US blames riot, not reflects system flaws
‘Democracy perfect; problems by Trump; trouble-free soon’: expert mimics politicians
After the unprecedented storming of the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters, the US has been busy dealing with the fallout. Cabinet members and other officials are resigning or breaking off from Trump, and the Democrats are thinking of impeaching President Trump a second time.
Analysts described the Capitol riot as the worst political crisis since the Civil War which showed the US desperately needs major reforms. However, when US politicians and media are working to defend democracy from attacks from Trump’s supporters, few of them seem to respond directly to loopholes in the US democratic system.
Even as they reflect on the chaos at the US Capitol, they are less likely to hold Trump and his supporters accountable. The arrogant US elites would never allow an attack on their
democracy even though its decline cannot be hidden anymore, observers said.
One day after hundreds of his supporters stormed and vandalized the US Capitol in an effort to block Congress from certifying the presidential election results, Trump appeared in a video released by the White House on Thursday and condemned “the demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol.”
Trump’s role in inciting the Capitol riot pushed him into an isolated situation. Throughout Wednesday evening and into Thursday, he faced resignations from senior staffers, and Democrats sought to file a new impeachment.
And a growing number of Republican leaders and Cabinet members were cited by CNN on Wednesday as saying that they were considering having Trump removed from office by impeachment or by invoking the 25th Amendment.
Analysts predict that Trump is faced with three possibilities – being ousted, being impeached or leaving the White House “peacefully” after January 20.
Considering Trump’s current predicament in his last days in the White House, Chinese observers warned that Trump is more likely to sign more administrative orders to contain China as well as to cast hurdles for Biden administration.
Unfixed loopholes
Although US politicians and media described the Capitol chaos as “shameful” and they may learn from the lessons and take action to weaken Trumpism in Congress, few would conclude it has to do with the US democratic system, observers said.
“The extraordinary events in Washington DC will mark a fundamental change in how the world sees the US… It is a symptom of the country’s worst political crisis since the Civil War,” Martin Jacques, who is a visiting professor at the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University and a senior fellow at the China Institute of Fudan University, wrote in an article to the Global Times.
Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, said the riots would be blamed on Trump and some of his supporters. “They would conclude that our democracy is perfect, problems have been brought by Trump and his supporters, and remove them, and everything would be restored in our great country.”
But the decline of US democracy and its problems have become too obvious for them to hide from the world’s view, observers said.
Jacques wrote that “America desperately needs major reforms… but these will be extraordinarily difficult to achieve. The implosion of America seems like a recipe not just for further American decline but a far more rapid decline in the future.”
The long-term influence of the Capitol riot remains unclear, but it showed the world that US democracy is far from mature and cannot be called “successful,” said Li Haidong, a professor at Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University. He noted that without fixing loopholes in its election system, there will be another Trumpist individual who will push the country to the abyss.