Dusk sets on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 after a long day of riots. Image source: BBC.
Over the past couple of days, I’ve sat down many times to write something about the events that unfolded in Washington D.C. last Wednesday. I’ve written many things about the events that transpired there but none of them felt right.
Here are the facts: On January 6th, 2021, domestic terrorists sporting Trump flags, Confederate flags, and weapons breached the U.S. Capitol. The last time the Capitol building was invaded was 1814 during the War of 1812. During this attempted coup on Wednesday, five people died and several more were injured. The Senate floor was overrun and there was an attempt to breach the House chambers. Members of the House, Senate, and Vice President Mike Pence were evacuated to a bunker. These domestic terrorists were incited by President Trump and his allies and attempted to take over the government and subvert the results of the recent U.S. presidential election.
As I watched these events unfold live on Twitter on Wednesday, I became angry. I still am angry, but this anger has been mixed with other emotions. I am also deeply saddened and horrified by what transpired. I am angry that the President of the United States incited the mob that marched on the Capitol. I am horrified by the domestic terrorists (many of them Christians) who carried out these violent acts. I am saddened by the fact that Black Lives Matter protestors wouldn’t have received the same treatment as the hoards of white Americans who ascended the steps to the Capitol. And, I am angry with the lawmakers and media groups that supported Trump over the past two months while he spouted lies about election fraud.
These events have caused great anger among many Americans. But, I believe we can also find hope in the midst of this. Before we get to the hope, we need to address the anger. Why are we angry? Who is responsible for this siege of the Capitol? In this essay, I have broken down the two key groups who are responsible for this attack: the domestic terrorists who carried out this attack and the president and his allies who incited it.
First, let’s look at the mob of domestic terrorists who breached the Capitol. These people have been called many things over the past day from protestors to rioters to “Antifa disguised as Trump supporters.” But make no mistake, these people were without a doubt radicalized Trump supporters and white supremacists seeking to take over the government and overturn an election that was won fairly by Joseph R. Biden.
There are many layers to this group of people. Some may say that they are not to blame for their actions because they were just following what they had heard from their leaders, but this narrative eliminates the element of personal responsibility. While these rioters were almost certainly antagonized by Trump and his allies, they decided to break the law. They alone are responsible for this. They decided to commit this act of insurrection. And, as a result of their actions, they must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
There is also significant evidence emerging that these attacks were planned and premeditate. Many of these domestic terrorists didn’t act on the spur of the moment. Careful planning and organizing had been done weeks in advance as outlined by Sheera Frenkel in a recent podcast episode of the “The Daily” by The New York Times. Many of these people did not come to Capitol Hill to peacefully protest, they came to wreak havoc.
There is also another layer to this first group of people and that is their blatant display of white privilege. If you don’t believe that white privilege exists, compare the events of yesterday to the Black Lives Matter protests from last year. Peaceful protestors last summer were tear-gassed and forcibly removed from a church in D.C. so that the president could have a photo op. The people at the Capitol were also tear-gassed eventually, but only after they had been allowed to roam the Capitol building invading the offices of members of Congress as well as the Senate and House floors. Many of these rioters walked out of the Capitol unscathed and are still free today. One of them even stole a laptop from Nancy Pelosi’s office and walked right out of the door with it. While Capitol Police were certainly overwhelmed, the lack of response to these domestic terrorists is shocking when compared to the literal tanks that were deployed last summer to respond to Black Lives Matter demonstrations. This double standard is even clearer when it comes to the president. Last summer, black people, fighting for racial justice, were called “thugs,” “terrorists,” and “anarchists” by the president. Two days ago, this same president called those who stormed the Capitol “very special” and ended his message to them saying “We love you.” We can debate whether the looting and burning of a Target and other businesses is a greater or worse crime than invading and vandalizing the U.S. Capitol with intent to murder, but the fact stands that these “protestors” in D.C. on Wednesday were treated much differently than their black counterparts were last summer.
The actions of these insurrectionists are unacceptable and inexcusable. The way they were treated compared to the Black Lives Matter Protestors is also unacceptable. The insurrectionists in D.C. were attempting to overthrow the government in an attempt to upend the U.S. Presidential election. The protestors last summer were protesting police brutality and systemic racism. To treat these events as equals or to excuse the actions of the Capitol rioters while condemning Black Lives Matter protestors is an injustice that cannot be left unaddressed.
Now we arrive at the other culprits: the President and his allies. First, before we dive deeper into the President, we must address those who supported him throughout all of his lies. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) have been complicit in spreading and the president’s lies and must resign or be removed. Peggy Noonan describes the recent actions of these men well in her recent WSJ Opinion:
“To the devil’s apprentices, Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. They are clever men, highly educated, well-credentialed, endlessly articulate. They see themselves as leading conservative lights, but in this drama they have proved themselves punks practicing punk politics. They are like people who know the value of nothing, who see no frailty around them, who inherited a great deal—an estate built by the work and wealth of others—and feel no responsibility for maintaining the foundation because pop gave them a strong house, right? They are careless inheritors of a nation, an institution, a party that previous generations built at some cost.”
