On January 6, 2021, hundreds of angry people gathered outside the US Capitol to protest the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president. Some forced their way inside the building to try to forcibly stop that process.

Today, as we mark the one-year anniversary of that attack, Americans continue to disagree about these events, and their meaning.

What happened, and why? Opinions differ. Sharply.

Survey after survey measures the partisan split. A recent poll found that 78 percent of Democrats said the protesters who entered the US Capitol were “mostly violent.” Just 26 percent of Republicans agreed.

Sixty-six percent of Republicans don’t think the storming of the Capitol was an attack on the government, and 77 percent say former president Donald Trump — who certainly fired up the crowd outside the White House that day — bears no responsibility for what happened later at the Capitol.

While, 76 percent of Republicans said they disapproved of “those who forced their way into the Capitol,” 56 percent of Republicans say protesters were “defending freedom.”

Still another survey reports that 72 percent of Americans said rioters were mostly “threatening democracy,” but a quarter of respondents said they were mostly “protecting democracy.”

We shouldn’t be surprised by these wide differences of opinion. News sources favored by Republicans have reported the January 6 story mainly by showing peaceful protesters waving flags and chanting “USA.” Those most often frequented by Democrats have repeatedly shown images of protesters forcing their way into the Capitol building, angrily confronting police, threatening lawmakers, and chanting “hang Mike Pence” — an expression of their fury that the then-VP had refused to halt congressional certification of Biden’s election victory.

Given this polarization, neither future media coverage nor the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the US Capitol will change many minds ahead of midterm elections in November.

What does this mean for America’s political future?

There are also unsurprising divisions of opinion about Trump. Some 94 percent of Democrats say he’s tried to undermine democracy over the past year, while 85 percent of Republicans disagree.

And his future ambitions? Trump’s popularity with GOP voters remains undeniably strong. Some 78 percent of Republicans want him to run for president in 2024, a boost from 66 percent last May.

In addition, Trump has worked to cement his hold on the Republican Party ahead of the midterm elections and the 2024 presidential vote. Since leaving office, he’s aggressively used his popularity with GOP voters to endorse more candidates than in the past, to back many more pro-Trump insurgents in races against Republican incumbents whose loyalty Trump questions, and to inject his name into local races that determine how future elections are administered. That could help Trump overturn future vote results much more easily.

That last point speaks to Top Risk #3 in the annual global geopolitical risks report from Eurasia Group, our parent company. If Republicans win back control of Congress in 2022, it becomes easier for them to boost Trump by rejecting certifications of elections in 2024.

What about the floundering Democrats?

While 65 percent of Americans consider President Biden’s 2020 election victory “legitimate,” his leadership isn’t inspiring much confidence these days. A composite of current polls puts President Biden’s approval rating at just 43 percent. That number is lower than every president of the past 75 years, except Trump, at this point in his presidency.

Unless Biden turns that around, his unpopularity will offer Republicans a sizable advantage in the midterms, which historically favor the party outside the White House.

In fact, the Democrats’ best chance for a stronger-than-expected showing in November lies in delivering on their promises on Capitol Hill. This week also marks the one-year anniversary of the surprise runoff victories of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in Georgia, which gave the Dems majority control of the Senate. Everything Democrats moved through Congress in 2021, including trillions of dollars in pandemic relief and infrastructure investment, was made possible by that result.

If Democrats can use the next 10 months to move more legislation — in particular, the controversial Build Back Better Act to rewrite the American social contract — their ability to prove they can get things done might help them match Republican enthusiasm and voter turnout.

One year after the insurrection at the US Capitol, how do Americans reflect on that event and its aftermath? Has it brought people together from across the political divide who collectively regret this stain on American democracy? Nope. Surveys show that Republicans, and GOP-leaning voters, overwhelmingly think that former President Trump is not to blame for what went down on January 6, 2021, and that pursuing the rioters now is not a priority. Democrats, on the other hand, firmly disagree. We take a look at voters’ views taken right after the insurrection as well as nine months later.

