The January 6 assault on the US Capitol may have been a fitting end to Trump’s presidency. It was the embodiment of his trademark violation of norms and desacralisation of institutions.

Along with the second impeachment, it was also the logical culmination of four years of violently partisan rhetoric.

Donald Trump is, of course, less the cause but rather the natural expression of a populism run amok, and one for which Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement were the harbingers.

• READ MORE: Trump has been impeached – what happens now?

Still, he is an impressive – and appalling – expression of American populism. As the only representative elected by all Americans, the US president has both institutional and rhetorical power given his unique media exposure.

The “commander-in-chief” is also the “storyteller-in-chief.” His January 6 “Save America” speech is a perfect illustration of the way a populist narrative can sway the masses.

It is essential to understand its mechanism and to recognise its characteristics if we want to prevent a repeat.

Turning the crowd into ‘the people’
Populism is a complex and contested political concept. It is nevertheless identifiable by certain characteristics. First, of course, it often involves some form of demagoguery, a rhetorical device that Donald Trump masters perfectly, as rhetoric professor Jennifer Mercieca has shown.

“You’re stronger, you’re smarter. You’ve got more going than anybody,” he told his audience on January 6. He also praised the crowd’s pride and supposed patriotism, calling out “a deep and enduring love for America in our hearts […] an overwhelming pride in this great country.”

But flattery in itself does not define populism.

As political scientist Jan-Werner Müller has demonstrated, what characterises populism is above all a very restrictive and exclusive definition of “the people”. In his inaugural speech, President Trump contrasted the “forgotten people” with a corrupt elite.

When he addressed his supporters on January 6, he said: “You are the real people” which he defined as “the people that built this nation”, and contrary to “the people that tore down our nation”.

Trump’s “American people” are also the people who “do not believe the corrupt fake news anymore”.

As used by Trump, “the people” is both a rhetorical construction and an embodied metaphor found in phrasing like “the incredible patriots here today” and “the magnitude of the crowd” stretching “all the way to the monument in Washington”.

For the president, size is a sign of moral virtue: “As this enormous crowd shows,” he says, “we have truth and justice on our side.”

As many observers have noted, Trump is obsessed with crowd size. One of the very first lies from his spokesperson regarded the size of the 2016 inauguration crowd, how it was bigger than Obama’s in 2009, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

This was the first of thousands of “alternative facts” that came to define Trump’s presidency.

A victimised people
Another characteristic of Trump’s “people” is their victim status. They are the victims of a corrupt system and the “fake news media”.

He also makes a link between “the country that has had enough” and a we who will “not take it any longer” because “that’s what this is all about”.

Trump’s people identify with him through this victimisation. Hence the use of the subject pronoun we. “It’s incredible what we have to go through” he laments, building a cognitive bias that favours adherence to his numerous falsehoods.

Victimisation is an essential element of the populist discourse. It emphasises the innocence and the purity of the people (and their leader). It makes any future action, even illegal, morally justifiable.

“When you catch someone in the act of fraud,” said the president, “you’re allowed to follow very different rules.” In other words, it gives a blank check for illegal actions that will happen next.

An inner enemy
This rhetoric of victimization is also illustrated by the construction of the figure of an enemy who is no longer a foreign outsider but fellow Americans, as I have analyzed thoroughly elsewhere.

In Trump’s “Save America” speech, this enemy was primarily the news media. They “suppress speech,” and even “thought”.

They are the “enemy of the people” and “the biggest problem we have in this country”.

The expression “enemy of the people” is not new: it has its origins in the Roman Republic and was used during the French Revolution. But there is a certain irony in Trump using a term made particularly popular by the Soviet Union while comparing the suppression by the media to “what happens in a communist country”.

This view of the “enemy press” echoes that of Richard Nixon, as outlined in a recent article by RonNell Andersen Jones and Lisa Grow Sun. But Trump is much more vehement in his public attacks.

