January 6
Events in the United States The Fight Between
"Violence"
and "Defence of
the Democratic
Institutions"
- Pierre Chénier - Things
are moving fast in the aftermath of the January 6
events in
Washington, DC. The Democrats are circulating articles of impeachment
of President Donald Trump, which give as an argument for impeachment
"incitement of insurrection." They claim to have the support of close
to 190 Democrats in the House of Representatives for these articles.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that unless Trump resigns
immediately there is going to be a move to force him out either through
impeachment or through the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, which
would require that Vice President Mike Pence and half the Cabinet
declare that Trump is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his
office." So far, Pelosi has not given her blessing to the motion of
impeachment, but the media expect that the articles of impeachment will
be presented to the House of Representatives. Media
are also
saying that Pence is not in favour of pursuing efforts to get rid of
Trump as President before President-Elect Joe Biden is sworn in on
January 20. Biden says the country must heal and unify under his
presidency. If the motion of impeachment is adopted by the House of
Representatives, the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the
Senate to convict. The penalty for an impeached official upon
conviction is removal from office. There is even
discussion that because the Senate is not
planning to meet before January 19, the vote on impeachment in
the Senate could be held after Trump finishes his term as president. A
president convicted of impeachment no longer qualifies to run for
office. There is clearly lots of behind the scenes manoeuvring
to achieve some sort of resolution to the crisis. Meanwhile,
Twitter has forever banned Trump's personal account, Facebook until
January 20 and Amazon Web Services has banned social media app Parler
(similar to Twitter) because, Amazon says, it advocates violence. This
feeds the debate about freedom of speech versus prohibition of
incitement to violence. Meanwhile, police forces are said to be combing
media footage in preparation for laying more charges against those who
breached the Capitol building on January 6 and were seen to commit
crimes. What we
can see from these facts is that the conflicts between
the factions of the imperialist elite are continuing
relentlessly, while further deployment of police powers is
provided with a justification through the discourse on insurrection,
violence and the need to protect the institutions of
democracy. Despite talk about defending the
democratic symbols and
institutions, a problem discussed without the seriousness it deserves
is the humiliation the revenge-seeking will cause to what is called
"the Trump base" which is far from being limited to the racist militias
said to have broken into the Capitol on January 6. There are 73 million
people who are reported to have voted for Trump, many of whom simply do
not trust the government to help them deal with the serious problems
they face. The cartels and coalitions trying to use these events as a
way to line up workers and the people behind themselves are sowing the
wind and are sure to reap the whirlwind sooner rather than later.
Attempts to divert the peoples' consciousness into believing it is a
fight between "violence" and "defence of the democratic institutions"
seek to cover up that this violence within the ruling class is what is
left when the democratic institutions, including elections, do not
function and serve as a block to people's empowerment.
This article was published in
Volume
51 Number 2 - January 10, 2021
Article Link:
The
Fight Between "Violence" and "Defence of
the Democratic
Institutions"
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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