THE STORMING OF DEMOCRACY
By Patrick Van Roy On January 7th, 2021 at 3:46 pmGuest post by Paul

U.S. Capitol Police with guns drawn stand near a barricaded door as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The unbelievable scenes in Washington DC’s Capitol Building which have reverberated around the world are astonishing to watch in any democracy let alone that which styles itself as the model and exporter of democracy to other countries. Over here on the European continent I’ve seen it compared to the storming of the Ukraine parliament in 2014 and the Franco uprising against the Spanish Republic in 1936. Indeed, the BBC’s New York & Washington correspondent, Nick Bryant described it thus:
Were this a different country on a different continent, we would be talking of a failed state
What we have seen today in the wake of the assault on democracy is metaphorical hand washing on industrial levels. Yes, freedom of peaceful assembly is a Constitutional Right and perhaps those who stormed the Senate were in the minority of the protestors but remember how we were told that anyone who attended the Portland or various BLM protests were as complicit in violence as the minority of protestors who actually perpetrated the violence? Yeah, that. It’s good to see that this perspective has now changed but let’s be absolutely clear here, this was absolutely expected, and a less charitable person may suggest that this change of perspective of every protestor being complicit in the violence of the minority is now because the shoe is on the other foot.
In my opinion those who propagated this conspiratorial lie are all liable to blame of different levels in this, the lying lawyers, the cheating congressman, the drawling, conceited ‘I signed something’ patsies and those who radicalised and attempted to radicalize others by propagating the conspiracy theory amongst friends or on the internet. Let’s be clear here, there was no ‘steal’ There was an election and the guy who lost didn’t like it so decided to try to change it by whipping people up into a frenzy. Those here who are familiar with unionism in Ireland may know of the regular comments from loyalist prisoners of how Ian Paisley’s emotional rhetoric drove them to commit acts of violence only for respectable unionism to wash their hands of them – this is exactly the same.
Which brings me to the cause of the far right domestic terrorist anarchy, the current POTUS. Make no mistake, Trump’s to blame for this and because of his personal vanity and narcissism four people are dead, many people face long prison sentences and the image of the US is an image of both shocked silence and laughter in the eyes of the world. I’ve constantly said here that history wouldn’t be kind to Trump, that’s a given now. This assault on democracy will be Trump’s lasting legacy for time immemorial and I suspect that outside a microscopic circle of extremists the Trump brand will now be toxic in both politics and business.
If there is any justice in this world the instigator and initiator of what happened yesterday must surely ne looking at an orange jumpsuit.
On a final note, I’ve read many people state ‘this isn’t America’ which is part of the problem. This IS America, however unpalatable it may be, and it needs to be fixed.