The headquarters of the United States Congress was invaded on January 6 by supporters of Donald Trump, who deny the latter’s defeat in the 2020 elections. Alix Meyer, lecturer in American civilization at the University of Burgundy, analyzes this unique event with the help of three photos.
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January 6, 2021 marks an unprecedented event in the history of the United States. Several hundred supporters of Donald Trump broke into the Capitol, the building housing Congress, that is to say the House of Representatives and the Senate. By this intrusion, the demonstrators wanted to interrupt by the session during which the senators were to officially record the election of Joe Biden in the November 2020 ballot.
Coming from all over the country, these Trumpists gathered in Washington for a speech by Donald Trump delivered around noon near the Capitol. “Not everyone here wants our victory to be stolen by emboldened leftist radicals and fake news media. We will not give up. When there is theft, we must not give in, “then decreed the president, in office until January 20.
After several hours of chaos, the democratic process was able to resume. The Senate was able to certify the election of Joe Biden on the night of January 6-7. To fully understand the events, Alix Meyer, lecturer in American civilization at the University of Burgundy and teacher at the IEP in Lyon, agreed to answer our questions, through the analysis of three photos.
- Why is yesterday’s event unique?
Alix Meyer: This is the first time that a President of the United States has used his power to stay in office. The fact that this same head of state refuses to admit that he lost the election, that he persists in asserting that there was fraud, is also unprecedented.
The President of the United States gave a speech implicitly urging his supporters to invade the Capitol, or at least to express their anger. The determination of these demonstrators to enter the Capitol precinct is all the stronger as it is legitimized by the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. [c’est-à-dire le président actuel des États-Unis, Donald Trump, NDLR].
Figure of the insurgency, “the man-bison” who entered the Capitol on January 6, 2020 was identified by the American media as Jake Angeli, a promoter of QAnon, a conspiracy movement advising in particular President Trump to invoke martial law to stay in power.
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© Saul Loeb / AFP
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- The United States has already had a presidential election where the results were close. Why, in January 2021, disgruntled voters (such as those in this first photo with “the buffalo man”) storm this institution that is the Capitol?
Yesterday there was first a security breach, that’s for sure. But Donald Trump is largely responsible for the events. He has been using lies for political ends for several years. He is aware that among the people who voted for him in 2016 are those who believe the US federal state is corrupt. [la théorie du Deep State par exemple, NDLR] and that power must be regained by force. His mandate has allowed the emergence of a media environment that feeds this population and strengthens it in its opinions.
Proto-fascist organizations – that’s what I prefer to call them – have felt encouraged since Trump came to the White House. They existed before, of course. But his election in 2016 inducted him as a leader in these movements. To keep him in office, they’re looking for details of electoral fraud that don’t exist. In reality, the election is not valid for them because it does not represent their values. This intimidation does not bode well.
- Finally, what was the purpose of this operation? There was no speech suggesting a coup …
We have images that obviously make one think of a coup d’état. But indeed, there was no speech, no designated leader or even a real organization. A coup d’etat is being prepared. We don’t take the Capitol like that. The January 6 protesters simply had no hope of seeing their demands materialized. It is a completely symbolic and vain gesture. We want to show that we are not happy.
We can compare the events of yesterday with the anti-parliamentary demonstrations organized by the extreme right in front of the National Assembly in Paris in February 1934. Surfing these anti-democratic movements is a lack of political courage. This concerns Trump and the seven Republican senators who voted in favor of the Pennsylvania and Arizona vote objection motions.
Upon entering the Capitol on January 6, some Donald Trump supporters displayed the Confederate flag, a symbol of the racist past of the United States.
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© Saul Loeb / AFP
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- Photographers on site immortalized a Trumpist strolling through the corridors of the Capitol with a Confederate flag (photo above). Today, what message does this flag send?
It refers to a mythical past of the United States where the whites were in power. We must not forget that the Confederates were formed [en 1860-1861, entraînant la guerre de Sécession, NDLR] by refusing the abolition of slavery and so that the whites keep power. By displaying this flag, we can assume that this supporter wants to show that Donald Trump is his president, because he is white like him. Obviously, if he is asked the question, he can deny and answer that it is quite simply a southern symbol.
Note: In 1860, in reaction to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, seven southern states of the United States seceded from the rest of the country. Favorable to the slavery that the new president wanted to abolish, they then formed the “Confederation”. Their flag inspired the version the supporter is holding in the photo above.
A supporter of Donald Trump, sitting at the desk of Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives.
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© Saul Loeb / AFP
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- In another photo, a Trump supporter can be seen in the office of Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, with his feet on the table and hugging himself. selfie (photo above)…
Nancy Pelosi is a figure hated by Trumpists. She is a woman, she is a Democrat, a figure of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and she is an elected official from California [bastion démocrate, NDLR]. It is also the one who led – a little reluctantly, of course – the debates onimpeachment, Trump’s impeachment process a year ago.
By settling down on this desk, the demonstrator wants to show that he is parrying the enemy, that these people do not represent him and that he is taking power. He walks over them. It is a denial of representative democracy, a kind of profanation.
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