By Ashely Paiva
With President-Elect Joe Biden being inaugurated today, the events that occurred last week in the U.S on Capitol Hill are still ever present. As well as how the current President, Donald J. Trump, riled up the rioters, and pretty much condoned the breach of the capitol building. Today’s the day I think we are going to need some serious answers. It’s time to dig deep, to find out what truly happened from start to finish that day.
To start off, let me try to explain what the heck happened to the U.S. Now we obviously don’t know everything about that day but, why in the world would President Trump rile up the protesters saying “if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore?” And say he will be joining them on the capitol property, “we’re going to walk down to the Capitol.” This of course never happened but, why try? Then, there is the issue of why there was not enough police or protection at Capitol Hill to ensure no breach occurred. This could’ve stopped this entire event from happening.
Videos of rioters scaling the capitol building and breaking in windows and doors are flying around the media. Rioters speaking to CNN are saying “They are taking away our freedom. They did this to us!” As if without the current President the country will go to shambles.
Many are calling this breach in security the worst breach in US history, As all the protesters rushed and brawled into the halls of the capitol building with police presence. Luckily even as this happened, all government officials including vice-president Mike Pence were evacuated from the building. But that did not stop rioters from destroying windows and anything they could break.
As the night went on President-Elect Joe Biden came out to talk about President Trump and how the events on Capitol Hill were the breaking point of the anger and emotions running through the millions who believe the President’s lies. 75 million people believe Trump is the one to save the U.S.A., despite everything that has happened, despite everything that he has done or hasn’t done, especially about the new wave of COVID-19 cases. This craziness is in reaction to so many others who have the common sense to realize that Trump is psycho, bad for the country and lost a fair and non-fraudulent election to Joe Biden.
There is a video going around on Instagram showing the completely sickening difference in police and military response between the peaceful protests of Black Lives Matter and the capitol events (far from peaceful). The video shows BLM protesters being physically shoved to the ground and injured. While during the riots on Capitol Hill, all of the “protesters” are slowly moved off the property and not arrested on sight. How is this OK? Trump’s decisions on how to respond to these different events are based on skin tone and who his supporters are. When we make these comparisons we need to make sure we continue to remember that one side of these protests were peaceful and the other was not classifiable as a protest. They do not fit the same category nor did either get appropriate responses.
Later in the day after he riled up the then known as “protesters,” Trump also came out whilst the now rioters were still on capitol property to congratulate and praise the rioters for what they did. Endangering many lives including his own VP and his family. “I love you, you are special…” is just a part of what the President decided to say towards them.
Now let’s not forget what the President and officials said instigating this event. One official saying in part “let’s go take down names and kick ass!” Which is only part of what most likely riled the protesters up and ended with the events that occurred throughout the day.
Another question circling everyone’s heads is why police were just standing there. In part it is an organizational issue, at fault of leadership and lack of proper set up based on what they knew was coming. But then there are many pictures and videos of police letting rioters in and actually taking pictures with them.
To bring this a little closer to home, there was also the procession of cars that slowly drove by the U.S. consulate in Toronto. This procession was pro-Trump supporters honking their horns as they drove by with Trump flags attached to their cars. Now, as students we aren’t necessarily involved in this however, it still affects us as we see it happening and the problems in the U.S. are not only there.
Although it may not affect us as students, its definitely scary to watch, especially for the minority groups that pro-Trump people are against such as Jews, LGBTQ+ people and POC’s. A question was put out asking for students' opinions and more than one person said that seeing this was very concerning. They also went on to say that they are nervous now more than ever for the minority groups because of these events. Of course they also expressed outrage for the idiocy of the current President for not showing the people different, more peaceful ways of protesting.
Now the President of the U.S.A will go through the impeachment process for the second time in his term. This will possibly remove him from office and power before the 20th when president elect Joe Biden will take over.