The country is still recovering from the blatant display of mass hysteria running rampant at Capitol Hill last Wednesday. After four years of increasing political division and turmoil, the tensions finally culminated in Trump’s base staging an all-out desperate attempt at victory.
From an apolitical perspective, the riots yesterday were not far off from the degree of disorderly destruction seen at the worst extents of the Black Lives Matter riots that dominated the political sphere last summer. They were both chaotic displays of bent-up aggression over their respective deep political and social concerns. However, the very notion that a Black Lives Matter protest, violent or peaceful, could be staged at the U.S. Capitol building, in the same light as the Trump rioters, is preposterous. Obviously, the Trump rioters had a lot more leeway in their aggressive pursuits of justice than the BLM protesters would ever be afforded. There’s even been some footage released of police officers acting questionably around the rioters they were supposed to be defending against, such as with one officer taking a selfie with a rioter. What makes the Trump riots so thoroughly shameful isn’t just that they broke into the Capitol, it’s that their actions amounted to absolutely nothing. Just mindless destruction and disorderliness, which ended in five confirmed deaths, one of whom was a police officer, and definitely not a second term for President Trump.
What seems to be the consistent theme of 2020 is that to get your message across, you’re going to have to go into the streets, set some things on fire, and cause a ruckus. That’s now the official precedent, apparently. Every individual in those Trump riots made that trip down to the Capitol because of how passionate they were about the things they were protesting against. They seriously believed that the election had been stolen, and that democracy was being turned into a sham. Still, no evidence of that has been proven, but it should be noted that prior to the reveal that Biden was set to win, both the right and left were accusing each other of voter fraud non-stop. Only when Biden won, did the right maintain their accusatory stance. Voter fraud is apparently the go-to response when it looks like you’re going to lose. It’s like playing a board game as a kid, there’s always that one other kid that starts crying and saying everyone else cheated.
The question of whether violence is an appropriate response to alleged social injustices or political wrongdoings has been a hot topic this year. But at the bottom line, the only difference between the Trump supporter walking off with the speaker’s podium and the protester who tried to topple the statue of Andrew Jackson is a matter of team color.
But whereas the Black Lives Matter protests actually did accomplish some feats here and there, and were predominantly non-violent, the Trump rioters went straight to what they saw as the most effective route to having their voices heard.
The rioters accomplished nothing except making fools of themselves. Some were seen waving Confederate flags inside the Capitol building for the first time in U.S. history, and wearing extremely questionable attire, like the now-infamous “Auschwitz Camp” sweatshirt.
As for Trump himself, he was undeniably inciting and invigorating his supporters into upping the ante with their political frustrations, with statements like “never concede,” and “we love you, you’re very special.” And he certainly paid a price for that, with most of his social media accounts being permanently banned or suspended. But focusing the blame on Donald Trump is too easy of a route to take, and ignores the larger problem on display here. Blaming the riots on Trump makes the assumption that this angry, rebellion-crying attitude will disappear as soon as Trump himself is removed from office.
Some Republicans, including Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, also added gasoline to the fire with some provocative comments regarding the state of the election and the riots, Rudy Giuliani calling for “trial by combat” just moments before the riots took off.
The Capitol Police were also the target of much scrutiny. They’ve been lambasted for their inefficiency in handling the rioters, and police chief Steven Sund is set to resign later this month. The Capitol Police, however, are accustomed to more innocuous tasks like guiding people to the correct doors, not defending against an attempted insurrection. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, on the eve of the riots, decided against sending in additional law enforcement resources to the Capitol, believing it would be unnecessary.
What will ensue as a result of the riots is a crackdown on Trump-supporters, and an effort to restore the neoconservatives as the voice of reason in the Republican party. The riots will lead to the exact opposite of what the rioters were after in the first place; they’ll be squashed by Government policies and efforts meant to crush them. Their free speech and ability to assemble will likely be in jeopardy, considering how they’ve completely demolished their reputation in the eyes of the government.
The rioters’ desperate attempts at having their voices recognized have only ensured their inevitable marginalization. But they won’t go away completely, which should be troubling, since even after four years of presidency and two weeks before his departure, the only person any of them will listen to is Donald Trump. All of that chaos and destruction made little to no change in the outcome of the 2020 election. What it did change is the way conservatives, Trump Supporters, and the Republican party will be treated and viewed for the upcoming years.
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