Rebecca Solnit: The violence at the Capitol was an attempted coup / It took thugs roaming the halls of Congress for media to speak the truth / Reports & Photos of the Siege of the US Congress

I call it a coup attempt because, though I assume it will not prevent the Biden presidency, it certainly intended to, and is part of a campaign to delegitimize and thereby weaken the incoming administration. It was a long time coming, building up for years with white rage, especially white male rage fuelled by everyone from Trump himself to the National Rifle Association, Fox News and the various rightwing pundits, the Republican party, the various faces of white supremacy, and far-right groups such as the Proud Boys. It is a rage against the fact that other people might be equal under the law, that women and people of color might also govern as power begins to be distributed more equally, the same rage that attempted to delegitimize a black president with birtherism and obstruction. It is a rage against equality.

Eye-witness reports and photos of the siege of the US Congress

Police officer dies of injuries sustained during mob attack

Look at the Capitol Hill rioters. Now imagine if they had been black

Donald Trump has no conscience, no shame and no self-control

Democracy is a set of agreements to make decisions together and respect the outcome whether you like them or not. The kind of violence we saw on Capitol Hill is authoritarian, a way to try to force other people to submit to the will of the perpetrators. This violence comes from the white men who were long the only people with power in this country imagining themselves as marginalized and oppressed outsiders because others might also have power and a voice. We saw these kind of men last summer, when they invaded the Michigan capital while carrying semiautomatic rifles and saw them again when a handful of them were arrested for a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. We saw them in racist shootings from the Texas border to a Pennsylvania synagogue…

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/06/trump-mob-storm-capitol-washington-coup-attempt

It took thugs roaming the halls of Congress for media to speak the truth

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