“that we here highly resolve……...that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth”
- President Abraham Lincoln – Gettysburg Address 1863
If a Hollywood script writer came forward with a plot which involved the President of the United States lying to his supporters about the outcome of an election, whipping them up into a fury and then sending them off to attack the Capitol building resulting in the deaths of police officers and demonstrators, would it be viewed as plausible and a believable set of events?
Well, on Wednesday, 6th of January that is exactly what happened.
Throughout the US Presidential election campaign Donald Trump complained the election would be stolen from him. A few hours after the final polls, shut Trump appeared in the White House press room to announce he had actually won the election, but it was in the process of being stolen from him. When the final voters were tallied, Trump had indeed lost but there was no evidence of widespread fraud. This was contested, and lost, in the courts around 60 times. Each state confirmed its election result just leaving Congress to do its Constitutional duty, count the electors’ votes and confirm Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next President and Vice President. Despite this, Trump continued to push the lie that the election had been stolen. Through rally after rally and Trump’s social media outlets the lie was polished, reinforced and repeated time after time.
So on the 6th Trump appeared before thousands of his supporters and repeated the lie yet again. He talked of “taking back the country” and the need for strength. He despatched his supporters down Pennsylvania Avenue to put “steel” into the Vice President and Republican Senators and Representatives to somehow change the election result – something they did not have the power to do.
Trump talked about “we” walking down to the Capitol but instead climbed back into his armour-plated car and left for the White House bunker to watch events unfold on cable television.
An angry mob set off towards the Capitol, broke into the building, attacked the police, ransacked offices, stole property, chanted for the deaths of the Vice President and Speaker of the House. They erected a mock scaffold. Some wore t-shirts with Camp Auschwitz and 6MWNE (six million was not enough) emblazoned upon them. One police officer and four demonstrators died. Congress members had to hide, some in fear of their lives.
Looking back from a week later can anybody be surprised about what happened? Had not it been hiding in plain sight for years? The events of an afternoon had been in the making for 5 years.
The journey to those television pictures, which made all freedom loving people around the world fear that the bastion of democracy that the US represents was about to collapse, were long in the making.
It began 5 years ago when the Republican party decided to abandon their moral compass and agreed a crook, bully and sexual predator was to be fit to be a presidential candidate. Racism, bigotry and toleration of violence got their feet under the Oval Office table. The moral compass had been bargained off in exchange for power.
The polishing of the evil that Trump stood for did not finish with the Republican party. Trump was helped on his way by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, big business funded him and his acolytes, the social media giants were happy for Trump to use their platforms to spread hate, division and misinformation. In the UK Trump had sycophants to shine up his image such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Piers Morgan and Nigel Farage who stuck with him to the last.
Many overseas leaders saw Trump for what he was. Merkel and Macron paid a price for this while Theresa May toadied up to him. As a nation the UK should feel shame for the fact that he was offered a State visit.
The sycophants and toadies decided to overlook that Trump paid hush money to former sexual partners, that he mocked people with a disability, that he urged violence against journalists, gave comfort to far-right extremists, told U- born ethnic Congresswomen to go back home, stoked racial hatred and division at his rallies. In addition, he separated children from their parents and locked them up in Mexican border detention centres. Plus, of course, at rallies he simply lied about almost everything. The lying started with Barack Obama not being an American citizen (the birther myth) and finished with the election being stolen.
Last week Trump incited sedition. He tried to orchestrate a coup. The President called upon his supporters to attack his own law makers. His supporters duly obliged.
When it was almost too late there has been retribution. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and other social media platforms have closed Trump down. Many corporations have decided to stop funding him and his supporters and Trump’s personal and business banks have distanced themselves from him. New York City have withdrawn his contracts for running a number of leisure facilities. The House of Representatives have voted to impeach him. 10 Republicans crossed the aisle. The case now goes forward to the Senate. Foreign leaders are distancing themselves.
Perhaps social media companies and law makers now realise that freedom of speech is not an absolute and unqualified right. It comes with responsibilities. One right should not be used to undermine others. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – freedom of opinion and information – does not trump (sorry for the pun) the other Articles particularly the right to participate in government and free elections (Article 21).
If nothing else, we have learned that democracies are fragile. That there are many who care little for it. The long held notion that if you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it has been reinforced. Previously that has led us to the killing fields of Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz etc.
We have been reminded that if rottenness is not quickly challenged it takes root and spreads.
We should spare a thought for the former UK diplomat to Washington who was asked to give a confidential briefing on Trump. He did and forecast his Presidency would end in the way it did. Our Government did not like what he said, leaked his report and he had to resign.
Only time will tell if a Rubicon has been crossed. Will far right leaders in other western democracies learn from and refine Trump’s tactics? Perhaps next time they will succeed.
In the UK, a recent poll revealed 23% of voters would support Trump if they had the opportunity. Many ministers in the current government have beaten a path to his door and have been slow to condemn him. There can be little doubt that many Tory MPs would vote for him.
I wonder what the reaction would be if, by magic, we could find a time machine to go back 5 years and tell the great and good of the Republican Party that between 2018 and 2020 Trump would lose for their Party the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Perhaps the politics of hate, division and grievance would not appear so rosy.
If nothing else, January 6th was a reminder to people of goodwill that democracy and the freedoms it safeguards do not come automatically and need to be championed and protected. It was a reminder that hate, division, racism, misogyny, religious intolerance, white supremacy, the politics of grievance, etc can easily take root and spread.
For evil to succeed it just needs people of goodwill to do nothing.
Finally, we need to remind ourselves that over 80 million American voters did not vote for Trump or want anything to do with what he stands for. We should not be fooled into believing what he advocates has majority support in the US or indeed the UK. However, what happened last week was a wake-up call which should be ignored, or minimalised, at our peril.
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