President Donald Trump now says there “will be an orderly transition on January 20th” after Congress concluded the electoral vote count certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and after a day of violence when his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol
Hours after rioters breached the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., this afternoon, as thousands of people were protesting the results of the election, and as Congress was set to debate, then certify, the electoral college votes from the election from each state, it continues Wednesday evening.
Itâs a sign that democracy, something that many take for granted, is, in fact, fragile, according to Juniata College professor of politics Dennis Plane.
âJust as (President-Elect) Joe Biden noted this afternoon when he spoke, democracy is fragile,â said Plane. âI think we forget that and we take it for granted. The events of today illustrate that democracy is something you have to work at.
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email Viewpoint: This is Not a Coup
The mob riot on the Capitol Building was disgusting, violent, and deadly. It’s still not a coup. And that matters.
Executive Editor
It’s not a coup. It’s awful. It sucks. It’s appalling. It’s illegal. It’s ugly. It’s not a coup.
Stop.
Coups don’t ask permission from courts and parliaments. Coups don’t come without any military, police, secret police, or armed forces of any kind on their side. Coups don’t let free press be the free press. Coups don’t beg for it over Twitter. Coups don’t rely on nearly-spontaneous, short-lived, mostly unarmed mobs to break into one building.
American democracy, with its admirable centuries of history and the honor of having produced the biggest world power of the last century, on Wednesday experienced one of its darkest days in decades. Pro-Trump protesters, incited by the president himself, stormed the Capitol building just as the representatives of national sovereignty were gathered in a joint session to certify the results of the presidential election won by the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden. It was the horrible result of years of systematic efforts by the national-populist business magnate to encourage polarization within US society. Years of consistently pouring fuel on the foundations of civic coexistence finally sparked a terrible blaze within the temple of American democracy itself.