Violence in Washington: “Biden's project will be to reconcile America, while Trump was the chaos president”
The violent invasion of the Capitol in Washington by militants pro-Trump, while Congress met there to certify Joe Biden’s victory, does it mark a weakening of American democracy? – Jose Luis Magana / AP / SIPA
Wednesday evening, as the US Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the election Presidential election, pro-Trump activists broke into the Capitol.
Violence broke out in this symbol of American democracy after Trump once again hammered home that victory was stolen from him, and caused the deaths of four people.
For the political scientist Marie-Cécile Naves, throughout his mandate, “Donald Trump will have prospered on cleavages and divisions, and Joe Biden’s whole project will be to reconcile the America “.
Scenes of chaos. An intrusion into the heart of the symbol of American democracy. And shots fired. On Wednesday in Washington, supporters of Donald Trump gathered brought into the Capitol while the US Congress was gathered there to certify the victory of Joe Biden.
A little earlier in the day, the outgoing president addressed his most fervent supporters, hammering that the victory at the presidential election had been stolen from him, and had called on the crowd to march towards the Capitol to express their anger. A call heard by tens of thousands of pro-Trump, causing violence during which four people died . “Trump is the chaos president,” comments for Minutes Marie-Cécile Naves, political scientist specializing in the United States and author of Feminist Democracy: reinventing power (ed. Calmann-Levy) and Trump, the revenge of the white man (Textual ed.).
Joe Biden condemned a ” insurrection ”, others evoke a coup. How do you qualify this violent pro-Trump intrusion on Capitol Hill?
That’s Trump who called on his supporters to march on the Capitol. And after the scenes that we have seen, the term “insurrection” is not too strong. We witnessed an attempted putsch, we must not minimize the facts or their scale. These are acts of political violence, which killed four people, and which, through images and slogans, have an important “performative” power: this will undoubtedly have effects within the United States, but also in the United States. ‘international.
What to expect now, for the days and weeks to come ?
At the Capitol, things went very far, so maybe he fears legal action. But CNN said this Thursday morning that this situation should not be seen as an end, but as a beginning. So there may be other events, encouraged and supported by Trump. He has two weeks of mandate left before the inauguration of Joe Biden, it is not excluded that he will make new calls for rallies, or even violence. Moreover, he did not condemn the invasion of the Capitol, and he will never condemn the action of these supporters, whom he knows they devote to him total fervor.
What future – political in particular – can Donald Trump hope ? What weight can he retain in the Republican Party?
I ignore the legal consequences. On the other hand, politically, it is not said that the Republican party is putting him aside. A fringe still supports him: Seven senators voted after the attack on the Capitol against the certification of votes in Pennsylvania, and he still has support in the House of Representatives. The reason is simple: Trump represents a reservoir of 25 millions of votes, that is its great strength. Its voters cast a vote of adhesion: they adhere to its project of society. It remains to be seen what Trump will want to do after his term in office. Will he want to keep his influence within the party? Or – and this is a strong hypothesis – will Trumpism continue to exist outside? Especially in the media sphere, with why not the creation by Trump of a new media, of a new university? We must not forget that Donald Trump is a businessman, that he is in debt, and that he needs to revive his business and make his brand grow. Clearly, he can, if he decides, spoil the life of the party.
What is the future for the republicans now?
It is a divided, weakened party, which risks being weakened for some time to come, even though Trump had managed to unite him for four years. There is a Republican ideological foundation in Trump’s policy, but the blank check given to conspiracyists, the use of fake news and political lies, the destabilization of democracy are all things that the Republican Party, in the long term, has every interest in getting rid of. Because at the ballot box it doesn’t pay off. We see it in Georgia, where Biden was elected and won two Senate seats . Republicans lose a state that was historically theirs. By wanting to satisfy pro-Trump voters too much, there is a risk of facing an all the stronger electoral mobilization.
The challenge of the Republican Party is to succeed in unify behind a social project which takes up the traditional contents of the Republican right and which seduces the pro-Trump, while detaching itself from Trumpism. Because in less than two years, there will be the mid-term elections, where the House of Representatives will be completely renewed, where a third of the senators will put their seats back into play. And the Republicans can not deprive themselves of this electorate acquired in Trump. They are on the tightrope.
Are these incidents at the Capitol undermining the president-elect Joe Biden, or do they install him in his role of Commander in chief ? And will he succeed in restoring confidence and unity?
That puts a extra pressure, but it’s ready. He’s a political sleuth, he surrounded himself with a concrete team, which has nothing to do with the nickel-plated feet that Trump surrounded himself with.
And this is not the first time that Biden calls for unity, it is also partly on anti-Trumpism that he was elected. His great speech of unity, he delivered at the time of his victory in November, calling for solidarity, for national unity. Notions that we found in his speech on Wednesday evening. Biden’s whole project is going to be to reconcile this America extremely divided and polarized by Trump.
On the contrary, Trump has thrived on dividing lines: he has been the president of chaos, no has stopped fueling the violence. American society has rarely been so divided. Joe Biden will not be the providential man, but will give a momentum to make America a united nation again, and that will take time. Especially since it will have to deal with a Democratic party that is also divided, between its centrist wing and its progressive wing. These are divisions that we have seen less in recent weeks, but which will quickly reappear.
Is American democracy damaged by this intrusion on Capitol Hill, and by this stolen election rhetoric hammered out by Trump?
Obviously, especially for a Nation which is posed as the first democracy on the planet and which offered this poor spectacle. But American democracy has 190 years, and she has seen others! And the picture is not so gloomy: we must not equate the neo-Nazi far-right supporters who attacked the Capitol with the whole of the Trumpist electorate.
Moreover, while Trump has been striving to destroy American democracy for four years, she has resisted and has the means to recover. She has shown that she is strong, with solid institutions. Proof of this is, after the attack, Congress 9782702180020 certified Biden’s victory . And the other proof of the democratic vitality of the United States is the enormous participation in the presidential election, which benefited from a strong militancy on the ground.
