The worst day of the presidency?

 

I woke up this morning with a sense of dread. Not because I thought January 6 would become an infamous date in US history, but because I knew I faced the herculean task of putting away the Christmas decorations. 

Around 10am I sat down to do the job and decided a good distraction would be to watch the live stream from the joint session of Congress to count and confirm the electoral college votes. This is the final stage in this crazy, long drawn-out American election process. I thought there might be some rousing speeches from Democrats, some reprehensible speeches from Republicans vying to win over the Trump base and become the next populist leader.

Over the past week there has been a lot of speculation about whether Republican Senators and members of Congress would protest the votes - a common and allowed part of the process - and whether Vice President Pence had any authority to challenge or even change the vote count in favour of Trump. But despite lots of liberal hand wringing and angst, the pundits generally agreed that the constitution prevented Pence from overturning any votes. So generally I think the country felt pretty relaxed going in to today. There would be pomp and circumstance, formality, sound and fury but it would signify nothing. 

Just before the session started VP Pence bolstered this feeling that everything was going to be ok - he issued a written statement saying that “It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.” It seemed that Pence had decided to go against Trump's wishes to find ways to interfere in the election process.

As I watched the proceedings begin, Pence outlined the rules that would guide the business of the day. He is a very strange fish. He has no charisma, looking impassive, awkward. As though he'd rather be anywhere else. Perhaps he knew what was coming, perhaps he really did want to be somewhere else. 

Before the vote counting started the majority leader of the Senate Mitch McConnell gave an impassioned speech urging his colleagues to resist objecting to the electoral college votes. "The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken," he said.  "If we overrule them all, it would damage our republic forever. ... If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. We'd never see the whole nation accept an election again."  Mitch McConnell has been the leader of the Republicans in the Senate since 2006, first in the minority then, since 2015, in the majority.  I'm reading President Obama's book 'A Promised Land' and Mitch McConnell is a true bogeyman on the current political scene. There is one word that describes his philosophy towards any Democrat-led legislation: obstructionism. So it was really very surprising and actually quite hopeful to hear him go on to say the words, "We cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes... with separate facts, and separate realities..." 

I really thought that might be the most dramatic moment of the day. 

While watching, I was also reading a live stream of commentary from New York Times reporters (yeah, not many christmas decoration were getting put away at this point!) News was coming in that the Democrats had won at least one of the Senate seats in the Georgia run-off, and it was looking as though the second was too close to call. Very very exciting since this would  mean a 50-50 Democrat Republican split in the Senate, with Vice-President Kamala Harris having the deciding vote. This could be the end of the political stalemate of recent times - maybe Biden would be actually able to get something done in the next four years. Heck, never mind the next four years, we need him to get something done on a federal level about the pandemic in the next four months! 

But then something else began to pop up in the live stream discussion. Apparently Trump had appeared at a rally outside the White House and had urged supporters to march on the Capitol and protest the electoral vote count. He said he would join the march, but instead had gone back to the White House. But his supporters were walking towards the Capitol. 

Meanwhile, the arcane process of the counting of the electoral college votes began. The states began presenting their vote counts in alphabetical order. Huge fancy-looking certificates were presented to the front benches, handed to Vice-President Pence (who, confusingly is the called the President when he's in the Senate) and then handed to a clerk who states, "Mr President. The certificate of the electoral state from the great state of Alabama seems to be in regular in form and authentic and it appears therefrom that Donald J. Trump received nine votes for President and Michael Pence received nine votes for Vice-President."  Unsurprisingly, nobody protested the votes from Alabama and Alaska  - both states were won by Trump-Pence. Then came Arizona, which was won by Biden-Harris, and a senator made an objection. Pence asked if the objection was signed by both a member of the House of Representatives and a Senator. Yes, it was. In that case the chambers split and each house had two hours to debate the objection. 

Ten minutes later something weird started happening on the screen. People started running around the Senate floor, either out the doors or towards the back of the chamber. Then the camera went offline. I turned to the NYT live stream to find out what was going on. Mr Husband came out of his office. Protesters had breached police lines around the Capitol and were banging on the doors. 

