The Capital Price of Capitol Admission
The January Sedition lacked a hallmark component of the revolution these misguided rioters purported to represent
Thomas Hobbes proclaims in his iconic example of the sovereign, Leviathan, that life without the unassailable direction of a sovereign authority would be violent, brutish, and short. He of course was discussing a monumental shift in human discourse that saw sovereignty remade in the European image, rent from the riotous sovereign embedded within ancient cultures that sought to explain a pantheon of Earth-shattering natural disasters as the sovereign wrath of innumerable, displeased Gods.
It is no coincidence that Trump and others began to rise to distorted prominence while our nation was governed by its first Black president
What we witnessed on the 6th of January was the refocusing once more of sovereign authority. Yet this time, the discourse — spelled out in the language of blood and bruise — was critically devoid of its logical consequence: Death. The power to claim sovereign is one of immense human capacity, but it comes with a hefty price of entry. If you are incapable of success, the price is nothing less than your life — classically attuned to the laws of nature, the original and unflinching sovereign that giveth and taketh away with impunity. This is the disconnect that prevails across our television sets in the aftermath. Scenes of Capitol Police standing in defense of the ‘citadel of our democracy’ are lacking in this deadly embrace that rioters metaphorically entered into as they penetrated the Capitol on 06 January 2020.
Assuredly, death is the ultimate price that one might pay for this usurpatory behavior. Though, no one, myself included, should be calling for the deaths of these aggrieved protestors turned rioters and invaders. Still, the scenes of calamity broadcast by the rebels themselves show little sign of mortal struggle, in fact the only death inside the capitol grounds of an interloper came as she leapt through a window into a space where members of Congress were taking shelter from the rampage. She broke the unmarked proximity, and paid with her life. But what of the others; surely crossing the steps, or concrete and steel barriers, or the sanctity of Washington D.C. itself constitutes a line in the sand that cannot be tolerated.
While the killing of these invaders on live television would have stained a generation of young people watching from the safety of their homes, death was the simple prescription for the scenes of insurrection last week. The most dangerous thing to come out of Tuesday’s failed revolt was the exodus of smiles from the Capitol grounds. These members of QAnon, Proud Boys, Boogaloos, or whatever engaged in active insurrection against our shared democracy learned that the price of admittance is a bit of shouting and pepper spray. They will try again.
Personally, I hold a complex feeling toward acts of political violence. As a researcher focused primarily on foreign protest, including violent outpourings of social and political community will, I see a hypothetical merit in the basic human agency that produced this violence — although I don’t share in any of their views or conspiracy theories. However, I am fearful of the precedent that was set when thousands marched, largely unchallenged in that present moment against the democratic process itself.
The act of rewriting sovereignty is one that is uniquely encased in the project of humanity, and this action is a part of the base instincts of a populace in peril. Rioters in DC have been led toward this conclusion of some grand conspiracy, of electoral theft by five years of Donald Trump’s voice in the spotlight, a megaphone of racial animus, and many years as a sideshow act before that.
It is no coincidence that Trump and others began to rise to distorted prominence while our nation was governed by its first Black president. That these rioters reflect and hoped to usher in a vision of America rooted in racist ideology — an ideology that holds no future; that the vast majority of us disavow; and that millions of Americans seek to dismantle — makes them no less threatening to the democratic process. They must be understood as a grave systemic threat projected into the future in general, and more specifically as a result of their successes here: Namely, the ability to leave DC under the power of their own two feet.
Certainly, they failed in what appears to be the primary goal of taking hostages or assassinating leaders of the legislative branch, including the vice president. But the fact that police acted to secure their primary charges and then waited for the mob to funnel out, largely unharmed, guarantees repeat assaults against the core values that we purport to share as Americans.
Rooting out this brand of domestic terrorism steeped in bigotry and fear, and stoked by violent language by the president and those in his orbit will be a challenging task for the Biden team. It begins with the impeachment process that is already in motion, and ends with the state, our accepted sovereign, bringing the book down on any and all co-conspirators who engaged in this January Sedition that will ring out as the lowest point in the history of the United States.
