A supporter of President Trump waves a flag Tuesday outside a Washington, D.C., prison where some accused of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol were being held. On Monday, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people charged in the riots.
Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images
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Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images
David Brown, an independent voter from South Carolina, has voted overwhelmingly for Democrats over the past decade. But he changed things last year.
He said he voted for President Trump in the presidential election because immigration was one of his key issues and he felt he didn’t know enough about the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
However, just a day into the presidency he voted for, Brown did not approve of some of Trump’s early decisions.
He essentially disapproves of Trump’s decision to pardon approximately 1,500 people who participated in the riot at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“It was an insurrection because to me, he incited these people, but he let them go,” Brown said Tuesday. “I don’t agree with that.”
Brown, who is now retired, worked many jobs throughout his life. One of those jobs was working as a police officer in Washington, DC. Many of the people Trump pardoned were convicted of violence against police. And Brown said letting them go free amounted to an “abuse of power” and a “miscarriage of justice.”
“I think if (the rioters) were ordered to do something and they didn’t follow the officers or the police enforcement rules and follow what they said , they should serve their sentence,” he said. “I think it’s kind of a slap in the face to the legal establishment. … Everyone else needs to serve time. They should, too.”
Trump called the people who stormed the Capitol “patriots” and, in his pardon proclamation Monday night, called the Jan. 6 investigations and prosecutions a “national injustice.”
In an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll conducted earlier this month, before Trump took office, about six in ten Americans disapproved of Trump pardoning those involved in the January 6 insurrection — an attempt violently to stop the peaceful transfer of power after the January 6 insurrection. 2020 election.
According to the survey, 89% of Democrats, 62% of independents and 30% of Republicans disapproved of the pardons.
Dan Mauro is one of the independents who told pollsters he supports pardons.
Mauro, of Iowa, voted for Trump in the last three elections and told NPR in a follow-up conversation Tuesday that he knows people who attended peaceful rallies and gatherings in Washington on the day of the insurrection. He said he doesn’t think everyone who was at the Capitol should stay locked down.
However, Mauro said he had a harder time reconciling pardons for violent rioters with police.
“It’s hard to reconcile that,” he said. “I’m sure there will be a lot of people who will be upset by the Jan. 6 people. I can understand that. But if they didn’t physically approach a police officer, I have no problem with them.”
However, many of Trump’s most loyal supporters refuse to believe that the president’s other supporters were violent that day.
Mary Ann Perruzzi, a Republican voter in Massachusetts, said she believed Democrats were responsible for what happened at the Capitol, citing conspiracy theories she had read on social media.
“It was all a prank,” she said. “I’m really happy that they forgive them.”
Asked about the violence against law enforcement that day, Perruzzi denied that Trump supporters were responsible — despite public reports linking many of the attackers to right-wing groups.
“The Republican Party that was for Trump would not do that,” she said. “They love this country.”
Deborah Elmore is an independent voter who voted for Trump in 2016, but has since become critical of him and the Republican Party. She said she doesn’t understand why so many Americans stand with Trump on this issue.
She said she was “disgusted” by “the images of police officers crushed in front of the door” of the Capitol and “seeing people using the American flag to beat other people.”
She said Trump should not have pardoned these people.
“I think it’s horrible,” Elmore said. “It’s against everything this country is supposed to stand for. It’s against law and order. These people have been convicted of their crimes.”