We switched on ABC news and watched dumbfounded as a mob streamed up the grand steps of the Capitol building, towards that famous dome. Pictures and video from inside started to emerge showing windows being broken, people walking around the rotunda taking selfies of themselves waving Trump flags, confederate flags, Gadsden flags. Then, news that tear gas had been fired. Congress staffers wearing gas masks. That someone had been shot. Members of Congress hiding under desks, in secret offices,  evacuated to secret safe tunnels, bunkers.  The business of government stopped. The idea of a peaceful transition of power in question. Even Republicans are calling it an attempted coup d'etat. 

This picture was just so shocking - tables piled up to barricade the doors to the Senate, guns drawn, fingers on triggers. This is... the United States of America! 

How was this even possible? I've watched my fair share of movies and TV shows where the US Capitol comes under attack. It seems to me that aliens and terrorists have had to fight really hard and have either spaceships and lasers (Mars Attacks! Independence Day...), or a least a building-destroying bomb (Designated Survivor) to gain a toe-hold against the US military might. 

But  in real life it turns out the Capitol can easily be overpowered by a mob of US citizens. 

The Capitol is protected by the US Capitol Police force of 1,800. In addition the National Guard can be mobilized. But, as the videos came to show, few police or guards were initially in evidence today. Apparently this was intentional since only minor skirmishes were expected and the idea was to not inflame any such skirmishes into riots. Only 350 of the 8000-strong National Guard were initially mobilized today, mostly to help with traffic and street closures resulting from the rally.  Contrast this to last summer when the entire DC National Guard was fully activated to clear Black Lives Matter protests and enable Trump's famous walk from the White House to the St John's Episcopal Church for a photo op with a bible. Authorities now justify their strategy saying they had not anticipated the size of the Trump rally. I guess they also did not anticipate that Trump and others at the rally would specifically incite mob violence and an attack on the Capitol. 

At some point President-Elect Biden gave a great speech, "A President's words matter. At their best they inspire, at their worst they incite." He called on Trump to come on national TV and call for his supporters to leave peacefully. 

Trump did release a video on social media. Trump stated that the election had been stolen, that it was a landslide win for him, but that people should go home.  He ended with, "We love you. You're very special." The video has since been taken down and facebook and twitter have locked his account for 12 hours. 

We all wondered whether Trump would finally concede following today's electoral vote count. Given his actions today it seems there is no limit to what he will do to retain power. 

In a strange twist of fate, Mr Husband heard today from the BigTech lawyers that we have just received approval for the second stage in our Green Card applications. We are currently on visas that have an end date and will have to be renewed soon. Green cards enable permanent residency and while we don't really have a clear plan for how long we will stay in the US we've come to learn that it is worthwhile doing whatever you can as an immigrant, in whatever country not just the US, to take whatever steps possible towards permanent residency. But it certainly was bizarre timing to receive this good news. "Welcome to our broken republic," texted a friend, when I told her the news. 

As I type, we are watching the government back to work, the two chambers back in the Joint Session. The vote count continued without interruption for a while, but then there was another objection and now we are back in a debate. Members from both parties speak of their outrage at the violence. A group of Republicans continue to object to the votes, citing fraud, citing unconstitutional voting practices. It is past midnight in Washington. The vote counting will go on until the small hours. I want to see it resolved, but I'm fading. 

There have been many occasions in the last four years of this cult-of-personality presidency that have challenged America's standing in the world as an exemplar of democracy, or even as a successful democratic experiment. But the last two months, culminating in today... this is utter humiliation. Four people died in the violence today.  There are rumours that the cabinet has discussed invoking the 25th amendment to declare Trump mentally unfit for office. Democrats are wondering if impeachment could be an option. There are 13 days left before the inauguration and people are worried those are 13 days too many. 

A story has been told several times today by politicians and talking heads on TV. Apparently on the final day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when the US Constitution was adopted, Americans gathered on the steps of Independence Hall to await the news of the government our founders had crafted. As Benjamin Franklin came out a lady, Elizabeth Willing Powell, asked, ‘What do we have, a republic or a monarchy?’ Franklin replied, ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’ 

Can they keep it?