Inhabiting Different Worlds: How Partisan Attitudes Shape Americans’ Evaluation of the Black Lives Matter Protests and the January 6 th Insurrection

How does partisanship shape the ways Americans interpret major political events? We examine public evaluations of the Black Lives Matter protests and the January 6th insurrection using an original nationally representative YouGov survey alongside cross-sectional and panel data from the 2016–2024 American National Election Studies. We find that responses to both events are strongly structured by partisanship, but that this influence extends beyond party identification alone. Substantial differences exist within the two parties: MAGA Republicans and progressive Democrats diverge markedly from their co-partisans in their assessments of these episodes. Additionally, colder feelings toward the opposing party are associated with more polarized evaluations, with these relationships unfolding in opposite directions for Democrats and Republicans. Lastly, both Democrats and Republicans who perceive democracy as being under greater levels of threat also have more polarized evaluations of these key events. Although our evidence is observational, the consistency of these patterns across data sources and over time demonstrates the central role of partisanship in structuring how Americans interpret politically consequential events. The findings highlight how partisanship acts through various means, such as affective polarization, perceptions of threats to democracy, and factional identities within parties, to shape public evaluations of political conflict.