US Capitol Police Officers work near a police barricade on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on August 14, 2022. A man died early Sunday near the US Capitol building after driving his car into a barricade and firing shots into the air before turning his gun on himself, police said. Photo: AFP

Ahead of the three-year anniversary of the Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021, a US think tank warned that the possibility of "domestic terrorism" and "acts of political violence" around the 2024 US presidential election has become the top concern for policy experts. 

Chinese experts said that although three years have passed since the Capitol riots, the public opinion base of US society has not been reconciled or bridged. On the contrary, on many issues, differences and polarization are intensifying with partisan politics, which means that the 2024 election will be unprecedentedly fierce.

According to the annual Preventive Priorities Survey released by the Council on Foreign Relations' (CFR) on Thursday, the growing political polarization in the US, which could lead to acts of domestic terrorism and political violence around the 2024 presidential election, is listed as the top concern for the first time in the report's 16-year history. 

Also on Thursday, a new report from Democrats in Congress said they found former US president Donald Trump's hotel and other businesses accepted more than $7.8 million from foreign governments during his presidency, after a Republican-led US House of Representatives committee announced it was advancing the impeachment of President Joe Biden's Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday. 

In December, 2023, the GOP-controlled House authorized the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, who later called it a "baseless political stunt," according to the Associated Press. 

Three years after the Capitol riot, instead of trying to reconcile or heal their differences, both parties have poured resources into smearing and attacking each other, deepening the rivalry and divisions on multiple issues and further dividing voters, Sun Chenghao, a fellow and head of the US-EU program at the Center for International Security and Strategy in Tsinghua University, told the Global Times on Friday.

The 2024 election is likely to be a repeat of the 2020 election, and no matter who wins, the losing side will find it hard to accept the result and create chaos, causing turmoil in US society, Sun said. 

Both Biden and Trump are expected to deliver speeches marking the Capitol riot anniversary, according to media reports

Citing Biden's reelection campaign, Reuters said Biden's speech near Valley Forge is set to make the case that Donald Trump poses an "existential threat to democracy," while Trump's camp blamed Biden for legal indictments of Trump and for judicial decisions declaring him ineligible for the ballot.

Trump, according to AP, will spend the anniversary holding two campaign rallies in leadoff-voting Iowa.

According to Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as things stand, the potential conflict in the 2024 election could be unprecedentedly fierce. 

With the expansion of extremism on both sides, the intensity of the partisan recriminations and attacks could rival those of the Civil War, said Lü, "Casting the other side as a 'threat to national security,' 'a threat to democracy' is something that has been rare in campaigns over the last few decades.

According to Sun, for the Democrats, the Capitol riot is a strong card to play, with many neutral voters tending to believe a Trump election would be harmful to US democracy, as Trump has yet to issue a concession statement acknowledging his defeat.

For establishment Republicans, the January 6 anniversary will be awkward, said Lü, "Trump is the most influential candidate in the GOP. Even if some people do not like Trump, considering that his huge amount of followers are an important source of votes, it is difficult to speak out against him directly."

In Sun's judgment, the period between the end of the primaries within parties and the presidential election may be the most volatile and chaotic period in US domestic politics in 2024.

In the very likely event of a Trump primary victory, all the resources within the GOP will be gathered behind Trump, allowing his faction to dominate the partisan race. In this case, the domestic and foreign affairs of the US, including its China policy, may see a large fluctuation, Sun explained. 

The decline of electoral politics is a common topic of discussion among observers. Electoral politics has become all about labels, unable to cope with the problems facing individual countries, said Lü.

"If you're a Republican, you have to approve carrying a gun. If you're a Democrat, you have to support homosexuality, and that kind of labelling doesn't solve the real problem."

The Biden administration has had plenty of opportunities to improve the nation's unhealthy state since it took office, but it has done little, Lü said.