Dear Americans, the Rest of the World Saw the Capitol Events Coming and So Did You
On January 6, 2021, rioters supporting United States President Donald Trump’s actions to overturn the 2020 presidential election’s results stormed the Capitol. They breached multiple police perimeters, damaged, and occupied parts of the building for several hours. This disturbed a joint session of Congress to count the electoral votes and formalize Jow Biden’s victory. A session that should have been just a routine based on old traditions from the early days of the united states.
The rioters were summoned by President Trump to Washington, D.C., to demand the Congress and Vice President Mike Pence to reject Biden’s victory. This was part of his effort to overturn the election’s results and further action in his ongoing, persistent, and false claim that the elections had been stolen from him.
The protesters assembled on the morning of January 6th for a Trump rally, in which Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr., and other members of Congress addressed the crowd. Trump then encouraged his supporters to “take back our country,” “fight like hell,” and march to the Capitol. This ignited the remaining chain of events that occurred on January 6th, 2021. Five people have been confirmed dead from the events, and others are seriously injured.
January 6th is a sad day for America and its democracy. However, the rest of the world saw it coming, and so did Americans. The surprised reactions from many politicians, media figures, and people are actually the most bizarre thing.
On January 6th, and after I got back from work, instead of launching a series on Netflix, I turned on the news — I knew something was going to happen. 30 minutes into the news and the rioters stormed the capitol. I was surprised that the security around the Capitol was scarce. After all, all of the countries legislators were in the building. And everybody knew that demonstrators were summoned to Washington, D.C. by the president.
Before the events, I knew that the session would be interrupted and that the session would take a lot of time. When the President cries wolf for 2 months, his loyal supporters will start believing and supporting him without evidence. Some of these supporters are even members of the Senate. I sat in front of the TV, and I kept an eye on Twitter —I thought to myself that President Trump would start tweeting very soon.
After the events unfolded, I wasn’t surprised. Everybody around the globe saw this coming — it seems that only Americans didn’t.
Even before Trump became president, he claimed that anything negative against him is fake news. Later on, anyone who criticized him became his target, whether politicians, reporters, or even news agencies. In fact, even members of his team or cabinet became his targets once they disagreed with him.
Trump’s strategies were condemned by many, but the majority of his party supported him. His hateful words against minorities became thoughts, which resonated by white supremacists and racists across the USA and around the globe. Finally, these thoughts became actions. We saw this take place previously in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Even in 2020, many of Trump’s supporters took to the streets armed during the country's racial unrest — An Illinois teen shot protestors in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Therefore based on previous events during Trump’s presidency, it was a no-brainer that some of his supporters would riot in Washington D.C. after he summoned them. His refusal to concede the election and his unsupported, persistent claim that the elections were rigged put more fuel into the fire.
The only remaining question: where were the police and security officers on January 6th? It seemed that they were not ready for such events, and their response came very late.
In the end, I think that the aftermath of the Capitol’s events will have a deep impact on American politics moving forward. Stuff will change, and laws will be made to prevent something like this from happening again.
As I mentioned before, the last four and a half years' events led to the events on January 6th. The rest of the world was not surprised.
We do not see America as the beacon of democracy anymore. The fact that Trump became the president with a minority of the popular vote proves my statement. After the Capitol’s events, the following tweet was shared over 20 times with me; it sums everything we, the rest of the world, think of America’s democracy at the moment:
However, it is not too late to fix things. It will take an incredible amount of time and effort.
