Donald Trump’s legacy is American carnage. Our country is far more divided and violent and deluded than before he entered office. His misrule has led to this moment, but it is not his responsibility alone. Trump’s fear-fueled lies and extremism and conspiracy theories have been indulged for too long by partisans. His rhetoric has directly led to death threats against election officials who have done their job honestly and independently. Now we are all reaping what they’ve sown, as the President watches it all burn from within the White House. But then, there are some men who want to ruin if they cannot rule.
Make no mistake: this is sedition. And it’s coming at the hands of self-styled super-patriots who have been amped up by the President’s lies about non-existent mass voter fraud to excuse losing a free and fair election by a large margin.
They are not conservatives – they are radicals. Because patriots don’t break the windows of the US Capitol building and storm inside when they lose an election. No hostile foreign power has done more damage to what President-elect Joe Biden called ‘the citidel of our democracy’ since an invading British army burned down the Capitol in the war of 1812. But certainly, the enemies of democracy have taken great comfort from their actions today.
We are still in the fog of war. But some things are clear. The politicians and hyper-partisans who have coddled this President’s autocratic impulses have enabled this assault to our democracy. The Republican members of Congress – like Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley – who have tried to benefit politically from contesting the election results without any concrete evidence of fraud are culpable in this violence because they have stoked its fears. So is Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who demanded ‘trial by combat’ to resolve the election dispute at a ‘Save America’ rally this morning, after his legal team lost some 60 cases in court because of an absence of evidence. CNN online article 7 January 2021, ‘Donald Trump’s American carnage ends with a coup attempt’
The 6th January 2021: the day that shook the foundations of American democracy, where hundreds stormed the seat of government. And tried to overturn an election result. This assault didn’t come out of the blue. It was by people they were carrying out the wishes of the sitting president, wishes they felt he signalled to them loud and clear. BBC News report 9th January 2021, Storming the Capitol, Aleem Maqbool reporting
‘I call on President Trump to go on national television now and demand an end to this siege.’ ibid. Biden
He was caught pressuring an official to re-calculate the votes in a state he lost in the November election. ibid.
But Wednesday 6th January was always going to be the day it came to a head. Congress was due to do what’s normally procedural: formalize the results of the election. ibid.
Fight for Trump: At his [Trump] request thousands of his supporters had gathered from all over the country … ‘You’ll never take back our country with weakness; you have to show strength and you have to be strong.’ It was all his supporters wanted to hear. ibid.
Many point to the relative restraint shown by the security forces as compared to some of the scenes we saw as the Black Lives Matter protests law summer. ibid.
Many Americans described feeling numb at the events the previous day. ibid.
Democrats are adamant Donald Trump needs to leave office immediately … ‘an armed insurrection against America.’ ibid. Pelosi
A brazen assault on American democracy. The warning signs I heard just an hour before. And what it means for America as it confronts the threat of extremism from within. It was just after 2 p.m. on Wednesday. This was the protest march that became a riot, that became an insurrection. Storming the Capitol: The Inside Story, Robert Moore reporting, ITV 2021
These last four years have been different: anger has been weaponised on social media. The election didn’t calm America, with a president who refused to accept his loss. The anger became fury. The drumbeat of incendiary rhetoric has been growing louder by the day. ibid.
‘Our lives are at stake. This is our last stand.’ ibid. protester
And so they did. Although the president never joined them. ibid.
Louisville: The resurgent militia movements: I saw these emboldened and empowered militias take over the very centre of Louisville … Why on earth were the police retreating and ceding territory to a private army? What signal was that sending? ibid.
This is Belfast. It’s fifteen years since The Troubles came to an end here … But this city is still divided up between Catholics and Protestants. And summertime here often means rioting. Petrol Bombs & Peace: Welcome to Belfast, BBC 2013
Massive riots kicked off when the British flag was taken down from Belfast City Hall … They went crazy for weeks. ibid.
Ardoyne: Even the bus-stops are Catholic or Protestant. ibid.
