The Trump Riots And The American State

On January 6, 2021 a group of thousands of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building in order to disrupt the Senate’s official confirmation of Joe Biden as the next President of the United States of America. These events have set off a firestorm of protests and denunciations across the planet, with many people expressing open dismay that “such an attack on democracy” could happen in America. Here I explore how these reactions prove that those who talk about democracy the most often understand it the least, as a group of the demos – the common people – assaulting the halls of power in order to prevent what they saw as corrupt political actions is the most democratic that has happened in America in the last fifty years. I further explore how the celebration by many on the political Left of the shooting of one of the protestors shows what their true political motives are, and they aren’t to end police brutality. Finally, I look at what the problems are which have given rise to this political divisiveness and what the real solutions are to it, both from a secular perspective and from a fuller religious perspective.