By Avi Subramanian
We are slightly over two months removed from the 2020 United States Election, and after the period of chaos that has passed us by in 2020, I genuinely believed that things would be on the up. Oh, how naive I was. January 6 was already a date that had concerned me simply because of the Senate run-off elections in Georgia. Knowing how Republican politicians and leaders had treated the presidential election results with near-disdain as they cited mass voting fraud from the Democrats, I expected the same actions in response to this set of elections.
However, never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would ever see the United States teeter on the edge of a second civil war as closely as when a mob of Trump supporters made a failed attempt to stage an insurrection and overturn the state electoral results of the 2020 Presidential Election. The fallout from this event has led to the desecration of the ideas of democracy that this country was founded upon, and has directly led to the second impeachment of President Donald J. Trump.First off, for my peers who don’t follow political news/events as frequently, I’ll start off by summing up exactly what happened in Washington D.C on January 6th, 2021. Unfortunately, I can’t provide a play-by-play summary or we’d be here all day, because there is a lot to unpack.
A Summary of the Day’s Events
The events that unfolded last Wednesday (as of this article’s writing) began early in the morning with a rally known as the “March to Save America”, and was organized by the pro-Trump group, Women for America First. A crowd of mostly-maskless pro-Trump supporters gathered on the Ellipse to hear speeches from Trump allies including: the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and of course, the president himself. All four of these speakers continuously pushed forward claims that the 2020 US Election was fraudulent, with Giuliani calling for a “trial by combat” and the president telling his crowd that they “[had] to show strength” in their efforts to protest the election results. Beyond a reasonable doubt, these statements, regardless of their intentions, fueled the adrenaline flowing through the already excitable crowd: eventually, the gasoline was going to catch fire. It just needed the right spark.
Following this rally, while Congress was counting and certifying the state electoral votes, a mob of Trump supporters stormed and eventually breached the US Capitol Building, causing a delay in the voting certification as the mob temporarily took over the evacuated Senate chamber. House representatives were forced to barricade the doors to their chamber using desks and were told to wear gas masks while police pointed guns at rioters that were attempting to break into the House chamber.. Additionally, Trump supporters also broke into several offices throughout the Capitol, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office.
At 3:13 p.m, nearly an hour after the mob of Trump supporters had breached the Capitol, the President released a tweet calling for his supporters “to remain peaceful.” An hour after this, President-Elect Joe Biden called on President Trump to release a statement that “[demands] an end to [the Capitol Hill] siege”. Trump responded by releasing a recorded statement in which he, among continuing claims that he won the election in a landslide and that recorded results were fraudulent, told his supporters that he loves them and finds them very special.
At approximately 3:30 PM, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted that the National Guard and federal forces were activated and arriving at the Capitol, and they were able to have the building secured by 6:00 PM. This allowed Congress to reassemble to continue the election certification process (This was finished by 3:40 AM on January 7th.)
5 people were killed as a direct result of the violence that occured: Trump supporters Ashli Babbit, Kevin Greeson, Rosanne Boyland, Benjamin Philips, and Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick. Fellow police officer Howard Liebengood, who was on duty during the riot, died by committing suicide on January 9th.
As of January 14th, the US House of Representatives (including ten Republican Party Representatives) have voted 232 – 197 to impeach President Trump for his part in “incitement of insurrection”, over 20,000 members of the National Guard have been deployed to protect the Capitol in order to allow President-Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration to proceed without interruption. Donald Trump has been effectively banned from all mainstream social media and has promised to commit to a peaceful transition into the next administration.
What is My Insight On This?
As a whole, I had an extreme mix of emotions throughout the 6th and the fallout that followed. As the chaos unfolded, I was trying to find my sardonic sense of humour in the situation. Eventually, as the siege wore on and news of casualties started to come out, my sardonicism slowly turned to frustration, thanks to the frankly terrible response shown by the National Guard and Capitol Hill Police force. Finally, I was just sad and disappointed that this kind of event was allowed to happen.
While Wednesday’s events were unfolding, the school administration via Mr. Rojas sent an email addressing the events stating, “We encourage you to talk about what is going on and how you are feeling with trusted friends, family, and staff members.” That line gave me a sense of déjà vu back to Halloween 2019, when we witnessed a member of the school faculty show up on campus wearing blackface in a moment of extremely poor judgement. The school reacted promptly: the school day following Halloween was spent educating th. e student population on the history of blackface and racism in this country.
Why do I bring this up? Because as a whole, the school and the local community treated the blackface incident as it was: unacceptable. I strongly feel that the same swift approach should be taken in regards to what happened in the US Capitol. While this country has seen rebellions in its history, such as one in 1898 that successfully overturned a local election in Wilmington, North Carolina, we have never witnessed such an event caused by the actions and statements of a person as influential as the President of the United States.
We need to have a national dialogue on this insurrection: we need to objectively decide what led us here, and how we can prevent ourselves from ever reaching this event again. The buildup to this provides warning signs in hindsight, and there are a few key ideas we can take away from this:
1. How we got here: One of the most significant warning signs came in the form of the president’s conduct in regards to the US election. For months and without proof, Donald Trump and his allies have been alleging that the election would be fraught with voter fraud. President Trump’s months-long comments and allegations claiming that this election would, in his own words, be “the most corrupt election in the history of our country”. This trend continued into the election, where he prematurely declared victory on election night while votes were still coming in. In the past 9 weeks, we’ve seen over 60 lawsuits started by the Trump campaign and other supporters thrown out by Federal judges. Trump warned that we would “have to wait and see” the results of the election to determine whether he would accept them or not, which already breaks the expectations of election conduct. We should remember that he provided a very similar statement while he was campaigning for his first term in 2016: “I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win.”