In the violence that followed, 3,600 people died and up to 50,000 were injured. ibid.
‘Just celebrating our culture.’ ibid. bandsman building bonfire
People are prepared to believe almost anything about each other. ibid.
The rioting continued for four days and spread across the city. Rioters threw nearly 130 petrol bombs. ibid.
For a few hours on January 6th America was forced to look hard in the mirror, and it glimpsed dark forces within. Hundreds stormed the iconic Capitol building in the hope of overturning the result of the Presidential election. We have travelled across America to track down those I met during those fateful minutes. Why did people descend with such fury on the Citadel of American democracy? After the Storm: America’s Enemy Within, ITV 2021
It is estimated that over 800 people entered the Capitol on January 6th … an act some are calling revolutionary sedition. ibid.
In the ’80s a number of things conspired to bring brown smokable heroin to Liverpool … 47% of black workers unemployed, 43% of white workers [news clip] … No opportunities whatsoever … Young people wern’t of any value to society, or so they felt. And then of course we had the Toxteth riots in ’81 … A visitor from the US came in the ’80s and said, This is like Beirut. This is like a bombed-out shell, a husk of a city and a number of other things … Liverpool Narcos I: Heroin ***** Sky Documentaries 2021
Kennington was a very racist area, yeah: Niggers Go Home, NF on the Wall’ … Blacks Stink [graffiti] … Uprising III: The Front Line, BBC 2021
Round and round and round antagonising people endlessly. ibid. ex-rozzer whistleblower
Operation Swamp: One day I was stopped three times. ibid. old suss law victim
We saw the police surround a guy who had been stabbed. ibid.
When we got to the high street [after victim dragged to police van] it was one of the proudest moments of our lives. Hundreds of us. ibid.
There was like a cinema playing in my mind of all the indignities I had suffered with the police. ibid.
A lot of chaos. A lot of coppers getting hurt. ibid.
You know what? They were good fires. They were fires of freedom. People were breaking the chains. ibid.
The unprecedented outbreak of violence on the streets of mainland Britain.’ ibid. BBC news
1985, London, Broadwater Farm Estate, London: ‘There has been more rioting on the streets of London this evening after the death of a West Indian woman.’ The Riots: One Week in August, BBC news, BBC 2021
Since the 1980s, Britain had gone a quarter of a century without riots spreading across its cities. In 2011 that would change with the outbreak of the largest social unrest for a generation. ibid.
‘It felt good to be part of a community that was standing for something.’ ibid. first-time rioter
Rioting has spread to 22 boroughs. ibid. caption
‘We are getting reports that a police station in Nottingham has been firebombed.’ ibid. BBC news
The 2011 riots were the largest wave of disorder in the UK since the 1980s and involved an estimated 20,000 people with more than 4,000 arrests and £200 million’ worth of damage. ibid. caption
The first race riot in New York was 1712. New York: City of Tomorrow II, 2001
In the budget of 1981 public borrowing was cut by a fifth; 364 leading economists wrote to The Times and the prime minister accusing her of virtually destroying the economy. That summer there were riots in English cities. Adam Curtis, Pandora’s Box III: The League of Gentlemen, BBC 1992
Rioting had spread across Belfast. Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland 4/5: The Age of Union, BBC 2011
Miami, Florida, August 11, 1980 (UPI) ... Hundreds of Cuban refugees began rioting this morning at a detention center situated under Interstate 95 in north Miami, burning tents and attacking immigration and naturalization guards with pipes, sticks and rocks. Scarface 1983 ***** starring Al Pacino & Michelle Pfeiffer & Steven Bauer & Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio & Robert Loggia & Miria Colon & F Murray Abraham et al, director Brian de Palma, caption
‘We will never give up; we will never concede; it doesn’t happen.’ Four Hours at the Capital, Trump to protesters, BBC 2021
‘You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength, you have to be strong … If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.’ ibid.
We go over one fencing then we go over the next fencing all the way, bedlam, sheer bedlam. ibid.