When the riot ended, Congress returned to its business early Thursday morning and affirmed Joe Biden’s presidential win. Donald Trump’s January 6th insurrection could not change that. What changed was the nation’s sense of itself and the world’s image of the United States.
Reports of insurrection came in a flood Wednesday. Scenes of chaos played out at the U.S. Capitol as a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol complex instigated by the outgoing president himself.
Calling his election loss an “eggregious assault on democracy,” Donald Trump told a rally they should walk down the Mall and confront Congress. “And I’ll be there with you,” he said. But after getting the mob moving, true to form Trump retreated to the White House.
As a joint session of Congress attempted to conduct the business of formalizing the presidential win of President-elect Joe Biden, the mob in MAGA hats began chanting QAnon slogans. They then swept past police barricades, overwhelmed Capitol security, and entered the building through smashed windows and doors. The Secret Service whisked Vice President Mike Pence to a secure location and the members of Congress took shelter.
“We’re storming the Capitol. It’s a revolution,” Elizabeth from Knoxville, Tenn. told a White House reporter for Yahoo News. Police had maced her as she tried to enter the Capitol.
Pro-Trump extremists broke windows, ransacked offices, shouted “Trump, Trump” and “Whose house? Our house!” as they went. They included a Republican West Virginia state delegate who streamed the assault. Many carried Trump flags while a couple bore Confederate ones.
In a standoff with police, one woman was shot and killed, reportedly a QAnon cultist from San Diego. Three others died from “medical emergencies.” Police found a couple of improvised explosive devices somewhere outside the building.
“It’s not over!” several rioters told an MSNBC reporter on scene. “Wait till we come back with guns.”
“It was literally an attack on democracy,” Sky News reported. The world looked on aghast.
With few exceptions, the overwhelmingly white extremist mob received very different treatment at the hands of police than largely peaceful Black Live Matter protesters had in the summer. Black and brown Americans watching could not miss it. White insurrectionists posed for selfies with Capitol police inside the building.
Laura Clawson posted at Daily Kos:
At every moment of the Trumpist assault on the U.S. Capitol, differences have been glaringly visible between how these overwhelmingly white, far-right people have been treated and how protesters for racial justice have been treated over the past year by the very same law enforcement agencies. From the fact that the Capitol prepared for Black Lives Matter protests with ranks of heavily armed officers while claiming to have been simply caught unawares by an assault on the Capitol that had been telegraphed in advance, to the violence meted out to racial justice protesters while members of the crowd that violently stormed the Capitol were “gently walked … down the stairs,” as CNN reported, it’s impossible not to see. (If you’re honest.)
The pro-Trump protests reached beyond Washington, D.C. There were generally peaceful incidents in Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, Utah, Oregon and Washington. A mob breached the grounds of the governor’s mansion in Olympia, Wa. In Salem, Ore., protesters burned Gov. Kate Brown (D) in effigy.
Trump eventually issued a tepid video statement advising his followers to be peaceful. But he repeated that the election had stolen from him, the same meassage with which he fueled the riot. Trump issued more incitement tweets from his bunker until Twitter and Facebook suspended his accounts.
The man is pathological. That was clear from the moment in June 2015 when he descended the escalator in Trump Tower and began his campaign by inveighing against Mexican rapists.
With 13 days left in his presidency, what more might Trump do? Some low-level White House staffers have resigned to distance themselves from Trump and charges of sedition or inciting a riot. More resignations are expected. But with Trump increasingly isolated and agitated, as his days count down he remains a clear and present danger to public safety.
Trump cannot remain in office until Jan 20. A second impeachment demanded by some Democrats may be too little too late and could fail again. A block of Trump’s supporters in the House maintained their insistence the election was a fraud even after the riot subsided. Progressives in Congress have prepared a resolution calling for their expulsion.
Invoking the 25th Amendment to swiftly remove Trump from power requires more spine than in his entire Cabinet put together. I’m not holding my breath.
How many of these morons woke up Wednesday thinking themselves Real American™ patriots? By sundown the world knew them as pro-Trump, white-nationalist extremists engaged in seditious insurrection — domestic terrorists.
Never. Ever. Talk to me again about how much you love America.