2. How we got here: During the first presidential debate in October of 2020, when asked to denounce the far-right group Proud Boys who supported him, he told them to “stand back and stand by”. Regardless of what President Trump intended to mean by his statement of “stand back and stand by”, I believe that his supporters took it as a call to physical action. They just needed the right opportunity to strike.
3. How we got here: In October 2020, the FBI announced that they arrested 13 men who were suspected of a domestic terror plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer as retaliation against the COVID-19 lockdowns. According to the Washington Post, a January 5th FBI Norfolk report warned of a potential “war” at the hands of extremists who were looking to protest “unlawful lockdowns”.
4. How we got here and what we can take away: There is an extreme national problem among the police force. Back in June, when Black Lives Matter protesters peacefully gathered in Washington D.C to protest the murder of George Floyd, they were met with waves of tear gas, rubber bullets, and other forms of physical force at the hands of police officers clad in riot gear. However, was this same approach shown towards Trump supporters? From what I saw, this was far from the truth. It seemed to me that the police were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the mob due to a miscalculation of threat factors. However there is video evidence that showed a police officer taking a selfie with a Trump supporter. Take that as you may. Regardless of why the security failed, this will stand as an extremely humiliating example of how security protection in this country responded, and it showed the true scope of white privilege that still flows throughout the nation. If this event was perpetuated by blacks, Muslims, or any other people of color, the protesters wouldn’t be allowed to make it to the steps of the Capitol Building and the security response would’ve been significantly stronger, and the casualty count could’ve been much higher.
5. What we can take away: In the aftermath of the Capitol Hill siege, 139 Republican representatives and 8 Republican senators objected to the electoral college. This was extremely disappointing to see: how is it that certain Republican lawmakers, even after their place of work was breached and ransacked, were still loyal enough to continue supporting completely unproven claims of election fraud? In particular, Senators Cruz and Hawley disappoint me because they both should’ve known better: Senator Cruz is law school alumni of Harvard and Princeton, and Senator Hawley is a law school alumni of Stanford and Yale. Their law school professor William N. Eskridge Jr. said it best: “clearly they didn’t pay attention.”
My Final Conclusion
January 6th was an absolute disgrace to see and will absolutely go down as not just a dark day in United States history but I believe that this will be the lasting legacy of Donald Trump’s time as the US President. The US Cabinet, the Republican Party as a whole, and supporters of the riot all share partial blame in their enabling of Donald Trump’s lack of presidential conduct. This was a completely unnecessary event that could’ve been avoided if warning signs I mentioned were acknowledged before it was too late. Every single person who was involved in the Capitol Hill siege or encouraged its occurrence in some facet should be considered traitors and be treated as such: this includes President Trump, the 147 Republican lawmakers who objected to the election results, Rudy Giuliani, and of course, the Trump supporters who fought with police and left trash in the halls of “the Peoples’ House” and went in with intentions of harming their own politicians.
To the members of Trump’s cabinet, White House staff, and the legal team who resigned (Sidney Powell, Betsy DeVos, Chad Wolf, Elaine Chao, etc.): it seems to me that you’re only resigning now of all times in order to save face for yourselves and your careers and reputations. I’d argue that the latter has already been damaged simply because of your direct involvement in the Trump administration. Why don’t you stay and ride the last week out in order to prepare for as smooth a transition as possible into the Biden administration. Your cowardice in this situation will follow you for the rest of your lives.
What January 6th proved to America is that it is more divided than ever. Republicans have attempted to steer past this by “calling for unity and healing”. The only way we can get healing and unity out of this situation is if we discuss the implications of a President-incited insurrection and how we can prevent this from happening again at the federal level.
Works Cited
- Eskridge, William N. “I Taught Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz in Law School. Clearly They Didn’t Pay Attention.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 13 Jan. 2021, www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/01/13/josh-hawley-ted-cruz-law-school-electoral-vote-column/6637589002/.
- Hall, Louise. “Police Officer Filmed Posing for Selfie with pro-Trump Rioter.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 7 Jan. 2021, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/police-officer-selfie-rioter-us-capitol-trump-b1783760.html.
- Kennicott, Philip. “Perspective | The Dystopian Lincoln Memorial Photo Raises a Grim Question: Will They Protect Us, or Will They Shoot Us?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 3 June 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-dystopian-lincoln-memorial-photo-raises-a-grim-question-will-they-protect-us-or-will-they-shoot-us/2020/06/03/7a1c52b4-a5b7-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html.
- Long, Colleen, and Michael Balsamo. “FBI Warns of Plans for Nationwide Armed Protests next Week.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 11 Jan. 2021, apnews.com/article/fbi-warns-armed-protests-next-week-ec75b26289166b4afd30c15b0dd2ded5.
- Mandavilli, Apoorva. “Live Updates: The Capitol Attack Aftermath.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Jan. 2021, www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/07/us/capitol-building-trump.
- Tan, Shelly, and Youjin Shin. “How One of America’s Ugliest Days Unraveled inside and Outside the Capitol.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 9 Jan. 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/capitol-insurrection-visual-timeline/?itid=hp-top-table-main-0106.
- Timm, Jane C. “Trump’s Voter Fraud Lies Encouraged a Riot. GOP Allies Are Still Giving Them Oxygen.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 11 Jan. 2021, www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-s-voter-fraud-lies-encouraged-riot-gop-allies-are-n1253509.
- Zapotosky, Matt Zapotosky, and Devlin Barrett. “FBI Report Warned of ‘War’ at Capitol, Contradicting Claims There Was No Indication of Looming Violence.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 12 Jan. 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/capitol-riot-fbi-intelligence/2021/01/12/30d12748-546b-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html.
