By W. Andy Knight

January 6, 2021 will go down in infamy as one of the truly ‘dark days’ in American history. It was not the darkest of days, however. The battle of Antietam in Maryland on September 17,1862 was certainly a darker day than January 6, 2021. On that particular day, Forces of Union General George McClellan and the Confederate troops of General Robert E. Lee clashed in a daylong battle that left 23,000 soldiers dead or wounded. 

And both the Pearl Harbour attack by the Japanese during World War II and the September 11 terrorists’ attacks orchestrated by Osama bin Laden on the World Trade Centre building and the Pentagon can be considered darker days. In both cases about 3,000 people were killed.

But what makes  January 6 such a dark day in American history is the fact that the former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, incited a domestic terrorist mob to engage in violent insurrection in what can only be labelled as a failed coup d’état. Trump who was legitimately voted out of office in the November 2020  election, showed his illiberal, dictatorial and authoritarian inclination by calling on his most ardent cult followers to storm the Capitol in a clear attempt to prevent the 117^th US Congress (of the joint House and Senate) from certifying the election results of Joe Biden – the incoming President – and Kamala Harris – the incoming Vice President.

What is abundantly clear is that  Trump called his dedicated cult followers to attend a mass rally in the nation’s capital on the day in question.  He then instructed his mob, comprised mostly of white, relatively well-off, vigilantes (without the KKK hoods), to march on Capitol Hill in an attempt to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes by Congress. He called on his supporters to “fight like hell” and “take back our country.” His now highly discredited personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, having lost over 60 cases in court – many of them from judgments issued by Trump-appointed judges, called on the insurrectionists to pursue the path of “trial by combat” in order to stop Biden and Harris from being appointed President and Vice President of the US.

It was “Trump’s mob” that marched on the US Capitol, attacked the capitol police, methodically pulled down barricades, smashed windows and doors of the Capitol buildings, defecated in the halls of the most sacred temple of American democracy, and even smeared faeces on the hallowed walls of Congress. It was “Trump’s mob” who brought arms, military gear and twist ties into the Congressional buildings, chanting death threats to Vice President Pence (the loyal sycophant side kick of the US president) and to Leader of the House of representatives Nancy Pelosi. It was “Trump’s mob” who banged on the doors of identified Democratic legislators, broke into some of their offices, stole letters, computer equipment and personal items, and literally ransacked the place where the nation’s business is conducted.

Why would they do something like this? Well, because their cult leader, Donald J. Trump, incited them to assault the Capitol – the seal of the American Government – and brain-washed them into believing that the 2020 US election was rigged. That incitement led to the deaths of five people, including a former National Guard soldier who was one of the rioters and a Washington policeman who did his best to try and stop the domestic terrorists from entering US Congress. Several law enforcement personnel were injured by this despicable mob.

FBI offices in Virginia had issued an explicit warning, days before the event, that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war,” according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post. One such message posted in an online thread stated bluntly: “Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President, or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.” These intelligence reports clearly contradict senior White House officials’ statements that the bureau had no intelligence to indicate that anyone at the so-called “demonstrations in support of President Trump” planned to do harm.

What the January 6  event revealed is that American democracy is fragile; the US Constitution is fragile. The US has to stop pretending that it is somehow an “exceptional nation”. The American body politic is no different from that of Trinidad and Tobago, which experienced a failed coup led by Jamaat al Muslimeen and its leader, Yasin Abu Bakr on July 27,1990. The American body politic is no different from that of Nigeria which experienced a failed coup that same year led by Major Gideon Orkar. It is no difference from Panama which experienced a failed coup against President Endara in 1990.  It is no different than Haiti whose armed group FRAPH ousted the democratically elected President of that country, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 1991. What makes America any better than Turkey which experienced a coup attempt in July 2016 ?  Or Austria, which came close to a right-wing coup d’état in April of 2017?

America is no longer exceptional, if ever it was. It may have held the promise of being a beacon of democracy. But we all know that the country was founded on strategies designed to subvert the will of some of the people in that country – namely, Blacks.  And after  January 6  last, it is difficult to ever see America as a standard bearer for democracy. That reputation seems forever tarnished.

On January 13 last, members of the US House of Representatives, voted to impeach President Trump for an unprecedented second time. This time, it was  on a serious charge of “inciting violence” against the US Government.

But we are reminded that there can be no lasting peace in the US unless there is accountability for the dastardly insurrection on January 6 last. Indeed, there are traitors of the US constitution sitting in Congress today. Those individuals must be named, shamed, rounded up and expelled from the House and Senate. Of the 536 members of Congress, 139 of them (all Republicans) objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential win, even after blood was shed on Capitol Hill. One of them, GOP representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a new member of Congress has flouted the security rules by bringing a gun into the Capitol buildings. She refused to allow the Capitol Police to search her bag after she set off a metal detector. Others like GOP representatives Steve Womack, Andy Biggs and Mo Brooks are been accused of inciting the rioters with their lies and rhetoric. 

FBI investigators are now saying that the insurrection was not a spontaneous event. It was a planned assault on the Capitol. Until the FBI can get to the bottom of this and the American justice system can severely punish those responsible for igniting and planning this coup, America will never heal. Accountability has to precede any attempts at lowering the temperature and reconciling the fractious, dysfunctional country that America is and always has been.

(W. Andy Knight is a professor of international relations at the University of Alberta.)