AUSTIN, Texas — Rioters loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, disrupting a congressional meeting to certify the 2020 presidential election results.
Law enforcement officers from all levels were called in to control the mob. One person was reported to have been shot, and sources later confirmed she has died. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has imposed an evening curfew.
Trump supporters also gathered at the Texas Capitol on Wednesday. As the unrest continued in Washington, many Texas lawmakers took to social media to denounce the rioters' actions. KVUE spoke with U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who called Wednesday a "sad day for America."
KVUE spoke to several local political experts to get their takes on the situation at the Capitol and what was supposed to take place there on Wednesday before the unrest broke out.
Dr. David Thomason, St. Edward's University associate political science professor
Dr. David Thomason, a political science professor at St. Edward's University, said the election certification should have been a formality, a necessary step in the democratic process.
"Today is a simple formality. It's just counting the electors that have already been certified. That should be a formality. It's a very routine process that happens every four years, and there is no fanfare, no celebration other than just the votes that were counted have been confirmed by the Senate and the House. And that's it. It should be a very simple process," he said.
What happened instead, he said, was a threat to democracy itself.
"I think the gravity of this attempted coup cannot be overstated. Trump caused this, with the coordinated propaganda that has eroded what is already our razor-thin level of trust among Americans in our institutions," Thomason said. "And so, that, to me, is the gist of this. It's an attempted coup."
Thomason accredits the situation Wednesday to President Trump, saying the president has acted, in many ways, like a dictator.
"Eroding the institutions, eroding the bedrock of the foundations of our institutions and the law that is on top of that bedrock is really what is at the heart of this. The eroding of the underlying foundations of our law and replacing it with what he describes as the law, and that's what a dictator does in a dictatorship," Thomason said. "A dictator replaces him or herself as the center of lawmaking – they're above the law because they are the law. They can't break the law because they decide what is the law. And that is essentially what he has done."
Thomason said he doesn't know exactly what to expect in the coming weeks, but he says Americans have already seen this is not as smooth a transition as the nation has come to expect between an outgoing and incoming president. And he doesn't think we've seen the last of the sort of tactics employed Wednesday.
"I fully expect to see more theatrics, more dramatic images of just the level of erosion and confusion and chaos and anarchy that he has unleashed," Thomason said. "I can fully expect that I think the assault will continue on our bedrock. I think that the jackhammer will keep jackhammering into the concrete as far down as this jackhammer can go because underlying it is a disregard for all of the institutions."
Dr. Brian Smith, St. Edward's University political science professor
Dr. Brian Smith is also a political science professor at St. Edward's University. He says he's never seen anything like what happened on Wednesday.
"My very first election that I covered for the news was 2000 in Florida. And I thought that was the election to end all elections. But that was small potatoes compared to today," he said Wednesday.
While Thomason wasn't surprised to see chaos ensue, Smith says he was.
"I'm very much surprised because it is so unprecedented. We've seen people protest at inaugurations, we've seen protests happen at election results – but not to the level of violence we saw today," he said. "We expected today to be a long day because we knew there were going to be challenges. But that's all part of the democratic process. We also knew that there were going to be protests, which is also part of the democratic process. [But] when the protests turned violent, it stops being democratic and it is just violence. And this is not what an American democracy is about."
Smith said he believes law enforcement will be prepared to deal with any kinds of protests that may spring up on Inauguration Day and he is hoping that both parties will not be there to "protest or gloat over the other." He also said President Trump has a responsibility to discourage the sorts of actions seen on Wednesday.
"I think it needs to be very forceful if he is at the peak of this. And it is up – [it's] the president's job to make this end, OK? He is the person who can do this more than anybody else because it's his supporters out there protesting. And it's up to the president now to be that bigger person and put an end to all of this. And then it's also up to Joe Biden to heal these wounds," Smith said.
Dr. Jeremi Suri, University of Texas at Austin political science professor
Dr. Jeremi Suri, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said President Trump is to blame for Wednesday's riots.
"Donald Trump has been fueling this fire for four years," Suri said. "What we saw today was a domestic terrorist attack. This was a group of people, a small, organized group of people following a few leaders, one named Donald Trump, another Rudy Giuliani, who just this morning, before they went to the Capitol, said this will be a trial by combat."
Suri went so far as to compare the riots to what's seen and done by terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
"They're trying to do exactly what al Qaeda was trying to do," Suri said. "They're trying to stop the U.S. government from functioning. They don't think they can win legitimately. So, just as al Qaeda tried to target the Capitol, they targeted the Capitol to stop the counting of the votes and to stop the awarding of the presidency to Joe Biden. And this is a domestic terrorist attack. The difference between al Qaeda and this is that instead of it being Osama bin Laden, that's Donald Trump who's fueling the flames here."
Suri also noted violence like this has not happened at the U.S. Capitol for more than 200 years.
"Since 1814, we have never had anyone invade the Capitol," Suri said. "This is the first time we've had a trespassing group of people invade the Capitol and force the members of the Capitol, the elected leaders, to flee. That's the – 1814 was the last time this happened. It was the British who did that."
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