Viewpoint: A Dark Day in American Democracy

 I never expected that I would need to have to write this.

 Wednesday January 6^th 2021 will go down in history as one of the darkest days in the history of American Democracy.

A group of domestic terrorists invaded the Capitol building in Washington DC. How they got in there is almost irrelevant at this point, though it will not be irrelevant later, there will have to be an investigation into just how that happened. For now, there are more important things to be dealt with.

This is act of terrorism, and as much as I hate using that word, it is truly what it was, an act of terrorism, and it was committed by a bunch of criminals, who called themselves “Proud Boys”. They have nothing to be “proud” of. They just committed treason and sedition. They all need to be rounded up, tried for these crimes, and then locked up for the rest of their natural lives, without any hope of parole.

Those that fomented this, ranging from the Conservative commentators and media organisations that allowed these commentators to spread their traitorous comments, to the very congressmen that encouraged it, and even the “President” himself who practically ordered this sedition to happen, also need to tried for these crimes, and also locked up for the rest of their natural lives, without any chance of parole.

Even now, Conservative media commentators have been trying to put the blame elsewhere, some of them even going so far as to try to blame some mystical “Antifa” organisation, for what happened. No evidence has been presented that there were any anti-fascist infiltrators, just like there has been no evidence for any of Trump's baseless claims about the election being rigged against him. These organisations and commentators need to be deplatformed immediately. They have no business being part of public discourse on the airwaves, whether those airwaves are delivered by a satellite, a cable or a transmitter.

And what of the politicians who actively encouraged this to happen? They need to barred from politics for life. If they are sitting congressmen and women, they need to removed from congress immediately. The “President” needs to be impeached, and convicted, and removed from office. It doesn't matter that he will no longer be President come the 20^th January 2021. He has just demonstrated in the clearest terms possible, that he no longer has any business leading a school board, never mind a nation like the United States. But because the process of impeachment and conviction can take quite a long time, then the Vice President has to seriously consider using the 25^th Amendment to remove Donald John Trump from office. Whether he can do that though, will depend on just how many members of Trump's cabinet he can get to agree to it. Nonetheless, those discussions need to be happening, if they aren't already.

I already said they need to be tried and locked up for these crimes, but first we need to remove them off the political stage.

Democracy in any country, be it the United States, or indeed our own, depends not on how dark these kinds of days are, but in how we as a people respond to them. We must be willing to draw a line in the sand, and say “No, this was wrong”, and we must never allow ourselves to go back to these dark places ever again. And we must make sure that those who could take us there, are never allowed the power to do that again.