Many certainly doubted whether that statement was a true representation of what the US looked like under the administration his predecessor president Barack Obama. But that phrase is certainly apt to describe what went down in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, especially what happened within and around the Capitol building, one of the defining symbols of American democracy.

It was a scene reminiscent of a banana republic. Indeed, the media reports of the events could have been written by journalists describing an attempted coup in Central Africa or Latin America. “Hundreds of supporters of the outgoing president, who lost an election by a wide margin, stormed the country’s parliament building to prevent legislators from certifying the win of his rival,” should not be the headline coming out of the US, but that’s exactly what happened only two weeks before the inauguration of Joe Biden as the new president.

The saddest part about the whole episode was that the mob that stormed the Capitol and vandalized the offices of lawmakers, including those who ransacked the office of House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was egged on and encouraged by the outgoing president, Trump.

Trump delivered a speech to the crowd before unleashing them to storm the Capitol and hailed them as patriots. That speech was in fact only the final push because for the previous two months, after it became apparent that Biden would win the election, Trump had made the wildest accusations about the election being rigged in favor of Biden and floated crazy conspiracies such as that dead Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez interfered in the balloting process in the state of Georgia.

This scene from the Capitol Hill was once again a reminder that in this day and age no democracy is safe, even in places considered to be a safe haven for such a system like the US. What it takes to shake the foundations of democracy turned out to be an amateurish demagoguery mixed with with an unfettered access to social media (no wonder social media giants blocked Trump on Wednesday. Too little, too late after the trail of destruction left by Trump on American democracy).

On Wednesday, Congress finally certified Biden’s win and he will almost certainly be sworn in on Jan. 20. Some Republican Congressmen who joined the session on Wednesday claimed victory in that American democracy prevailed in the face of Trump’s bluster and bullying.

But in reality, it was a narrow escape. Trump was so incompetent that his efforts to subvert US democracy mostly went nowhere. But there may come a time when a more competent demagogue arises. And in the interests of the world, Americans must take corrective measures to rebuild their democracy in the wake of this Trump-induced carnage.

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