One year after the US Capitol insurrection, what's the state of American democracy? For former US national security official Fiona Hill, not good.

"We're still grappling with the ongoing consequences of that particular event," she says. In her view, the events of January 6, 2021 laid bare "the deep divisions, the partisan infighting, the polarization within our society" — which resulted in American citizens storming "a building that is supposed to be a unifying symbol, symbol of freedom, of representational democracy, not of repression."

For Hill, we haven't fully processed yet what a big deal it all was. Why? One reason is that we lack a common narrative on what actually happened between Democrats and Republicans.

She also thinks those facing the music for January 6 should realize they've been lied to. Once they recognize that, Hill says, she'd sue those that egged them on under false pretenses — starting with former president Donald Trump. Watch this clip from her interview with Ian Bremmer in the upcoming episode of GZERO World.

Kazakh political turmoil. “Dozens” of anti-government protesters have been killed by security forces in Kazakhstan, which has declared a state of emergency over the worst political crisis in a decade. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev sacked the entire government in response to widespread street protests, which started days ago over a planned fuel price hike. Since then, the demonstrations have morphed into wider outrage against an entrenched regime, in power since the Central Asian republic broke away from the USSR in 1991. Things are escalating rapidly in Almaty, the business capital, where demonstrators have reportedly set the presidential palace on fire. Tokayev — who took over in 2019 as the handpicked successor of former strongman Nursultan Nazarbayev — now says he may assume wider powers to end the crisis and asked Russia to send in “peacekeepers” under the umbrella of the CSTO, a Moscow-led grouping of former Soviet Republics. Vladimir Putin, always wary of popular uprisings in the Kremlin’s sphere of influence, is one of the two world leaders closely watching developments in Kazakhstan along with Xi Jinping, given that China is thirsty for Kazakh oil, gas, and minerals.

Macron wants to make the unvaccinated miserable. French President Emmanuel Macron is in hot water after saying he wants to make life difficult for unvaccinated people (he used the French word emmerder, which translates to “piss off” or “hassle.”) The unrefined comment comes as omicron cases are surging in France, while hospitalizations are also steadily rising. As the public health situation deteriorates — and the collective appetite for lockdowns wanes — the French parliament passed a bill tightening requirements for the health pass system, so that proof of a negative test will no longer be enough to enter public places like restaurants, bars, and museums. While France has a solid vaccination rate — 73 percent of the population is fully vaxxed — a very vocal vaccine-hesitant constituency has rallied against government containment measures. Naturally, Macron’s political opponents used the unfolding scandal to smear the president just three months out from a tighter-than-expected presidential election: far-right hopeful Marine Le Pen accused the incumbent of “continuing his policy of division.” It’s unclear if this mini-scandal will have real political implications, but Macron — who in the past has been accused of being an aloof elitist detached from real people — can hardly afford another misstep as he tries to maintain a steady lead in the polls.

2: Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro was discharged two days after being admitted to a hospital with an intestinal obstruction. Bolsonaro's latest health problem is related to when he was stabbed while campaigning in 2018, which also caused him to develop chronic hiccups months ago.

20,000: A Taiwanese distillery bought 20,000 bottles of Lithuanian rum bound for China, after learning that Chinese customs might block the shipment to punish Lithuania for allowing Taiwan to open a de-facto embassy in Vilnius. The company is enticing Taiwanese consumers to purchase the booze by sharing tips on rum cocktails and rum-infused cooking.

440: A small-town mayor in northern Niger was arrested after 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of pure cocaine were found in his vehicle. Drug seizures are on a recent upswing in West Africa, which narcos use as a transit point on the way to lucrative markets in Europe.

62: North Korea conducted on Wednesday its 62nd ballistic missile test in a decade, by firing a projectile — which Pyongyang says was hypersonic — that landed in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. During his 10 years as North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un has blasted three times as many missiles as his dad, and six times as many as his grandfather.