And the enemies he mentioned are not limited to the press: he also attacked the “big tech” who “rigged the election,” the Democrats and the “radical left” that will “destroy our country,” the Republicans such as Mitch McConnell, Bill Barr, and Liz Cheney who refused to back his false claims, or the Supreme Court that “hurts our country”.

An existential threat
The populist discourse also requires the construction of a permanent crisis. The enumeration of numerous enemies leads to an implacable logic: “Our country has been under siege.”

This type of war lexicon is all the more effective that the emotional charge is reinforced with the evocation of children:

“They also want to indoctrinate your children at school by teaching them things that aren’t so. They want to indoctrinate your children. It’s all part of the comprehensive assault on our democracy.”

This threat of “indoctrination of children” validates the policy in favour of private schools put in place by the Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. It may also echo QAnon’s conspiracy theories that portray Donald Trump as the hero of a struggle against the “deep state” and a supposed cabal of Democratic politicians and celebrities baselessly accused of abusing children.

But, more generally, what is at stake is the very existence of the nation: “If you don’t fight like hell,” the president warned, “you won’t have a country anymore.”

So now, said the president, “the American people [are] finally standing up and saying, “No”.

Heroic action: virtuous strength versus shameful weakness
By standing up and fighting, Trump’s “people” can become heroic. It is common for US presidents to rely on the trope of the hero, a figure whose strength is always kept in check by virtue.

Donald Trump presents a very different narrative where heroism is exclusively defined by unchecked strength, to the point that strength is a virtue in and of itself, as I developed previously in my research.

“You have to show strength, and you have to be strong,” he repeated, and members of Congress who promised to oppose the certification of votes became “warriors”.

The claim that “We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies” is also a way to refuse to be weak. After repeating the term “weak Republicans” several times, Trump clearly showed he enjoyed this expression, insisting he was going to use the term from then on.

This binary view of strength vs. weakness echoes a very conservative and gendered narrative that appeals to Donald Trump’s base, especially evangelicals: Trump’s hypermasculinity is contrasted to the Democrats’ enlightened masculinity, portrayed as weak and feminine.

An extreme incarnation of this hypermasculinity can be found in the neo-fascist organisation Proud Boys present among his supporters.

At the end of his speech, when Trump encouraged his supporters to take action by going to Capitol Hill, he asked the crowd to “give our Republicans – the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help […] – the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country”.

As the speech reached its crescendo, Trump emphasised his supporters’ strong emotional bond with him, and his with them.

“We’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you”, he promised, as if they would be protected by a Christ-like presence that did not even have to materialise – and it didn’t. Instead, as what was now a mob moved toward the Capitol, Trump was driven back to the White House, where he watched the assault unfold on live television.

The remains of the day
The tragic events of January 6 and their aftermath are now well known. Five people died, including police officer Brian Sicknick, who was beaten to death by the pro-Trump mob.

Despite the violent attack, Congress was able to reconvene and formally recognise the victory of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris. But the risk was grave and the wounds deep.

All of this was made possible by Donald Trump ability and willingness to heighten and take advantage of his supporters’ sense of exclusion (economic, social or otherwise), fear of cultural and identity dispossession, and distrust toward US institutions.

Trump’s populist narrative and coded language gave them a feeling of empowerment and encouraged them to imagine that a violent attack on Congress would be a patriotic, heroic act.

This is partly why, despite what happened on Capitol Hill, his approval rating remains at 40 percent. If his popularity among his voters may have slightly declined, it is still close to 80 percent, and about one in five Republicans (22 percent according to Reuters-Ipsos, or nearly 15 million Americans) claims to support the rioters’ actions.

Most importantly, a large majority of them continue to believe what the president has been saying for months: that the election was “rigged”, and that Joe Biden is therefore illegitimately president-elect.

With the second impeachment against Donald Trump and the threat of further attacks by his supporters on American institutions and elected officials in Washington and across the nation, and a pandemic, the next few days, weeks, and even months could prove crucial for American democracy.

