The breach of security at the US Capitol Building this week shook the world. With US stability and international standing in shambles, LeipGlo contributor Scott Galvao, originally from the US, took at closer look at the events, how they came about and who instigated it.
The storming of the US Capitol Building in Washington DC was something few of us could imagine ever seeing. Our initial reaction is one of shock, followed by asking how this could have happened.
Some blame Donald Trump, and much of the responsibility indeed lies with him.
But the difference between a naked man standing on a street corner imploring onlookers to admire his new outfit, and an Emperor with no clothes is enablers. Equally as much responsibility rests on Trump’s enablers who support, validate and condone his actions.
In particular congressional Republicans and right-wing media like Fox News have provided the wind in his sails throughout his presidency.
In doing so, their complicit behavior has emboldened Trump to take ever more reckless steps to achieve his self-serving goals. Indeed, the last four years read like a rap sheet of a petty criminal who somehow always slips through the cracks of the law, with every new crime bolder than the last.
Time after seemingly endless time, their support of his actions has nurtured the seeds of discontentment and acted as stepping stones which led the United States to January 6, 2021. At the rally before the Capitol’s storming, Trump and his cronies performed the latest experiment on the monster that Trump has created and nourished.
Their subtle but loaded statements like “trial by combat” instructed and incited Trump’s followers. And a short time later, many Republicans in Congress propagated unfounded claims of “stolen election.” This time however, Trump and his accomplices lost control of the monster.
With the storming of the US capital, the chickens came home to roost.
The same complicit congressional Republicans who have in part created the monster have now seen their own house invaded and occupied by it. The harvest of discontent has finally been delivered upon Congress’s doorstep. Even Fox News struggles to place blame on a crowd covered in Trump gear, and Trump himself is absent.
The siege of any government building is a travesty, but like other watershed moments in American history, it can serve as a catalyst for change.
Perhaps it’s taken this act of insurrection in the heart of America’s democracy to drive a wedge between Trump and his enablers. The question now is whether Republicans will utilize it to finally stop empowering this president, take back their hijacked party, and distance themselves from the national disaster that is Trump. Only time will tell.
Scott is a co-founder and a Managing Director of InterCultural Elements in Leipzig, has lived in Germany since 2000 and holds a degree in Intercultural Communication and Geography from the University of New Mexico.
