Rogue in the White House

 Washington D.C. saw unprecedented scenes of President Donald Trump’s supporters storming the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. Americans are shocked and shamed by their president, who desecrated their nation’s greatest monument- the Capitol- the seat of the Congress and the Senate on January 6,2020 when several hundred protestors-turned mob, stormed the hallowed portals, when the joint session was going to certify Biden’s win. The mobs committed a criminal breach on the sanctum sanctorum of US democracy and acted in an illegal manner to disrupt the joint session of the Capitol. The stunning display of insurrection was the first time the US Capitol had been overrun since the British attacked and burned the building in August of 1814, during the War of 1812, according to Samuel Holliday, director of scholarship and operations with the US Capitol Historical Society The peaceful transfer of U.S. presidential power dating back to George Washington and John Adams more than two centuries ago ended with Donald Trump’s incitement of an insurrection January 6 when hundreds of his supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. It was nothing less than domestic terrorism meant to prevent the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s decisive victory in the Electoral College, and it left at least one person dead – a San Diego woman- and several people injured. The Conservative party’s silence in the face of Trump’s repeated assertions that the election was stolen from him became a tacit acceptance of his unverified claims. The chaos cemented Trump’s reputation as the worst president of all time. It will also cement the ruined reputations of shameless cheerleaders who put party over country for a president for whom lying came as naturally as breathing. President Trump’s refusal, from the start, to concede the election to Biden, coupled with his call to his supporters to make it clear that they do not accept the result, made him the enabler-in-chief of this sordid episode. State and federal judges have turned back dozens of lawsuits challenging the integrity of election results for the most basic of reasons: they have offered no proof. The Republican Party stood divided between Trumpism and patriotism and proved disturbingly unable to step up to the task of reining in their candidate. Trump’s presidency was marked by controversies that had nothing to do with his administrative decisions but more to do with his idiosyncratic language and actions. What was witnessed on January 6 was that dangerous moment when the fringe is so empowered by the patronage of the powerful, when it is so weaponised by the mainstream leadership, that it takes centre stage. In coming weeks and months, pundits and academics will attempt to explain how American democracy got to this point, how to restore its lost shine and how to salvage its reputation abroad. There will some who are sympathetic to Trump supporters and their grievances. However, the mobs who stormed the Capitol were trying to steal an election that their candidate-Donald Trump- lost by more than 7 million deserves contempt, not sympathy. Shocked and shamed, many Republicans may back the proposal to invoke impeachment against Trump and it will be the last nail on his repulsive presidency and hopefully, it will be the last time such person will ever occupy the White House.