Versión Español
Spanish – There is no affront to democracy if the people enter the house where their representatives work. They do not need an invitation to enter the premises, but neither can they resort to violence to get in.
And yes, they broke into the Capitol by force. A woman would then be shot dead, and this would change Trump’s whole strategy. And perhaps, the course of American history.
If the woman wasn’t armed and wielding her weapon, no protocol instructs the uniformed officers to shoot. It is not yet known who shot her.
But let’s take it one step at a time. President Donald Trump’s noon speech in Washington, D.C., to thousands of supporters, was a hotter version of the same thing: the narrative of the fraud. And, this time, with an air of last resort. So far, so good.
The problem was when, an hour later, around 2:00 p.m., a few hundred supporters surrounded the Capitol, where Vice President Mike Pence was receiving the votes that Trump was pressuring him to reject.
The New Yorker ramped up the pressure. He had said that Pence should do the right thing, reject the votes. The Vice President argued that the Constitution gives the states the power to elect a president, but not him.
It was Pence’s responsibility to push through some interpretation of the laws so that Trump could stretch his mandate. Neither the Republicans nor the Trumpists themselves were satisfied with this remedy.
That’s when the problems began. Since Pence didn’t do what Trump expected of him, the supporters surrounded the Capitol and entered its halls. Senators and congressmen were evicted immediately.
It is not clear what happened so far, but videos and photos appeared on social media of a young woman shot inside that compound. She was lying on the floor with blood on her neck. She later died. A devastating image for democracy.
Democracy was on the ground, bleeding. But no. She was not wounded by Trump, but by unknown hands, contrary to the demonstrators.
However, I consider this fact to be the turning point for Trump’s movement. Fighting for democratic and peaceful ways and breaking into public places by force is not the same.
His followers entered the Capitol. But they didn’t attack anyone, they didn’t hurt anyone, and as far as anyone knows, they never fired a weapon, if they were carrying one.
One dressed ridiculously in a Daniel Boone costume with Viking horns occupied the rostrum of the House. It was expected that some of the groups of protesters could come armed to hear Trump’s tirade, but the Second Amendment protects gun ownership in the United States. The television stations did not register anyone with a gun at any time.
The protesters who climbed walls and entered the Capitol also did not smash anything but glass. There was no reason for the police to attack them with tear gas. However, violence tainted the protest.
Trump was forced to broadcast a video message asking people to go home in peace. Twitter censored the replay of this message and then deleted that and another tweet. Twitter is now the new Digital Police State: it went from being a champion of free speech to an undemocratic Orwellian censor. What a shame, Jack.
And Washington is on curfew from 6:00 pm. As a result of the protests, the Democrats may have had enough excuses for the general public, based by far on the mainstream media that operates for Biden, to forget to check for fraud and call for law and order, peace, and democracy.
Trump’s movement now has only the option of waiting until 2024 to re-launch the New Yorker, who will have to leave the White House before January 20.
The armed radicals in his movement will have to calm down and put their guns away because no one approves of violence. The police must also cool down their hysteria.
The Black Lives Matter and Antifa people were not shot, but today’s woman was. She is a martyr to democracy.
There is talk of the presence of possible infiltrators of these two groups of rogues in the excesses of the Capitol. They were the ones who vandalized dozens of cities in the previous months and terrorized people just because of their race or electoral preference.
They are domestic terrorists. However, their presence on Capitol Hill has not been proven so far.
The legal and institutional resources to prove that there was a fraud, that the dead voted, that there were more votes than voters seem to have already been exhausted.
The woman killed by a bullet during the protests caused the decline of the warrior spirit of many Trumpists. The values of democracy- legality, justice, peace, freedom- are above any candidate or political party. And they must be preserved.
If Trump and his people, with all their power and fangs, were unable to prove frauds to the relevant institutions until now, perhaps it is not that there have been no such frauds, but that this democracy does not give more, it gives no more options.
So Trump could run in 2024 under the 22nd Amendment. He has more than 70 million votes. That would be his path.
Raúl Tortolero is a mexican political consultant. PhD Human Rights. Master´s Degree in Philosophy, Culture and Religion. Writer and journalist.
