Capitol Hill Down

By Tim Le Couilliard

I imagine that most reading this watched the dramatic scenes unfolding at Capitol Hill yesterday. Beyond the immediate consequences of the chaos, with four protesters now confirmed dead, pipe bombs being found and trucks with guns and ammunition now seized, there are many accusing President Trump of inciting a coup. You will struggle to find precedent for this, but surely, just surely, these could well be the grounds for impeachment. Leaders from both sides of the political divide in America are said to be drawing up impeachment articles.

Of course, with President-Elect Biden to be inaugurated in less than two weeks’ time, should Trump be impeached it will not do much to change the course of his term in office – in the words of Piers Morgan, once a friend of Trump’s, “Too ******* late”. Fundamentally, however, impeachment would prevent Trump from being able to stand for a future term in office – potentially something that should be more welcomed by the Republicans than anyone else.  That being said, a snap poll of Americans conducted by YouGov today suggests that 45% of Republican voters support the storming of the Capitol building, with fewer (43%) opposing. 

Accused of “egging on his supporters”, President Trump has been heavily criticised for his lack of meaningful response, or any real calls for de-escalation. Although he has now released a statement promising an orderly transition of power, he did little to quell the mob, and continues to repeat claims that the election was stolen.  

Other leaders have instead been very vocal. Biden delivered a powerful message during the protests, demanding that the President “stepped up”. Even Vice-President Pence, a Trump loyalist, has now rejected the President. He even changed his Twitter banner to a photo of Biden and Harris – I cannot imagine that an outgoing leader has ever done anything of the like but I may be wrong. It was also Pence who was responsible for mobilising the National Guard – something the President wasn’t going to do himself. It has not been lost on people that the response to yesterday’s protests was a far cry from what was seen during the BLM protests last summer.  

Over in the UK, watching on our TV screens, leaders have come out in their numbers to denounce the protests. Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the “disgraceful scenes in U.S. Congress. The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.” Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer too has said: “horrendous scenes from the U.S. These are not ‘protestors’ — this a direct attack on democracy and legislators carrying out the will of the American people.” 

One lighter touch that you may have missed is the former MP for Stoke, Gareth Snell, tweeting “Interesting fact: the tiles on the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives were made in Stoke-on-Trent.” Not something I knew.

It wasn’t just political leaders denouncing the scenes or the actions of the President, but business leaders too. Twitter announced that Trump’s account would be suspended for 12 hours and deleted a number of his tweets due to “a risk of violence”. Facebook and Instagram have since announced that they are banning Trump until he is out of office and YouTube and TikTok are expecting to take similar steps. The media has been broadly united in their criticism of the events, Le Figaro stating that Trump demonstrated “narcissism prevailing over all dignity”, whilst the China Global Times headlined “Capitol vandals show fragility of the US democracy.”

Perhaps the writing was on the wall for a long time, with tensions escalating across America for years – but now, with literal writing on the walls of the Rotunda, it really has reached a climax. Many leaders have been distancing themselves from the Trump administration throughout his tenure – as expected due to his election loss – but last night’s actions may well accelerate the process somewhat.