Five years after Jan. 6 riot, few repercussions and even less agreement

Five years after a violent mob stormed the Capitol, the criminal repercussions may be gone, but the social divide remains. The big picture: President Trump's 2024 victory and his blanket pardons for nearly 1,600 people erased most of the legal impact from the day.Now the very history of the day itself is being called into question. The White House released a lengthy report on Tuesday, framing the day as peaceful and repeating the debunked claim that Trump won the 2020 election. What they're saying: "Until we can get clarity on what happened on Jan. 6, when it was all on film, and we've had court cases ... until there's a shared historical narrative of what occurred that day, it stays as a sad reminder that we're not really out of it. Jan. 6 is about an era we're living in," Rice University history professor Douglas Brinkley told Axios in a phone interview.Consider the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the riot — just two remain in Congress, and one of them, Rep. Dan Newhouse (Wash.), is retiring when his term ends next year. Of those ten, four lost re-election bids in their primaries and four chose not to run again. Between the lines: Many Americans fear that the riot defendants' impunity might fuel future political violence.Just under half expect election-related violence when their side loses an election, according to a 2024 CBS/YouGov poll.Some 75% of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters agree that politicians' aggressive speech could incite violence, per a recent Pew Research Center poll.Already, there's no shortage of political violence, such as the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the shootings of Minnesota lawmakers. And threats against elected officials and federal judges remain on the rise.For the record: "The media's continued obsession with January 6 is one of the many reasons trust in the press is at historic lows — they aren't covering issues that the American people actually care about," a White House spokesperson told Axios in an emailed statement."President Trump was resoundingly reelected to enact an agenda based on securing the border, driving down crime, and restarting our economy — the President is delivering."Zoom out: The debate about Jan. 6 will continue, as Republicans have created a new panel to investigate what happened that day. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told CNN last year that the goal was to investigate the Biden-appointed Jan. 6 committee, since their efforts "were rigged."Worth noting: A legally mandated remembrance plaque for Capitol Police officers and other first responders to the riot will not be installed in the Capitol, a spokesperson for Johnson told Axios, claiming that the legislation "authorizing" the plaque is "not implementable.""When the Speaker of the House can't put a plaque up properly about what occurred, that tells you there's a kind of immaturity — which does become sorrowful — that we don't have our act together on something like this," Brinkley said.The bottom line: The narrative has shifted since the riot occurred, and the future remains murky.Go deeper: Poll: Many Americans expect election-related violence over future losses