Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepares to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, thousands of people have gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud.(AP Photo/John Minchillo)
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For 223 years, the hallmark of American Democracy was a peaceful transition of power. It was the bedrock fact, the proof that we were better, that we had devised a system that worked, regardless of political or personal differences. Even when Abraham Lincoln was elected, spurring a civil war, the transition was peaceful.
That ended Wednesday, and shame on all those who participated. And shame on those who fanned the flames that created the storming of the U.S. Capitol building, from the President to conservative pundits who daily roiled their devotees to the local Congressional representatives who joined the bandwagon in objecting to the electoral college confirmation.
They are all as responsible for the mob break-in of the U.S. Capitol as those who stormed the building. They are responsible for the images flashing across TV screens and social media that made this nation look like some third-world republic in the midst of its umpteenth coup.
Crowds mobbing the steps of the Capitol. Windows being smashed, rocks thrown. Invaders tromping through an empty senate chamber. Guns drawn and pointed to the door of the Congressional chambers in anticipation of a break-in there. These are not — these cannot be — the images any American wants beaming to the world.
For more than two centuries we managed to agree to disagree and let elections take their course, no matter how heated the campaigns had been. This president and his supporters refused to do that. This wrenching riot is a direct result.
When peaceful protests last summer throughout the country saw rioting and vandalism occur, the president and his people demanded law and order, called them thugs and warned against mob rule. Yet it was not Antifa, or Black Lives Matter, or bands of liberals in the assault on the Capitol. It was Trump supporters.
Words should not be minced. The president of the United States prompted a physical insurrection that threatened the lives of law enforcers, law makers and the vice-president himself. It led to vandalism, lock-downs and guns drawn in the U.S. Capitol Building. It led to gunfire and a dead woman. It prompted the arrival of the National Guard.
There can be no spin, no soft-pedalling for this indefensible development. Of course, peaceful protesters who did not participate in the assault should not be lumped in with those who broke into the Capitol. But this demands condemnation from everyone, including the president.
Some 60 court cases were filed in an attempt to change the election results, and nearly all were rejected or dismissed. That’s how the system works. Votes have been counted and recounted, allegations investigated, and people from both parties all the way up to then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr found no fraud sufficient to change the outcome It is simply time for this resistance to end, to move on, to look forward to the next political fight worth picking.
Wednesday’s repugnant assault on the rule of law needs to be the end of it, and one man can make it that way.
Mr. Trump, concede. Let us keep what we’ve had since George Washington stepped down: A peaceful transition.
— Times Leader