Stand back and stand by. These words so famously uttered by President Donald Trump at the first presidential debate last year have viciously reverberated back after last wednesday’s occurrences. After a giant mob of Trump-supporting “patriots” stormed the Capitol building in Washington D.C. After four people died in pursuit of taking back an election they never won. After Donald Trump told these same people “We love you. You’re very special.”

Before the aforementioned events transpired, Congress was meeting to certify the Electoral College’s votes declaring Joe Biden the next president of the United States. That soon spiraled into anarchy. What started as a protest dissolved into rioting outside and eventually inside the Capitol. This large group of white, MAGA-loving, flag-waving, maskless individuals were able to storm the U.S. Capitol. All with the support of the man whose name adorned those flags behind them.

To many, the thought of an event like this taking place in our modern-day, democratic America is absurd. What has occurred only further proves that America is not a united front, the state of our Nation is rather one of civil unrest, and Trump is only feeding into this division. It’s a disgrace to our country to see such blatant disregard for the law and the democratic process and to see it happen with such force and violence. There are already comparisons being made to the Black Lives Matter protests that occurred throughout last summer, but let me say right now that those protests don’t even begin to compare to the nonsensical happenings at the Capitol.

The same people who so strongly opposed protests advocating for the basic human right to live are now rioting in an attempt to undermine democracy. In response to the numerous, baseless claims made by their president that the election was stolen from them they decided to start a riot at the US Capitol. Fighting for your right to live and not be brutally murdered because of the color of your skin is not the same as fighting for your fascist president to stay in office.

These people so shamelessly fight for someone so decidedly un-American, yet they call themselves patriots? They fight for nothing but false ideas they’ve been led to believe by an overwhelmingly false rhetoric, yet they hate fake news? These people claim to love America, yet they tore down the American flags that flew on that building and replaced them with Trump flags. This isn’t about the integrity of America and its politics, it’s about them and ensuring their leader remains in charge, no matter the lengths it takes to get there.

The irony of seeing these rioters wave “blue lives matter” flags while getting into violent clashes with the police barricading the entrance of the Capitol goes to show the true intent of that slogan. Their glorification of law enforcement and their overwhelming support for the police was merely a means of opposing a movement set on bringing equality to a community so disproportionately mistreated by said law enforcement. They don’t respect the police, they used them as a mask to hide the truth of their racist beliefs. That was evident enough by seeing the confederate flag being paraded around in the Capitol Rotunda.

All of this happening, yet the president can do no more than ask them to leave peacefully? He saw them storm the Capitol, cause mass destruction, and incite violence yet all Donald Trump can do is give them a cookie and a glass of milk and tell them to go to bed? His video statement released on Twitter was nothing more than a meek suggestion. In fact, he only perpetuated the false narrative that led to this attempted coup by again stating that they were robbed of the election and they are the ones being mistreated. He then went on to commend their displays of treason, telling them he loved them and that they are special. That doesn’t exactly seem like dissuading a giant mob, in fact, it’s incredibly encouraging.

The events that went down in D.C. last week were despicable and an embarrassment to the country. As the rightful legal proceedings take place in wake of this riot we must realize that a stark change is needed in this country. That can’t be solved by Joe Biden being inaugurated in a few weeks, it can’t be solved by Democrats winning control of the Senate. While these are all steps in the right direction, it cannot reverse the seemingly irreparable damage done unto our country by the former administration and all the systemic issues deeply rooted within our country. It takes active participation and a willingness to grow to make change possible, and only this change in pragmatic attitude can begin to mend the bitter divide in our country.

This story was originally published on FHC Today on January 11, 2021.