Beer hall putsch...

Though I keep abreast of the news in our dis-united kingdom, the story is one of governmental incompetence and missed opportunities. I expect the figures for covid infections, hospitalisations and deaths to keep rising for at least another month (1,564 people have died in the last 24 hours), before they start to stabilise… as a consequence of the strict lockdown and the roll-out of vaccines. We will no doubt muddle through, but life, in the meantime, looks as dreary as the weather.

There’s nothing dreary about what’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic; the news from Washington DC is rivetting. By refusing to accept the result of a free and fair election, Donald Trump launched an assault on democracy, which, last Wednesday, turned into a literal assault, as he incited his followers to march on the Capitol. His promise - “I’ll be there with you” -  proved to be yet another lie, as he retreated to the White House to watch events unfold on TV. When prominent figures phoned him, to ask him to go public with an appeal for calm, and to call out the National Guard, he refused to take their calls.

Four people died in the attack on the Capitol building. Having seen a lot of filmed footage, I’m amazed that the death toll wasn’t greater. If the mob had found any lawmakers in the Senate, I’m convinced that some of them would have been killed. When I heard the crowd shouting “Hang Mike Pence’, it didn’t sound like an idle threat. Republic senator Jason Crow was one lawmaker who feared the worst: “I made the decision to call my wife, tell her that I loved her, to pass that along to the kids, and I was preparing to either make a stand or fight our way out”.

In the aftermath of the incursion, Trump addressed the rioters directly. “I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order,” he said in a video. “We love you”, he added, “you’re very special”.

It’s hard to know what Trump hopes to gain from inciting his army of racists, fascists, fruitcakes, white supremacists and conspiracy theorists. It’s obvious, from the way he still treats the virus as a hoax, that he has given up any pretence of good governance. Like the UK, America has just posted a record number of covid-related deaths in the last 24 hours: 4,320. His reputation is iredeemably tarnished, the Trump brand is toxic and his presidential legacy is as the organiser of an armed rebellion: America’s beer hall putsch. We’ve heard not a word of contrition from the conspirator-in-chief, and the governors of all fifty states are gearing up for further violence before Joe Biden’s inauguration next week…