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“Terrorists,” “violent,” “unpatriotic” were all words used to describe the people peacefully protesting against police brutality over the summer in response to the alleged murder of George Floyd. Ironically, the same individuals who targeted those in support of the #BlackLivesMatter movement are the exact people who forcefully broke into the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon. 

The insurrection took place while Georgia’s Senate run-off concluded in favor of the two Democratic candidates, resulting in the Republican party becoming a minority in the Senate, and while Congress prepared to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. All with our current president, Donald Trump, urging his supporters to fight back. According to Trump, the same Electoral College that selected him to become president in 2016 is a fraudulent system today, which resulted in him losing his position. 

His loyal followers, as they always do, took Trump’s words literally and formed together to break into the Capitol, coup-style. Many climbed the walls, broke glass windows to storm inside and paraded around with Confederate, Trump and Ku Klux Klan flags. Others attacked police officers, ironically while holding “Blue Lives Matter” flags. Several people are hospitalized, including officers, and one woman died after being shot in the chest. The pro-Trump mob went as far as to set up a guillotine in front of the Capitol building — a symbol from the French Revolution. And finally, others came armed with guns, hypocrisy and unjustified rage. 

The hypocrisy stems from the attacks that came down on the Black Lives Matter movement, as many were called “rioters” and “looters,” though the protests were all peaceful until police became involved. While BLM protesters were painted as villains, they were fighting for equity after many Black men, women, and nonbinary people were killed by the police. Yet, the actions observed Wednesday from the pro-Trump terrorists were far from peaceful. They were pure violence.

The hypocrisy continues with the same Trump supporters who claim to back the counter-movement to Black Lives Matter, “Blue Lives Matter,” while ambushing police at the Capitol on Wednesday. The question to ask is, “Do ‘blue’ lives really matter to these people, or was that movement created out of anti-Blackness?” Clearly, they are ambushing those same “blue lives” they fought so hard to protect over the summer. The lives they claimed needed to be defended more than the entire Black community.

The last point of hypocrisy comes from the demonstration that many MAGA-followers critique as unpatriotic: kneeling during the National Anthem, a silent, non-violent protest that highlights the inequality of people of color in our country. However, one cannot participate in a more unpatriotic act than terrorizing government officials and destroying the Capitol. 

Trump and the Republican candidates in Georgia lost their races, all in a fair election. Wednesday’s act of terrorism allowed Americans to witness the unjust power found in the double standards within law enforcement, the same white supremacist double standards many Trump supporters fail to recognize and the double standards Black Lives Matter fights to eradicate.

Feryal Nawaz is a senior political science major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at fnawaz@syr.edu. She can be followed on Twitter @feryal_nawaz.

Published on January 6, 2021 at 10:51 pm