I have more optimism about America than he might.

In his piece he noted, Unless things change, America will continue its sorry decline from being a democratic beacon to a world yearning to be free to just a sad example of a noble yet failed experiment in self-government. I am more optimistic than that.

Things will indeed change. When all the things causing our nation angst right nowget better and they will get better so will our national temperature. When COVID moves out, and the inflation slows and we get further away from the 2020 election cycle, we will get better. We may be broken, but as a country, we have plenty of glue the things we all actually believe in to put us back together again. Justice Brodericks piece actually demonstrated that, if you look closely enough.

Alicia Preston Xanthopoulos is a former political consultant and member of the media. Shes a native of Hampton Beach where she lives with her family and three poodles. The views expressed are those of the writer. Write to heratPrestonPerspective@gmail.com.

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Preston Xanthopoulos: The majority of traditional Republicans have been silenced - Seacoastonline.com