Capitol Hill: Nightmare or

Warning?
Submitted to: Prof. Dr. Divya Madaan
Submitted by: Akshay Pratap Singh
Subject: English LTL, SECTION 1
Roll no. : 20/49260
Course: BA PROGRAMME (SEM 1)
CAPITOL HILL: NIGHTMARE OR WARNING?
6 Jan 2021 – An unforgettable day for the
whole world and especially USA.
What was the cause behind this storm which made the roots of oldest
democracy of the world to shiver?, Is it the dawn of a new anti-protest
era?, Is America such a week country?, Has the era of democracies
paved it’s ways off?............. Plethora of questions bounce up in the
heads of advocates of democracy & a beautiful chance for others to
criticise it.

 1. Is Capitol Hill violence a warning for

world's other democracies?
-As many global leaders expressed horror at what happened at Capitol Hill
that literally “shook the world”, placing the blame squarely on Trump, many
saw it as a stark and disturbing warning for all the world’s democracies: if this
could happen in the US, it could happen anywhere. Some saw it not merely as
a US national issue, but an attack on the very fundamentals of democratic
structures and institutions. As leaders and government officials around the
world responded with the sort of statements previously issued by the US State
Department when political violence consumed other countries, even some of
Trump’s vocal admirers distanced themselves from the violence that unfolded.

The attack on the Capitol, coming less than a day after the Hong Kong police
had arrested more than 50 democracy activists, was seen as a deep blow to
America’s global credibility, making it harder for America to hold to account
authoritarian leaders who trample on democratic values. Clearly, the US has
lost the moral authority to preach democracy and human rights to other
countries.
For many foreign leaders, the scenes in the US were also reminders of recent
political attacks on democracy at home. Germany drew a parallel between the
storming of the US Capitol and last year’s attempt by a far right, anti-vaccine
German mob to enter the Reichstag, the building that houses Germany’s
parliament. Some Germans also felt reminded of the National Socialist riots of
the 1920s and 1930s.

In the Netherlands, angry farmers, often led by the far-right Farmers Defence
Force, have been destroying government offices and threatening politicians
since 2019. Going further back, in 2006, a far right mob stormed the
Hungarian parliament and engaged with police for weeks in the streets of
Budapest, which ultimately saw an increase in radicalisation and return to
power of current Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Far right on centre stage

How and why did we get thus far? First and foremost, through a long process
of failures of democracy, short-sighted opportunism of the mainstream right
and mainstreaming of far-right ideas and people. Donald Trump has been a
major catalyst for this process.

The same is true of nationalist and right-wing leaders like Marine Le Pen of
France, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Recep Erdogan of Turkey, Italy’s Matteo
Salvini and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. Political scientists and
commentators, who have studied international far right forces over three
decades, say that they have never seen them as emboldened as in the last
decade. Beyond Europe, illiberal and hardline right wing forces are on the
march. In India for instance, right-wing forces are on the rise and their
mainstreaming has been an ongoing process since 2014.

There is a lot that separates nationalists from one another, but, according to
Princeton political philosopher Jan-Werner Muller, “It’s possible to pick out
shared tendencies coursing through their politics: governance based on
nationalism (often with racist overtones), on hijacking the state for the ends of
partisan loyalists and, less obviously, on weaponising the economy to secure
political power.”
Democracy under threat
So, is democracy itself as vulnerable as the buildings that were breached in
Budapest, Berlin and now, Washington? Political scientist Daniel Ziblatt has
spent many years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe, Latin
America and his own country, the US. He believes that democracy is under
threat worldwide. “The US is a pretty old democracy, it is also a rich
democracy. This should make it stable. The fact that we are seeing the
erosion of democracy in the US should be a warning for other countries,” says
Ziblatt.

The crucial difference between the US and other global democracies,

according to German political scientist Sebastian Bukow, co-author of best-
selling book ‘How Democracies Die’, is that while in the US, democracy has
been repeatedly questioned by the president himself, in most of the Western
European democracies right wing leaders are supported by a small radical

minority in society. The disturbing phenomenon over the last two decades is
the global trend of the rise of illiberal democracy, which found a hospitable
environment in the US.One can see the signs of illiberal democracy finding
ground in India through the siren song of right-wing nationalists and because
of the current potency of politics as a culture war, as also due to the dilution of
democracy by democratic means. The dwindling checks and balances,
waning power of countervailing and intermediary institutions, amid growing
polarisation and declining trust in shared definitions of common good and also
facts are all a threat to India’s Constitutional, liberal democracy.

2. Should America and world forget this

accident as a nightmare?
- According to me :

This issue is going to have a spontaneous impact on the spotless image of

USA as an ideal democracy.

America played a vital role in safeguarding the principles of democracy all

over the world be it syria or Vietnam.

(After supporters stormed the Capitol, Ivanka Trump, the President’s

daughter, called them “American patriots” in a tweet she later deleted.

The concern about what Trump can still attempt to do is not academic. In spite
of what happened on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), Trump still commands
the personal loyalty of many people in uniform.

One reason why the mob so easily breached Congress is because many of
the Capitol Hill police officers were clearly in sympathy. Some even took
selfies with the insurrectionists inside the Capitol building.

The contrast with how Black Lives Matter protesters were treated last June
when law enforcement violently cleared Lafayette Square to make way for
Trump’s photo-op was glaring. Had African-American protesters tried to storm
Capitol Hill, or the White House, there can be little doubt that bullets would
have been used –

All these points indicate that there was not only an aid to the
protesters from the then president of USA………but the hands of police
were also tied up…..which resulted in such a shameful incident.
Thanks! For reading.