By Dr Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, assistant lecturer, CY Cergy Paris Université. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

President Donald Trump is extremely unlikely to capitulate to pressure to resign in the final days of his presidency. And his Cabinet is equally unlikely to force him out by invoking the 25th amendment of the Constitution, despite calls from the Democrats to do so.

So, in the wake of last week’s insurrection at the US Capitol, which left five people dead and the Trump White House in free fall, the final option available to lawmakers who want to punish the president for his role in encouraging the rioters is impeachment. Again.

The House Democrats introduced an article of impeachment against Trump yesterday for “inciting violence against the government of the United States”.

• READ MORE: Does impeachment need a crime? Not according to framers of the Constitution

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the Democrats “will proceed” with impeachment proceedings this week if Vice-President Mike Pence does not respond to a separate resolution calling for the Cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment.

This will no doubt be a complicated task in the waning days of the Trump presidency. No US president has faced impeachment twice. And there are many questions about how the process will play out, given Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the US in just nine days.

Impeachment: a two-step process
This is how the impeachment process works under the Constitution. (Trump will be familiar with this since he has already been through it before on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.)

Impeachment requires both chambers of Congress — the House of Representatives and the Senate — to act. The House has the “sole power of impeachment” for federal officials, and all that is required is a simple majority to initiate proceedings.

The House essentially takes on the role of a prosecutor, deciding if the charges warrant impeachment and a trial.

The Senate is where the actual trial takes place. Under the Constitution, the chamber acts like a court, with senators considering evidence given by witnesses or any other form deemed suitable.

Impeachment managers appointed by the House “prosecute” the case before the Senate and the president can mount a defence. The chief justice of the Supreme Court acts as the presiding officer.

While these proceedings have many of the trappings of an actual court, it is important to bear in mind that impeachment is a political process.

Under the impeachment clause of the Constitution, a president may be removed from office “on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

This language has been the source of considerable debate, with some legal experts, like Trump’s first impeachment lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, arguing that impeachable offences are limited to actual crimes. Others (correctly) disagree.

Conviction requires two-thirds of senators — a deliberately high threshold to prevent politically motivated impeachments from succeeding. No previous impeachment of a president has ever met this bar: Andrew Johnson (1868), Bill Clinton (1998) and Trump (2019) were all acquitted.

Even though some Republican senators have indicated they would vote in favour of impeachment — or at least be open to it — the number is likely nowhere near enough for conviction.

Complicating factors: time, shifting majorities and a difficult process
With only days left before Trump leaves office on January 20, time is of the essence.

The Constitution does not mandate any particular timeline for the proceedings to take place. Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated a Senate trial could not begin before January 19, as the Senate is in recess until then.

Moving that date up would require all 100 senators to agree — an unlikely prospect.

But this may not be an obstacle to starting the process. The Constitution is silent on the question of whether a Senate trial can be held after a president has left office. The 1876 impeachment of War Secretary William Belknap for graft after he left office may serve as precedent.

So, if the House votes to impeach Trump before January 20, a trial could theoretically happen after that date. The maths also change slightly in the Democrats’ favour on that day.

The Democrats will take back control of the Senate, albeit on a 50-50 split with incoming Vice President Kamala Harris casting any tie-breaking vote.

Democrats are pushing for impeachment because the Constitution not only allows conviction, but also provides for barring Trump from holding federal office again. This would thwart his ambitions to run for president in 2024 — a prospect not lost on Republicans with the same goal.

The Constitution does not stipulate how many senators need to vote in favour of disqualifying an impeached official from holding office again, but the Senate has determined a simple majority would suffice.

This tool has also been used sparingly in the past: disqualification has only occurred three times, and only for federal judges.

The bigger hurdle, however, is that it still requires Trump to first be convicted of impeachment by a two-thirds majority in the Senate.

