One year after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Americans are deeply pessimistic about the future of democracy.
A new NPR/Ipsos poll finds that 64% of Americans believe U.S. democracy is "in crisis and at risk of failing." That sentiment is felt most acutely by Republicans: Two-thirds of GOP respondents agree with the verifiably false claim that "voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election" — a key pillar of the "big lie" that the election was stolen from former President Trump.
Fewer than half of Republicans say they are willing to accept the results of the 2020 election — a number that has remained virtually unchanged since we asked the same question last January.
"There is really a sort of dual reality through which partisans are approaching not only what happened a year ago on January 6th, but also generally with our presidential election and our democracy," said Mallory Newall, a vice president at Ipsos, which conducted the poll.
"It is Republicans that are driving this belief that there was major fraudulent voting, and it changed the results in the election," Newall said.
Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents agree that U.S. democracy is "more at risk" now than it was a year ago. Among Republicans, that number climbs to four in five.
Overall, 70% of poll respondents agree that the country is in crisis and at risk of failing.
Deep partisan divisions about what happened on Jan. 6
The country can't even decide what to call the assault on the Capitol. Only...
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https://www.wunc.org/2022-01-03/6-in-10-americans-say-u-s-democracy-is-in-cri...