American democracy needs to heal – that means moving on from the Capitol riot

Editorial: President Biden is entirely right to think that his predecessor holds ‘singular responsibility’ for the ‘chaos and carnage’. But he might have been better advised not to say so

An astonishing number of Republican supporters regard the 2020 election as illegitimate (AP)

A year on from the infamous events of 6 January 2021, and what has changed for America? Depressingly little it would seem. Indeed, for some, notably former president Donald J Trump, the “stolen” election of November 2020 has still not been concluded, still less accepted.

A Trump press spokesperson, the latest in a long line of those charged with defending the indefensible, insists that the “real insurrection” occurred when some vast conspiracy involving the Democrats and virtually every state, federal, law enforcement and judicial body delivered the White House to Joe Biden, a man painted as virtually a foreign agent of China or (ironically) Russia, and a man set on implementing a socialist people’s republic and abolishing the constitution.

The madness, in other words, has not ended, and shows no sign of doing so. Despite some stirrings of sanity among the Republican Party leadership, Trump’s hold on the party is still tight, and candidates for public office still make the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to pledge allegiance.