Shock, disgust and horror. This is how politicians, commentators, and journalists described the insurrection at Capitol Hill, as the events unfolded. However, the prevailing emotion was fear of a President who seemingly pushed his hardcore loyalists to stage an insurrection against the American Congress- the heart of the American Democracy. The condemnation came from across the entire political board, by most Republicans and Democrats alike. However, Democrats have taken the debate a few steps further, being now in the talks to remove President Trump by either triggering the 25th Amendment or by proceeding with impeachment.
Both acts will remove the acting President and ban him from running for office again, however, it seems unlikely that he will be removed, as Vice President Mike Pence is not really keen on invoking the 25th Amendment. It also requires two-thirds of Congress to vote for it, whilst in regards to impeachment, in which there is simply not enough time. President Trump, who recently confirmed that he will not attend Biden’s Inauguration- set to take place on January 20th- has confirmed his intention to keep on fighting once outside the White House.
The MAGA March that took place in Washington DC on January 6th, was culminated by Trump’s speech, later generating into a violent riot. As described by political analysts, this was the “perfect” and inevitable way to end his political career, filled with lies and incompetence. Trump has committed the error to fuel suspicions against the election and the American voting systems, pushing some of its followers to believe the conspiracies against him and that the entire system was rigged and votes were stolen from them.
The American elections were highly charged with emotions and many people raised questions about the safety of the voting systems, specifically the mail-in ballots. The President of the USA has the total right to investigate in matters of election fraud, however, the problem is that Trump has not been able to provide for evidence, therefore his allegations are simply not enough to overturn the results certified by the electoral college. Furthermore, he should not have made this as a matter of loyalty, by asking Mike Pence to not certify Biden’s victory. Not the Vice President, nor Congress have the power to do so.
Using emotionally charged words that had the effect of instigating his followers to attack Congress, preventing the government’s constitutional rights to certify the election, is deplorable. However, it is wrong to directly blame him for the insurrection that resulted in four deaths and dozens of officers injured, for he instigated it and not demanded it to happen. If blame were to be the case then some could say Obama is to blame for a rioter that shot six police officers in Ferguson after months of saying that the police is systemically racist. After months of normalising the ongoing riots last summer, it is ultimately time to hold the media responsible and the Democrats for the number of people who were injured and the $2billion cost in damages.
We can criticise Trump’s words and lies, but we should not forget that he didn’t actively promote an insurrection, instead, he told the rioters to back off and be peaceful and that he actually requested more law enforcement, something that actually was denied by DC’s Democrat Mayor. No words that have been given by Trump online are all worthy enough for him to see a temporal ban from all social media platforms. Alongside his so-called intentions to fight for what he believes is right, his so-called claims injustice in the recent elections to even his recent conspiracies against America, as expressed in his last video- all reasons are not worthy enough to say that President Trump deserves to have a total ban from social media. Again, he didn’t prove evidence and the fact that a lot of voters, from both sides of the spectrum, think the fraud actually happened, as Ted Cruz said in congress, is not enough evidence.
However, the total crusade that the Democrats, with the media’s complacency, have enacted for four years, blaming Trump for everything and describing all of his voters (75 million) essentially as backwards ignorant. In which, this was very wrong and very dangerous for the well being of American society. America, and the West at large, have to be able to keep on promoting freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of political views. If we do not do as such, we will end up tribalising the way we vote, when voting, on the contrary, must be detached from our political views, from our profession, from the way we decide to identify ourselves, from our ethnicities and so on.
One last thought on the role that Big Tech has in splitting our societies into groups, that have nothing in common if not just hate for each other. We have already seen our societies transition from acquiring news from traditional media outlets to do so on social media, from engaging in human-to-human exchange of thought to do so through virtual profiles. Social media has to keep on granting the freedom of thought and expression so dear and important in the West and stop banning people who simply do not comply to what these platforms allow (and I’m not talking about violence, of course). Censure is something that Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, etc. did and many other dictators are still doing. It has no place in the West.
Time to massively tax, regulate, or even better break Big Tech apart.
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