These men knew the law and they chose to ignore it in exchange for cheap political points. In addition to Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, every one of the 122 members of the House who objected to the certification of the Electoral College votes and riled up their constituents with inflammatory rhetoric about “stolen elections” must resign or be removed. These lawmakers are knowledgeable in the area of constitutional law. They knew what they were doing was wrong and unethical, but they chose to do it anyway. They incited these insurrectionists in one breath and then condemned them with the next. They are wholly unfit to lead our country and are no longer deserving of the positions and titles they hold.
Now we arrive at the man himself: Donald J. Trump. The chief instigator of the chaos and violence at the Capitol. They told us character didn’t matter. They told us “that’s just his personality.” They told us you have to look at what he does and not what he says. They were wrong. Character matters. Words matter. In 1792, Alexander Hamilton outlined the type of person who would be destructive to our Republic:
“When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”
This almost perfectly summarizes Donald Trump. He is a man without character, without morals, and unfit to hold the office of president. This was on full display on Wednesday when he instigated the mob of his supporters to march on the Capitol. This wasn’t just the result of a speech on Wednesday, this was months in the making. Over the past two months, he has lied continuously about the results of the election often claiming that he won “in a landslide.” He has been standing firmly at the helm of the “Stop the Steal” movement since November 7, 2020, when the election was called for Joe Biden. He has spent weeks inciting his supporters to violence if things didn’t go their way. A good example of this behavior is a tweet from December 19th where he said it was “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election” and that there will be a “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th.” He further told his supporters in that tweet, “Be there, will be wild.”
To those who stood in his way on this road to “victory” (Brad Raffensperger, Bill Barr, Brian Kemp, and more recently Mike Pence) Trump mercilessly called them out on Twitter demanding their cooperation in his schemes…or else. But that is the Trump way. You are either loyal or disloyal. There is no middle ground.
Even after the attempted coup on Wednesday and the reports of shots fired and injuries, Trump couldn’t resist inciting his followers further by recording a video message encouraging them to stand down while also continuing his claims that “we had an election that was stolen from us.” This lead to Twitter initially banning his account for 12 hours and eventually banning him permanently from their site. Facebook, Instagram, and many other companies have followed Twitter’s lead and rescinded access to the president’s accounts permanently or “indefinitely.”
Trump is a reckless man full of hatred and malice. He subverts the truth at every turn and lies constantly. He does not care about you. When he says “we” he means you. He didn’t march up the steps of the Capitol with his supporters as he said he would. Instead, he sat at home watching it unfold on live TV. Trump cares only about himself and he is willing to ignore the casualties of his actions and inflammatory words as long as he gets his way.
This is the last stop of the Trump train. His sins have come to find him out and his empire of lies and deceit is crashing down around him in spectacular fashion. The time for saving face and continuing with him on this dark path has passed. It is time to wake up to the reality of what has occurred and reverse course. If the attack on the Capitol and the five people that died as a direct result of his lies don’t wake you up to the reality of the man that is Donald Trump, nothing ever will.
Only 10 days are remaining in Trump’s presidency, but the choice is clear: he must be removed from office through the 25th amendment or impeachment. Much damage can still be done in these 10 days. This is not a partisan issue, Trump has threatened the life of our Republic with his lies, inflammatory words, and dangerous behavior. If he is not held accountable for his actions and words, it will be a disgrace to our country and democracy overall.
But even in the midst of all of this chaos over the past week, there is still hope. Joe Biden will be elected the 46th President of the United States on January 20th. There is nothing Trump or any of his supporters (citizens or politicians) can do to change that. Biden is not perfect, but he has something Trump lacks: character. This is not to say that Joe Biden will solve all our problems. He won’t. Presidents can influence society, but they cannot solve all of its problems. Besides, Trump is only a symptom of a greater sickness that has infected America long before he announced his candidacy in 2015. His removal from office will not solve the problem. There will be many hard days ahead full of much pain. But, with his removal from office, we will have stability in leadership and time to address our issues without constant gaslighting from the president.
So, how can I end this article? I honestly don’t know. The events of the last week have brought us to our knees. Trump has inflicted great pain on our nation. His supporters have attacked the fundamental principles and symbols of our democracy. We are angry. We are horrified. And, we are deeply saddened. These emotions are okay. It is justified to feel anger at what they have done, but if we hold onto our anger and turn it into hate we are no better than the president and his supporters. We will have let hate rule our hearts and they will have won. Fight for justice to be done. Hold those who perpetrated this attack accountable. Never forget that words have real-life consequences and that character really does matter. Use these emotions of anger and sadness to push you toward action and not toward hate. The road ahead is long, but we will endure. Somehow.
Zebadiah Demorest 