What happened in Washington yesterday?
written by Jake Hampson
Almost 4,000 Americans lost their lives to COVID-19 yesterday, yet this mornings headlines shall read about the 4 lives lost on Capitol Hill on a tumultuous day in American history.
I won’t use this article to go in to too much detail regarding the deeper sat dynamics at play within the American political system, but rather the events that led up to yesterdays event in Washington D.C. Think of yesterdays events as a result of Tinder, Kindling & Fuel — the key elements for a ferocious fire.
The mood has been tense in the United States ever since the ‘close call’ Presidential Election on the 3rd November 2020. I use ‘close call’ rather sarcastically as Trump’s loss by over 7 million votes doesn’t even rank within the top 10 closest run Presidential elections… there have only been 58 of them since 1788. Yesterday’s events were so much more than upset Republicans remonstrating at the Presidential Election results.
Tinder — The Georgia Senate run-offs
Due to state laws within Georgia. The representatives sent to the Capitol must receive over 50% of the vote share. This didn’t happen in November so the Senatorial election went to an internationally followed run-off. The Senate, the upper chamber of the United States legislature, is widely seen as the catalyst to a successful Presidency. If the Democrats win the Senate, President-elect Biden will be able to pursue his progressive agenda. However, should Biden lose the Senate, he will become what is known as a ‘lame duck’. This occurs when both chambers of Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate) are controlled by the opposing party to the incumbent President. President Trump has enjoyed a Republican controlled Senate since the day he took office in 2016 and the Republicans have, in fact, controlled the upper chamber since 2014.
So what has this go to do with Georgia? Well… everything. The Senate was finely poised with 50 Republican Senators and 48 Democrat voting Senators (including two left leaning independents). Georgia State, as with the other 50 States in the U.S.A sends two Senators to Washington D.C and both races are going to a run-off.
On Wednesday the news started to emerge of a clear victor in the first Senate run-off with Democrat Raphael Warnock emerging as the victor. Mr Warnock became the first black Senator for Georgia, a former slavery state in the US Civil War. This was a blow for the Republicans, but not as much as when Democrat Jon Ossoff was pronounced the victor in the second Senate run-off. The Senate, therefore, shall be have 50 Republicans and 50 Democrat voting Senators. A dead heat? Nope! Should a vote on legislation or a Presidential nominee ever end up a 50–50 dead heat the Vice-President (elect) Democrat Kamala Harris gets the deciding vote. The Senate is blue.
Anger, despair and disbelief from Trump supporters of all of the recent bad news for their party was finally coming to a boiling point.This is one of the reasons why Trump supporters laid siege to Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
Kindling — President Donald Trump
The President hasn’t had the finest 12 months, but nothing makes President Trump quite as incandescent as losing and no-one digs a hole as large as the New Yorker. The President must spin any portrayed failures as successes or as a result of systematic oppression/corruption. The very same systematic corruption which allowed him to file for bankruptcy over 6 times while maintaining huge personal wealth. Trump lost, but tells the story of a new record number of votes received by an incumbent President. As much as a success as Klopp declaring a football victory of sorts with 80.6% of possession at Turf Moor when losing 2–0 to Burnley.
There have been several notable Trumpisms in the past few days that led to yesterday’s events. The first of which has been his unfiltered use of twitter to stir up his supporters echo chamber. The second of which has been the use of his unparalleled political rallies. One of which happened earlier on Wednesday where Trump continued his rhetoric about his refusal to concede which was willingly accepted by his adoring crowd who chanted ‘fight for Trump, fight for Trump’. Trump did what he does best and stirred up enthusiasm amongst his supporters and ended his speech by informing his disciples to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to give the “Weak Republicans” the pride and boldness to “take back our country”. Without the figurehead of Trump, we wouldn’t of tuned in to yesterday’s scenes on BBC News. Trump was the kindling, but not the fuel.
The Fuel — Cancel Culture & Ridicule.
The fuel & ultimately the reason for this camp fire to turn in to a wild fire is cancel culture within the U.S.A. This is an underlining theme that underpins the grass roots conservative movement in America and its a feeling of oppression through cancel culture. Cancel culture, in the political realm, is the ostracism of an ideology, sector or demographic within a given population. The rise of the infamous Jordan. B Peterson and his book ‘12 rules for life’ came from the same frustration from his readers and followers. Cancel culture within politics manifests itself through the interruption of interviews, the lack of broadcasting time given to a demographic and ultimately the taunting and ridicule force fed through a largely left wing American main-stream media. It is ridicule within cancel culture which ultimately leads to what we saw yesterday.
By no means do I support the opinion of Trump and his supporters that the election was rigged and I believe the next President of the United States is rightfully Joe Biden.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The Late Late Show with James Corden. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Late Night with Seth Myers. A hand full of examples who promote the ridiculing of Trump (fair enough) and his supporters (the problem). Each show has ‘viral’ clips on Youtube which are broadcast on their network shows ridiculing the opinions and ‘IQ’s’ of Trump supporters. I am open to ridicule and can safely say others opinion of my personal beliefs holds little interest to me. However, if I were to have 4 years of the network’s biggest chat shows spending large amounts of time making jokes not just at my expense, but at my beliefs — I would become insecure. Insecurity in any walk of life, when tapped into incessantly provides the fuel to this January afternoon’s fire. “Just don’t watch their clips” is the retort. I implore you to try and avoid a negative post about Trump on social media for a day and let me know how you get on. The issue isn’t necessarily the negativity towards Trump — this is deserved. The issue is the attached stigma of being a Trump supporter and therefore creating a hidden and ‘silent majority’ (a conservative favourite phrase) who receive a release at elections — but when those elections go wrong then they have no method in which to vent.
If you don’t yet sign up to my point regarding the impact of ridicule on ones behaviour I would simply point you towards Julia Marcus, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School who wrote, in The Atlantic, about the danger of moral indignation and its impact on the spread of the coronavirus. Julia writes “instead of yelling at people for being careless and selfish — a perfectly understandable reaction — let’s start by asking why people are partying” in relation to COVID rule breakers. Julia goes on to summarise that the stigma attached with wanting to spend time with family has become easy pickings for the moral police. This stigma creates a psyche amongst restriction rule breakers that they must exist away from society and keep their opinion and desire to see their family members to themselves (despite maybe having valid reasons for seeing them such as caring, palliative care and mental health). The same applies to Trump supporters. They feel, due to cancel culture, a need to restrict the voicing of their opinion and thus the accumulation of ‘steam’ which we saw released yesterday.
The point here isn’t to condone Trump’s actions — which have shown catastrophic disrespect for the world’s self pronounced home of democracy. Nor is it to condone the scenes which have led to at least one fatality. It is to offer an explanation as to why men & women, old & young decided they had no other option but to storm their own countries legislature chambers to let out the steam accumulated as a direct consequence of the ridicule those who shall condemn them most have contributed towards. Furthermore, I wrote this article not as a justification for the aforementioned’s actions but as a means to avoid future similar scenes (we may be a while away from this). Quit the ridicule of belief, if you don’t share their opinion — simply ignore it. If you don’t agree with the conservative grass roots movement, yet wish to engage with them — understand your differences, find commonalities and allow those who feel most vilified to speak and express their opinion freely.
I look forward to the ramping up of ridicule of a political belief system across the media on Thursday.
