‘WE must defend our democracy.’ ‘This isn’t us.’
For me, at least, these words ring hollow.
Having spent the last few years egging on riots, demanding the police be defunded, and looking the other way as US cities were looted, burnt and destroyed, the entirety of the Left suddenly has a newfound respect for law and order. The transition of commentators from praising nationwide riots for months on end to openly calling for protesters to be shot this week was predictably and depressingly rapid.
Covering last year’s ‘largely peaceful’ protests with breathless obsequiousness, they have now recovered their confidence and label all and sundry ‘domestic terrorists’. Given that it appears a number of those in Washington on Wednesday were aligned with the repugnant ideology of Antifa, perhaps they were more correct than they would care to admit. Certainly, the tactics, the appearance and the mannerisms of many of those involved were more befitting the streets of Portland than a MAGA rally.
In the aftermath of events, calls to remove the president via the 25th Amendment grew louder – all supposedly due to his ‘incitement’. I watched the speech he gave prior to the events at the Capitol, in which he listed election irregularity after election irregularity. The blanket refusal by those in positions of power (a refusal which continued right through to the final debate in the Senate on Wednesday afternoon) to confront any of these allegations in any substantive manner was fuel for these ugly scenes.
How easy it would have been to have avoided all of this. All it would have taken was for people’s confidence in November’s election to be restored. Audit the ballot. Ensure the result was legitimate. Were they confident of their victory, those opposed to Trump would have nothing to hide.
Instead, the accusations were never rebutted. As usual, denial, insult and ridicule were employed. Tens of millions believed themselves disenfranchised. Why wouldn’t they? Watching for four years as they and their President were derided and mocked, improbable results at an election would need thorough explanation. Conveniently bursting pipes, stoppages to vote counting, statistically impossible caches of votes being discovered: ‘coincidence’ after ‘coincidence’ that benefited those aligned versus Trump.
This was the incitement to civil disorder.
Not that such scenes are new to the streets of the United States: it’s just that the great and good turn a blind eye so long as it is perceived to be politically expedient to do so. Autonomous zones created by radical leftists, cities on fire: Kamala Harris was all in favour, saying the riots were ‘not going to let up and they should not’.
I doubt if the United States will be able to heal the deep wound caused by this election fiasco. The divides are now surely too great.
The imperfect system of democracy can be built only upon a foundation of trust, both in one’s fellow citizens and of the systems of government that rule over you. Both of these rivers have run dry.
It is now certain that the next few years will be the scene of greater and greater domination of the Democrat party and their obedient toadies across society. The clampdown on Americans’ basic rights will be severe, all in the name of protecting ‘Democracy’. Big Tech censorship will increase. Voting reform will not be introduced. The prospects of a Trump 2.0 attaining power through the ballot box will be suffocated. The elites will not repeat the mistake of 2016.
Trump has now committed to a peaceful transition of power. Whilst he may go, a vast sea of formerly discontent and now utterly furious Trump supporters will still be there. They will feel their country to have been stolen from them. Nobody bothered to prove to them otherwise, so unimportant were their concerns. The only thing that has been demonstrated is government and media utter disdain for people like them.
It is naïve to assume that these people will go quietly into a Biden/Harris administration. It is foolish to assume that they will silently acquiesce to the increasingly insane politics of the anti-freedom and anti-reality policy of the rabid Left.
In seeking to suffocate any discussion of what happened in the November election, the swamp has ramped up the heat on the pressure cooker that is the United States. With half of the country now without a voice to represent them, they may express themselves in ways we all will regret.
The tragedy is that this was all avoidable. Yet, in their lust for domination and their contempt for their political rivals, the powers-that-be in the United States have been busy piling up the powder kegs beneath their feet.
The fuse has been lit. Now we are just waiting for the explosion.
