Capitol Hill riots expose US ‘democracy for the sham that it is’: Scholar

The recent riots at Capitol Hill by US President Donald Trump’s supporters have exposed American “democracy for the sham that it is,” American political analyst and academic Dennis Etler has said.

Etler, a former professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday while commenting on the violent events of January 6 that took place at Capitol Hill, Washington, DC.

Senate minority leader Charles Schumer has warned about Trump's supporters, as they are planning to storm the Capitol ahead of the Inauguration Day.

“There are people plotting to do danger, at least online, and the bottom line is our authorities have to be completely on top of it,” Schumer told reporters on Wednesday.

The comments by Schumer come after the FBI warned all the 50 states to be alert ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20.

The Head of Pentagon's National Guard Bureau Daniel Hokanson also has announced that at least 10,000 troops will be deployed on January 20th in Washington, DC, while an additional 5,000 could be requested based on requests from the Secret Service, the Park Police and the Capitol Police.

People plotting to do danger: US senator

Senate minority leader Charles Schumer has warned about the violent protests by thousands of the US President Donald Trump

“As the US copes with one political crisis after another, culminating with the siege of the Capitol Building by armed insurrectionists goaded on by Trump's incendiary rhetoric, and his subsequent censorship and impeachment, Washington, DC has become an armed camp in anticipation of Biden's inauguration. Meanwhile, there is a red alert throughout the country as state capitals fear armed rebellions by recalcitrant local militias,” Etler said.

“All this has exposed US democracy for the sham that it is. On both the left and the right side of the political spectrum the rank and file are dissatisfied and disaffected, while the silent majority in the middle are distrustful of the nation's political leaders,” he stated.

“The country is evenly split down the middle along ethnic, class, religious, and cultural lines with mistrust and animosity growing by the day. There are enough grievances borne by different interest groups to create an escalating crisis of confidence in the nation's capacity to deal with one crisis mounted on another. Festering racial, ethnic, and religious differences, worsening economic disparities, coupled with a botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic have exasperated social conflicts and led to armed rebellions in the streets of major cities and now the very halls of Congress. Extreme political ideologies and conspiracy theories are being used by demagogues to inflame public opinion and further split the country into warring factions. An archaic and dysfunctional political system only exaggerates tensions, leading different groups to feel disenfranchised,” he noted.

“In the midst of all this turmoil, long-standing problems go unaddressed and unresolved. The social welfare net is frayed, the health care system is fragmented, infrastructure continues to decay and social, economic, and political contradictions escalate,” he said.

“While their own domestic situation is in disarray, the US continues to make trouble abroad, trying to impose its discredited system on unwilling nations. Rather than look after its own internal problems the US insists it has the right to intervene throughout the world, telling other people how to solve their own problems. It imposes sanctions, intervenes in other nations' internal affairs, and scolds them for alleged human rights abuses while its own go unacknowledged and unresolved for decades on end. It's time for the US to lick its own wounds and mind its own business,” he observed.

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