ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — As Steve Carr took in coverage of the siege of the U.S. Capitol by a wild, rampaging mob of Make America Great Again supporters, his Facebook world lit up with profound sadness.
“We need to get past this. … Even Trump supporters are not trying to defend this, the more extreme people are not trying to defend this,” said Carr, an expat American and professor of biology at Memorial University.
Carr said Thursday he hopes the past four years have been an anomaly in the history of all things U.S. presidential, and that outgoing President Donald Trump — who frothed up supporters with a constant barrage of allegations the election had been stolen from him by vote tampering in favour of President-elect Joe Biden — will be criminally prosecuted.
He said he doesn’t trust Trump, who promised to exit the White House peacefully on Jan. 20.
“I don’t know how he places that in his mind. … I wonder if in his own head he is thinking how generous he would be, allowing somebody to replace him when he has not lost the election?” Carr said.
He likened the mob at Wednesday’s insurrection to brown shirters following Adolf Hitler.
“I was disgusted. … I was not surprised — that is exactly what I would have expected.
It is even beyond what I had expected from the Trump supporters,” Carr said of the surge on Congress.
“The intention was to disrupt the Electoral College count (which finalizes the presidential win) which should be ceremonial, a celebration of democracy and this is the way power is transferred.”
Carr, whose mother was from Ontario but migrated after the Second World War to California for work, said he and his youthful friends were raised as small town conservative kids.
But he considers himself a liberal Republican who hasn’t found a suitable Republican candidate to vote for in decades.
“What happened (Wednesday) does not represent my country. It is a lunatic fringe. The lunatic fringe has been encouraged by the executive and that is appalling. There are no depths the man will not go to,” said Carr, who nevertheless was encouraged by the outcome of the Senatorial runoff in Georgia, in which both Democrats were victorious.
Richard Ellis, librarian emeritus from Memorial University, where he began work in 1971 after relocating from Seattle, Wash., said he is glad to see the end of the current administration, and noted that the peaceful transition alluded to by Trump’s statement regarding what will happen on Jan. 20 should have happened in November.
Ellis said peaceful transition starts with accepting the results of the election, and Trump still hasn’t done that.
“I find the business extremely sad,” he said of Wednesday’s events. “I could see it coming or the potential of it coming. … This is the (American) experiment having a bad turn just at the moment.”
Liz Ohle, who is also an American retired from Memorial University, said she can’t believe anybody would be taken by surprise by what happened Wednesday.
Ohle, who has lived in Newfoundland and Labrador since 1995, and in the November presidential election voted by mail in the state of Minnesota, had spent most of her previous life in Ohio.
“(Trump has) been gradually inching in this direction ever since the November election, and he even threatened this sort of thing before the election,” she said. “He said he would not leave the Oval Office no matter what.”
Ohle objects to comments such as “we are better than this America.“
“Right now America is not better than that. This is exactly what America has shown itself to be. That does not mean the U.S.A. cannot strive to be better, grow to be better, do the necessary work to become better. But right now, what happened (with Democratic Senate victory) in Georgia and later in the day in Washington, D.C., shows two realities. One is the very best of grassroots America where organizers work their tails off to create important changes. And one is the very worst of America where white supremacy and white entitlement are incited to do horrific things. Until America recognizes both of these truths are real parts of the country, the U.S.A. will not move forward.”
Tom Mills, a former Newfoundland and Labrador prosecutor who now calls Washington, D.C., home with his husband, Paul F. Scott III, said he wasn’t surprised either, as he feels Trump was inciting violence since before he was elected.
Still, Wednesday’s events angered and saddened Mills.
“What the world witnessed yesterday was an insurrection. It was incited by a range of people, including Donald Trump, other Republican politicians, conservative commentators and some media outlets,” Mills said.
“The response to an insurrection cannot merely be a political one; it must also be a legal one that holds accountable all those who are proven responsible. There must also be condemnation of the racism that is so thoroughly intertwined in what is occurring.”
Maya Keiser, an Atlanta, Ga., teacher who is from St. John’s, said she was shocked, but also not surprised, having predicted the violence for months. She suspected what was to come when civil rights protesters were teargased for Trump’s Bible photo op in front of a church in the summer, and when Trump refused to accept Biden’s election win.
“I knew the natural conclusion to all of this was going to be violence,” said Keiser, adding that she doesn’t think Wednesday’s events will be the end of it.
She noted some people have expressed complete support for the violent rush on Congress, as well as the huge support that exists for the notion the election was stolen.
Keiser said the amazing and historic Georgia election of its first black senator, Raphael Warnock, and young, Jewish senator Jon Ossoff — both Democrats — should have been cause for celebration.
“Sadly, it was overshadowed by the mobs and basically the coup attempt — there is no other way around it,” she said.
Keiser said she hopes Trump will be removed from power — even though he has only two weeks left in his administration — because of the potential for more violence, as well as the potential to issue more questionable pardons.
Carr also called upon the current vice-president and cabinet to remove the sitting president, under the authority of the 25th Amendment, as unfit to continue in office, and upon the House of Representatives to initiate immediate impeachment proceedings, and for the Senate to remove Trump from the presidency.
“God bless the United States, her constitution, President-elect Biden, Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris, and all her people,” he said.
Dr. Siobhan Duff returned with her family from St. John’s to Chattanooga, Tenn., Saturday after an extended stay back home while she continued her practice remotely.
On Wednesday, she was at work while hearing snippets of the Capitol siege and processed it more fully when the workday ended.
“It’s tragic, shameful, heartbreaking, every negative word you can think of, but not unexpected — that’s the only word I couldn’t call it,” Duff said Thursday evening after finishing another clinic day.
But still, Duff wonders if there is a glimmer of hope — that what transpired leads to the long-awaited moment when the country can unite and start healing.
She acknowledged those senators who were prepared to oppose the Electoral College, who instead turned course and voted in favour.
“I kind of wonder if this is his ‘He’s gone too far’ moment,” she said of Trump.
Duff noted while the siege was going on, 4,000 American lives were lost to COVID-19 Wednesday in another devastating, record-breaking day during the pandemic.