Political implications of impeachment
Biden has remained lukewarm at best to suggestions of a Senate trial after January 20. Such proceedings would allow Trump to style himself a political martyr to his followers even more than is already the case.

This would distract from the critical goals Biden has for his first 100 days and beyond: tackling spiralling COVID infection numbers and the country’s lagging vaccination program, providing immediate financial relief to struggling families, rejoining international climate action efforts and repairing the damage done to the fabric of government by the Trump administration. Last, but not least, it would make confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet picks more difficult.

Achieving these goals while Trump sets off the political fireworks he so cherishes is implausible.

The Democrats have floated the idea of impeaching Trump before January 20, but not sending the article of impeachment to the Senate for trial until weeks later — or even longer — to give Biden a chance to get started on these initiatives. But a distraction is a distraction no matter when it happens.

Democrats would also do well to remember that political fortunes can change. It’s understandable to want to punish Trump for his actions, but
rushing into a political trial in the Senate, which Democrats are bound to lose, may have unintended consequences for the future.

What’s to stop the Republicans from pursuing impeachments of future Democratic leaders they disagree with, even in the face of certain defeat in the Senate? This could poison the political atmosphere even further.

Democrats may also want to consider the fact that Trump could face federal charges for allegedly inciting the violence at the Capitol or state charges for urging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat to Biden.

While this outcome is far from certain, the chances of conviction in a court of law would likely prove to be less toxic politically for both Democrats and Republicans alike.

This story has been updated to add Democrats formally introducing an article of impeachment on January 11.

By Dr Markus Wagner, associate professor of law, University of Wollongong. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

As armed supporters of outgoing US President Donald Trump forced their way into the United States Capitol last week on the day of the final electoral count, the irony of such scenes playing out in the seat of democracy was not lost on netizens of the Caribbean, where Haiti, to the north of the archipelago, was one of the countries Trump referred to as a “shithole” back in 2018.

However, the breach, which Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said was carried out by “domestic terrorists,” did not achieve its intended goal.

Once the chaos was contained, the congressional session resumed and Joe Biden was confirmed as the next president of the United States — but discussion on the state of America’s democracy is raging on with moves to impeach Trumnp an unprecedented  second time.

• READ MORE: Far-right groups in US celebrate Capitol riot as ‘a revolution’

The Black Lives Matter movement continues to have a great deal of resonance in the region. The disparity, therefore, between how white Trump supporters were treated and how Black Americans are regularly handled by police came into sharp focus.

Trinidadian Renee Cummings, a member of the diaspora living in the United States, said on Facebook:

Were these protesters Black we would be discussing dead bodies at the U.S. Capitol and not a breach of security.

Kathryn Sollmeyer-Wight addressed both Trump’s “shithole country” sentiment and America’s race relations in one fell swoop:

This is the USA, not a 3rd world country?
If these were folks who looked like George Floyd it would have been another story.

Sharing the image of a tweet from rapper 50 Cent, which showed the National Guard stationed in front of the Lincoln Memorial during protests over the killing of George Floyd on June 2, 2020, Dionne Ligoure quipped:

Leaving this right here because I am SURE Facebook will suspend my account if I say anything further ….

Trinidadian Twitter user Sophie Wight added, sharing a photo of a protestor carrying the Speaker’s podium:

I’m not sure I have ever seen such delusion, privilege and idiocy in one image.

And how much ya wanna bet he will just get to laugh about this with friends for the rest of his life? He’s unlikely to be shot and killed, and he knows it. It’s all over his face. https://t.co/F7mM5ypJRe

— Sophie Wight (@SophieKMW) January 6, 2021

For Trinidadian musician Omari Ashby, who dubbed the event an “attempted coup”, the situation was clear:

America turns its ass to the world and spreads its racist plumage like some kind of nazi-esque peacock.
#shitholecountry

Making comparisons
Meanwhile, Jamaican social media users, who are very sensitive to the US government’s travel advisories that warn of crime and violence on the island, couldn’t resist gloating:

