Did you see John Sopel's face last night as he reported on events on Capitol Hill for the BBC? I've never seen him so filled with emotion about the subject of his report. This normally urbane objective reporter of the American Scene had his heart on his sleeve as his mouth and eyes told all. And what an "all" it was to tell. Like him I was filled with horror, dismay and anger as I watched the storming of "The Hill" and listened to Trump's petulant whining and stirring of his mob to march down there.
Trump can't accept the result for one simple reason. He doesn't believe he could possibly have lost the election. There is no way he could not be a winner. There is no way the American electorate would have rejected him. That is truth, fact, reality for Donald Trump. Everything else follows from this. Lawsuits, claims about election rigging, ineligible votes being counted etc. Of course votes which were not for him would be ineligible. The logic is impeccable and legitimises every means used in order to subvert or overturn the result.
What I find most scary of all however is that I do not hear a roar of outrage from the USA. Sopel in his piece for the BBC displayed it visually, but there is as yet nothing much out there which seems to match my sense of outrage and fury. I know that Marina Hyde may launch an ascerbic opinion column at these events, but much as I like these opinion columns in the Guardian, I want to see a much larger, united voice of outrage expressed, because it should be! How can any reasonable American citizen of even average intelligence (not linked to Trump in some subserviant dependant way), not be outraged and angered by the events of yesterday? This horrific display should have produced a denouncement of such national proportions that removing the man from office immediately would have followed as naturally as night follows day. The fact that is does not adds huge dismay to my outrage.
Even Jo Biden's response seemed limp by comparison to the enormity of the deed itself. And Trump's response to Biden's call to tell his mob to go home? Sure he did tell them to head home as in the same breath he claimed the high ground and told his people that they were not to be like "them", and closed by telling his mob that he loved them and they were "special". Who were "them" but the advocates of fair and free democracy and how in any sense were they the ones the mob were not to be like? It was as though thsoe who upheld the constitution and the democratic process were the ones doing the mobbing and rioting and gun slinging. These scenes do not augur well for the future of America right now. Obama must be hitting his head off the wall, Biden blinded in a mist of rage, and millions of ordinary voters dazed and confused. Reason, sense, good will, justice, please prevail!
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