Sonala Olumhense
Sadly, the United States last week became the laughing stock of the world.
It is important to admit this: that the nation which has led the world in advancing the democratic principle for so long seemed to unravel, and on live television. In some fledgling democracies and failing states around the world, I am sure some officials were enjoying popcorn refills.
The US is the world’s best-documented nation state: even last Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol as the country’s legislators gathered to affirm the election of its incoming President and Vice-President, was documented on live newsfeeds and streaming services.
Think about it: for weeks, President Donald Trump had spoken darkly about the January 6 date. If all else failed, Congress’ certification was going to be the last opportunity for him to seek to, well, “remain” president.
The night before, the nation was distracted by a preparatory event in Georgia: the Senate elections which would determine its control. If the Republican Party won at least one of the two seats, the party would retain control.
By midnight, the numbers showed that the Democrats would snatch both seats. That meant that at breakfast in a few hours, it must have become clear to Mr. Trump that the worst had happened: in his four years he had managed to lose the Presidency, the House and the Senate.
But Trump had always had one thing going for him: people ceding to him the benefit of the doubt. It was how the GoP itself somehow found him credible in the first place in 2016. It was how enough Americans contrived to elect him. It was how, ordinarily intelligent and responsible members of the party fetched him firewood for his fire for four years.
The benefit of the doubt: It was what the country also gave to him last Wednesday as he put his arson plan into play. He had announced the rally, but the security agencies uncharacteristically did not move a muscle. He had invited the members of his infamous base, telling them by Twitter on December 19, “Be there, will be wild,” but nobody moved. How wild, they seemed to smirk.
The benefit of the doubt: Even as scared members of the Washington DC community began to board up their homes and businesses ahead of the obvious conflict between the work of Congress and the so-called protest, nobody addressed the security of the Capitol community.
The benefit of the doubt: As Congress began its presidential election certification Trump was telling his raucous crowd to show strength in fighting to give him an electoral victory he had neither earned nor won, lying that he would march with them on the Capitol, but nobody—apart from him—seemed to think that one had anything to do with the other.
And so, once again, the American leader walked through what Americans call “left field”: the blind spot of a nation which seemed to believe nobody in American leadership could conceivably select the ugliest option, particularly during an official event in which the Vice-President was presiding.
Not Trump. By the time it was over, four persons were dead, many policemen injured, and the Houses of Congress ransacked and desecrated. Within two days, one of the injured policemen had also died.
Images emerged from the deepest corners of the Capitol as to just how egregious and cynical the attack had been…and Trump’s entrancement of a nation which had exposed itself to him seemed to be broken.