Travel Advisory #1
Jamaicans should avoid the Washington D.C area in light of the recent flare up in violence and what can be described as terrorist activities. If you have to traverse the area, please do so with the most extreme caution. pic.twitter.com/HYmdb0EJfV

— ST. ANN 360 (@stann360) January 7, 2021

Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ press secretary also weighed in:

Jamaica. We’re doing well. Lots to improve but we’re doing well. The fallacy we believe is the grass is greener on the other side. Truth is, despite our problems and hardships, the grass is green right here. Water it. Let’s all work to build Jamaica #Democracy #StrongerTogether

— Naomi Francis (@PressSecOPMJa) January 6, 2021

Not everyone agreed with the happy comparisons, however:

I wish we could separate issues. When we say we are proud of Jamaica in comparison to what has been happening in the US, we are speaking of the usually smooth transfer of power. We are not saying Jamaica as a whole is some utopia, yes we have many other issues.

— Sir Gregory (@gregzry) January 7, 2021

Twitter user Kerry-Ann Morgan was stunned that President Trump could not accept his loss:

Jamaicans where you all at?

Very proud to be a Jamaican

We lose elections and we bawl and cuss how them tief yes but you would never see us behaving this way.

We rather say we sick and can’t attend the swearing-in

— Kerry-Ann Morgan (@patrioticjam) January 6, 2021

Even Jamaican diaspora leaders called the storming of the Capitol “un-American.”

Regional leaders comment
Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator Kamina Johnson-Smith, faced criticism after sending what one radio talk show host described as a “wishy washy” tweet:

We note with deep concern today’s developments in Washington D.C. We continue to follow the events and trust that there will be a prompt return to normalcy in this important neighbour and #democracy in the Western Hemisphere.

— Hon. Kamina J Smith (@kaminajsmith) January 6, 2021

However, the Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley, issued a more strongly worded statement on behalf of member states:

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is deeply saddened and concerned at the unprecedented scenes that unfolded at the Capitol Building in Washington DC, USA, during the certification of the votes of the presidential elections by the US Congress.

The storming of the US Congress was a gross affront to democracy and the rule of law in a country which has been viewed as a leading light of representative governance the world over.

CARICOM looks forward to the restoration of order and the continuation of the process of transfer of power in a peaceful manner.

Here come the memes
As expected, much of the Caribbean blogosphere responded with humour, though the underlying tone was definitely one of relish in seeing the mighty fall.

One Trinidadian Facebook user posted an image of one of the insurgents and added text that made his attire look like an advertisement for a costume with a popular Carnival band:

The Carnival-themed memes continued with a clever take on the hit soca song “Stage Gone Bad.” The image shows soca stars Kes and Iwer George singing the tune in the forecourt of the Capitol as Trump supporters scale its walls:

Meanwhile, Trinidadian journalist Kejan Haynes posted on Twitter:

Trump trying to stop the protests pic.twitter.com/UjkSvGQKXM

— Kejan Haynes (@KejanHaynes) January 6, 2021

Facebook user Nicole Philip Greene chose to go with a limerick:

A mob of the MAGA persuasion
Conducted a statehouse invasion.
Though heavily armed,
They parted unharmed,
And that’s how you know they‘re Caucasian.

On WhatsApp, meanwhile, one widely shared image of the American flag — with a banana where the stars should be — said it all:

All jokes aside, however, regional netizens were well aware of the gravity of the situation, and how it has been allowed to build up, unchecked. Responding to the news that channels like Twitter and Facebook—which continued to allow Trump to have a voice throughout his presidency regardless of fact checking—had now blocked him, many social media users simply found the gesture a case of too little, too late.

Janine Mendes-Franco is regional editor, Caribbean, of Global Voices, and is based in Trinidad and Tobago. Emma Lewis is a writer, blogger and social media activist living in Kingston, Jamaica. This article was first published by Global Voices and is republished by Asia Pacific Report under a Creative Commons licence.