Trump supports swarm the Capitol, a day that will live in infamy.
Following Trump’s rally at the White House, a huge mob stormed the capitol building, causing congress to go into lockdown while they were in the process of ratifying election results. This is typically a pretty standard, unremarkable process but the riots at the capitol were truly quite unprecedented. Several Republican representatives objected to the certification of the results, prompting a debate on the floor. Ultimately, these challenges will likely go nowhere, but it does set a precedent nonetheless. Some have even called for the cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment and for Trump to resign, as he failed to back down from his claims of voter fraud and responded to these protests by saying something along the lines of “go home, we love you”. Mike Pense also unfollowed Trump on Twitter, and many of his most loyal defendants have abandoned him. For Arizona, congress rejected the objection overwhelmingly, 93-6 in the senate and 303-121 in the house. The other objections will also likely be rejected with similar margins as votes and speeches will continue through the night, this means likely very little sleep for me.
Here is a BCC report on the event.
Typically I would do my current event later in the week, but this just felt too important. Today was a day that I think will live in infamy for a lot of reasons, a reflection of deep divisions in our country. Personally, I found it was shameful, saddening, and seditious. This insurrection, this riot, was just one consequence of the larger polarization occurring in America, largely a result of the media. These protestors were inspired by the words of the President, of his proponents, and despite an immense lack of evidence they used these conspiracies to attempt a coup d’etat, it would only be the second one in our country. Cory Booker beautifully pointed out the interesting contrast between the events of tonight and those of 1812, when the Capitol was burned to the ground by the British. Both groups loyal to one supreme leader, both waving flags to a sole sovereign, undermining democratic principles for this individual: one a monarch, one that wishes he was a monarch. I think we must reflect back as a country, and consider how this division has occurred, where we have members of congress spewing conspiracy theories on the floor. I would argue a large part of it comes back to the media, especially confirmation bias and the quantity of news that floods the media hellscape. People don’t like to be wrong, thus they seek out and only accept information that confirms their personal beliefs, which has only increased as the president claims that every news source that criticizes him as “fake”. This is also the reason that conspiracy theories have become so rampant. With the growth of the internet, people are able to surround themselves in bubbles of information that reflect their personal beliefs, never even having to consider differing opinions or the truth for that matter. All news sources have some kind of bias, but by demonizing any source that takes a different opinion we have undermined the sovereignty of truth, of fact. What do those words even mean anymore, I don’t know.
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