Maga mob’s Capitol invasion makes Trump’s assault on democracy literal

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The US Capitol, the seat of American democracy, has been stormed by Donald Trump supporters, egged on by the president in a desperate and violent effort to overturn the results of the election.

Minutes after the news spread that the vice-president had announced he would not do the president’s bidding and reverse Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden at the ballot box, hundreds of pro-Trump rioters broke down the barriers around the Capitol building, and surged forward.

Footage from inside the building showed that some pro-Trump rioters had reached one of the doors to the Capitol and smashed out the glass. A group managed to make their way to the atrium of the Senate Rotunda, carrying confederate flags. The Capitol police were outnumbered and seemed to melt away.

ADDAt least one person was shot and wounded by security officers inside the Capitol, and an explosive devise was also found.END

It was the most dramatic challenge to the US democratic system since the civil war and it forced the suspension of a joint session of Congress that had convened to certify the results of November’s presidential election.

Members of Congress were told by police to put on gas masks after tear gas was fired in Rotunda of the US Capitol, m

ADDA 6pm curfew was declared in the capital, and the Pentagon said about 1,100 D.C. National Guard would be deployed to help support law enforcement agencies.END

And a few hundred miles away in Georgia, votes were being counted in runoff elections that looked almost certain to give control of the Senate to the Democrats, in a unmistakeable renunciation of Trump and Trumpism in the deep south.

US Capitol in lockdown as Trump supporters clash with police

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The crowds in Washington however, had been told by their leader that the votes against him had been rigged, and told to march on the Capitol to “stand strong for the integrity of our elections” and to “save our democracy”.

Trump told them to converge on Congress “peacefully and patriotically” but order broke down just minutes after he spoke.

The mob, in Make America Great Again caps, rushed up the Capitol steps, forcing the police to withdraw, firing flash-bangs and paintballs from higher balconies in an effort to keep them at bay.

The mass ranks of national guard and federal agencies who had driven peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters off the streets around the White House, were nowhere to be seen.

In the eyes of the rioters, the democratic procedures and traditions of which the US has thus far been so proud, had been transformed, by their leader’s insistent oratory, into the mere trappings of betrayal.

NEWAs protestors took selfies inside the chamber and senate offices, Trump tweeted “Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue.”

But the outgoing president came under increasing pressure – from allies and foes – to condemn the violence.

President elect Joe Biden lamented the “assault on the rule of law” in Washington, a “citadel of liberty.”

“I call on President Trump to go on national television now, to fulfill his oath and defend the constitution and demand an end to this siege,” Biden said. “It’s not a protest; it’s insurrection. The world is watching.”

At the other end of the national mall, half an hour before the Capitol was besieged, the defeated president had painted a stark picture. Those Republicans who voted to upturn the election were the patriots, and the others were “weak” and “pathetic” allowing Democrats to destroy the country.

Trump singled out his vice-president, Mike Pence, who until Wednesday had been loyal to a fault. “Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country,” Trump yelled from a stage that had been set up a block from the White House, for a crowd that had gathered on the grassy Ellipse below the national monument.

As the president was speaking, Pence was, for the first time, doing the opposite of what he was been told by his boss. He formally notified Congress that his role was a ceremonial one, to read out the election results, not to change them.

Trump had promised his supporters he would accompany them on their walk to the Capitol, but instead drove in his motorcade the hundred metres back to the White House, from where he fired off a tweet disowning Pence who he alleged “didn’t have the courage” to protect the country and the constitution.

The day had begun seemingly like any other American political carnival, with bright flags, exuberant costumes and vendors selling T-shirts and hotdogs. It was only with a closer look, that something far more dystopian was at hand, with a seething potential for violence.

“Fuck Your Feelings, Trump 2020,” was the message on the fastest-selling T-shirt. Some of the flags declared: “Fuck Biden”. The crowd that sprawled across the Ellipse was a mix of families and the elderly, men and women, young and old. Only about one in 10 was wearing camouflage gear, though that was more than the percentage wearing masks.

A young couple, Kasey and Mike, were sitting under one of the ornamental cherry trees planted along the mall, having traveled down from Rhode Island to witness the climactic day. They spoke with the dreamy smiles of two people in love, sharing a moment in history, but their message was one of looming conflict.

“People here are mad. They’ve watched so many people destroy our country like that. I don’t think they’re just gonna sit back any more,” Kasey said, convinced that a Biden win would lead to a bleak, socialist state.

“I think Trump’s only option he really has left is to call military action into it because he has the right to do that.”