Trump, Republican malcontents will add to obstacles for Biden
THE mob scenes at the US Capitol building in Washington on Wednesday (Thursday morning, Singapore time) could be seen as the opening to the final act of Donald Trump's controversial one-term presidency.
The shameful behaviour of Mr Trump and his supporters is likely to harm his future in US politics, even more so than the impact of the Democratic sweep of the 2020 elections, which became official on Wednesday as Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff were declared winners of the Georgia run-offs.
As Mr Trump professed his "love" on social media for the mob invading the Capitol, his support among the Republican congressional party began, almost visibly, to peel away.
On Wednesday afternoon, shortly after Mr Trump had exhorted his supporters to show up at Congress, a ragtag army waving Trump flags stormed the thin line of police officers on site and broke through the barriers.
Some of the red-hatted invaders forced their way in through the front doors to the iconic colonnaded building.
Police officers in the House chamber drew their weapons to defend the congressmen and women as they evacuated. One person in the group that stormed the building, an unarmed woman, was shot and later died. Subsequent reports put the number dead at four.
While some of the protesters were armed, it was clear from their gleeful selfies and silly antics - grandstanding behind podiums like children play-acting at insurrection - that they were always going to surrender to the National Guard without putting up much of a fight.
The markets practically laughed off the clownish affair. If Mr Trump's hope was that the mob could somehow block the transition of power, the stunt looks to have backfired.
By 9pm, the Capitol was secured and both Houses of Congress reconvened to vote on a proposal to invalidate Arizona's election results.
Kelly Loeffler, the Georgia Republican senator defeated by Mr Warnock in the runoff, was among the Republican legislators who said the mob scene caused them to drop their support for overturning presidential-election results, helping to ensure the measure's defeat.
"We must have a peaceful transfer of power," said Cathy Rodgers, a Republican House Representative for Washington who also dropped support for overturning the elections, in a statement.
The morning after the drama, Mr Trump offered the clearest signal yet that he will voluntarily vacate the White House on Jan 20, saying there will be an "orderly transition" to President-elect Joe Biden.
The storming of the US Capitol was not a coup or even an attempt at one, but it was the latest in a series of stab wounds to the American body politic inflicted by Mr Trump and his administration.
The use of federal troops in police actions in Portland, the abuses of his office to dig up dirt on Mr Biden, and the punitive abuse of innocent immigrant families - these acts hurt American democracy in a lasting way.
Until Wednesday's mob violence, Mr Trump had held the Republican party in thrall, like a modern-day Julius Caesar.
From Vice-President Mike Pence to Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, he had reduced the upper ranks of the party to quislings and yes-men.
Mr Pence echoed Ms Loeffler's and Ms Rodgers' condemnation of the protesters, standing up to his boss after years of quiescence.
But will the Republican base share this disenchantment with Mr Trump and his followers?
The coordination of the Capitol protest was organised in part, on Parler, the social media site that markets itself as a no-holds-barred version of Twitter, and has allowed extremists to find Internet oxygen as other media attempts to cut it off.
On Wednesday evening, the platform was once again bubbling with anger and vitriol as users decried the Republicans who criticised Mr Trump as traitors.
Mr Trump and the Parler malcontents are among many obstacles that Mr Biden now faces as he prepares to take office in two weeks' time.
There is the raging coronavirus pandemic, the struggles to distribute the vaccines nationwide, and ongoing tensions with China and Russia.
With the Georgia run-off elections clinching all three houses of power in Washington for his party, however, Mr Biden should be able to gain traction with ambitious programmes on sustainable energy, economic stimulus and police reform.
In his victory speech, Mr Warnock, who grew up in public housing, and served as the pastor of the same Atlanta church where Martin Luther King preached, might have been talking about the Joe Biden era.
"Welcome to the new Georgia," he said. "It is more diverse. It's more inclusive. It readily embraces the future."
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