They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire. ” When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.—Nehemiah 1:3-4
Since before I was born, Americans have been telling the world what democracy is, what democracy looks like and how democracy is established.
On January 6 2021 insurgents, who are supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump, stormed the Capitol Building, totting guns, smashing windows, scaling walls, forcing elected officials to scurry into secured areas on the Capitol Campus; actions that stunned the world as protesters freely and arrogantly roamed the halls and rooms of the Congress, carrying Confederate flags, United States (US) flags with Trump’s picture on them. This was short of nothing but an attempted coup that left four people dead: one through gunshot wound and three from other medical causes.
Apart from about 14 arrests, no protester was stopped, the mayhem continued for hours as police looked, overwhelmed until the National Guard, ordered by Vice-President Mike Pence, came to smoke the protesters out of the building and secure it for the Congress to continue their meeting.
The US has been embroiled in one protest after another, especially those staged by African-Americans and sympathisers that have been protesting the shooting by white law enforcement officers of unarmed black people. In those protests, police shot at black protesters first, asked questions later.
The insurgence on the Congress raises questions as people vandalised the capital buildings. The first is: Where and why did the police not fire a single shot at the protestors? Why did the police not secure the building as the protesters stormed the area?
The warning whistle was made through the President, who after losing the November 2020 presidential election, claimed repeatedly that he won the elections. President Joe Biden got 306 electoral votes against Trump’s 232. Instead of conceding defeat, he wiled his base of supporters and earlier called on supporters to walk to the Capitol.
At the time Trump was inciting and encouraging the protest, both houses of the Congress (House and the Senate) were receiving and confirming electoral votes of Biden- and his vice-president Kamala Harris win.
There is no doubt that the protestors converged on the Capitol to stop the confirmation, ironically presided by Vice-President Pence. Trump’s complicity and acquiescence in the US Capitol siege coupled with the docile, kid-glove handling of the insurgents, thugs, and vandals by the Capitol police, was deplorable and has been condemned by both Republicans and Democrats.
But American democratic morality and decency was laid bare, encased in hypocrisy in the kid-glove treatment of the armed rioters. In the past 11 months, protestors in the black lives matter were treated brutally beaten, teargassed and many fatally shot again and again.
With the President being the agitator of the insurgency, there has been no press conference with a crowded stage that in past has included the police chief, the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigations], the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], a communications director and the truckload of officials that address the nation, briefing them of what had happened, what they did to quell the violence, and what further developments are expected to take place.
Who is running this circus? What happened with intelligence gathering and security of national events of this nature?
But on Wednesday, the lead country of Western democracy witnessed the hoodlums, many of them totting guns, temporarily take-over its lawmakers’ building that put at risk the country’s Vice-President, the Speaker, and Senate leader, Senate and congress people. The insurrection is domestic terrorism, an insurrection and frankly an attack on democracy. It was total anarchy, chaos, and a scene that Americans see elsewhere, not in the USA.
Amid the chaos and mayhem, some light shone on America: the Democratic Party took control of the Senate. This was achieved when the Democratic Party candidates Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won the run-off senate elections that took place on January 5 2021. Thus with the control of the Congress, it can pass laws and confirm Biden’s Cabinet picks.
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