Political Violence in Washington (Opinion)

By DC Pathak The presidential election in the US marked by an unusually confrontationist run up to the polls and an equally bitter post-poll phase of transition, made a wrong sort of history when hundreds of supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump converging on the Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. indulged in violence there on January 6, the day a joint session of the Congress was set to finally certify the victorious candidate. The facts that as many as four protesters lost their lives and an officer of the Capitol Police force succumbed to injuries inflicted by the mob, speak of the seriousness of an event that seemed to the world outside as an unprecedented physical attack on the Parliament of the oldest democracy by a politically driven mob of Republican followers pushed to a height of frenzy by their Presidential nominee himself.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was amongst the first world leaders to condemn the assault on democracy notwithstanding the fact that India had in his regime enjoyed a deep convergence with Trump on most issues of economy and global security. The point about Washington lawlessness is that it marked the culmination of a long drawn no-holds-barred campaign of the Trump camp that had started turning militant. The event underscores the risk that public exhortations of a certain kind posed, of letting political protests degenerate into blind violence at the hands of emotionally charged followers.
The reported accounts of the composition and behaviour of the rampaging mob within the premises of the Capitol are quiet revealing. Exasperated over the fact that postal ballots had become a prime cause for his defeat, Trump called for protests in D.C. on January 6 and tweeted “be there, will be wild” with Judith Giuliani, his prime supporter, raising the allegation of fraudulent ballot and calling for ‘trial by combat’. In an hour-long speech on January 6, Trump asked his supporters to walk down to the Capitol and “take back our country”. He asked Vice President Mike Pence, who was to chair the joint session, “to come through” and when Pence said he could not block the election result and Trump denounced him on that count, scuffle ensued between the protesters and the Capitol Police.
The marchers who had scaled the walls of the building smashed glass panes, overwhelmed the Police and had a free run of the place. Significantly, the core of the Trump supporters comprised of white nationalists, blue collar workers and those who hated ‘the corrupt elite’ for bartering away the US interests -as was contended by Donald Trump in his ‘America First’ campaign.
A large Confederacy flag was displayed suggestive of a certain mood of hostility reminiscent of the revolt of the Southerners some 150 years ago. Many protesters reportedly wore bullet proof vests and helmets indicating that the march had set off a militant environ and a question did arise as to whether the Capitol Police had read the situation at all and whether reinforcements could not have been called earlier for the protection of the Congress. The case warrants an examination from the angle of failure of law and Order. The Deputy Security Advisor of the White House resigned after the January 6 incident. It may be mentioned that maintenance of internal peace is the prime function of a democratic state.
An analysis of the situation before and after the episode of violence at the Capitol leads to three deductions. First, the electoral campaign of Donald Trump has created an accentuated class division in the US, different from the ideological divide of the right and the left, and led to a new kind of political assertion by the average native White Americans who were convinced Trump had given them priority through the nationalist call of ‘America First’ that implied curbs on moving jobs away from the country and the slogan of ‘Make America Great Again’ that meant propping up the defence might of the US and not letting any other country particularly China take advantage of US in trade and commerce. The racial streak in Trump unravelled by his responses to the act of a white policeman choking an African-American George Floyd to death, in full public view after his arrest at Minneapolis, apparently strengthened this constituency for him.