Yesterday, we saw the president (not for the first time) goad violent rioters acting in his name. At a rally aimed at preventing Biden’s election win from being certified, Trump had addressed the crowd: “All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened, radical left Democrats, which is what they’re doing… You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.” His son, Donald Trump Jr., also spoke at the rally and celebrated that the protest was peaceful. He then said, after a shouting rant about the election being stolen: “We must fight.”
Just hours later we saw the logical conclusion not only of that rhetoric but of two months of the president repeating these unsubstantiated claims. Thousands of extremists formed a violent mob outside the US Capitol building and stormed in, smashing windows, threatening law enforcement, brandishing knives, pitchforks and guns. In videos shared of the attackers (many of whom were known alt-right pundits and QAnon figureheads), you could hear them chanting Trump’s Twitter catchphrase since 3 November: “Stop the steal.” We now know that, as a result of this insurrection, at least four people are dead.
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