For four years, the world watched with surprise, horror and in some places joy as President Trump attacked one democratic norm after another, exposing the so-called leader of the free world as just another troubled and deeply divided nation.
Still, the planet was ill-prepared for Wednesday’s impressive scenes when a pro-Trump crowd, some with Confederate flags, invaded the U.S. Capitol to interrupt a Congressional vote that certifies President-elect Joe’s electoral victory. Biden.
“This rhetoric of American exceptionalism has lost much of its luster in recent years, but nobody expected it to happen,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a political analyst and professor at CIDE, a public research center in Mexico City.
“This is a reckoning or an acceptance of the fact that the United States can no longer be seen as a beacon of hope and democracy.”
Around the world, the insurrection in Washington – fueled by Trump and loyal Republican lawmakers who refused to accept their defeat in the November elections – served as a terrible coda for a presidency that abandoned democratic allies, embraced autocrats and did not respond to serious threats for domestic institutions, including the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian hacking.
Even as Congress met on Wednesday night to certify Biden’s victory, the turmoil has generated despair among the world’s democratic leaders and calls for a peaceful transfer of power, and has underscored the immense challenges the President-elect faces as he seeks repair the international position of the United States.
“This was an act of violence against the heart of democracy,” said Julian Reichelt, editor in chief of Bild, Germany’s best-selling tabloid, in a TV interview. “It hurts everyone who has America in their hearts.”
Supporters of President Trump climb the western wall of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
(Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)
Biden, in televised speech, invoked the message that the violent scenes conveyed about the health of the American system.
“The world is watching,” said Biden. “Think about what the rest of the world is looking at.”
The vision from afar was one of alarm and sadness. Social media feeds seem like a compliment to the American ideal.
“Our thoughts are with the American people,” wrote Nanaia Mahuta, New Zealand’s foreign minister.
“Shameful scenes,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“In the eyes of the world, American democracy tonight seems under siege,” I wrote Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs. “This is an invisible attack on US democracy, its institutions and the rule of law. This is not America. “
“The enemies of democracy are celebrating these unbelievable images,” tweeted German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who asked Trump and his supporters “to finally accept the decision of American voters and stop stepping on democracy.”
Michael Fullilove, executive director of Australia’s Lowy Institute, said the leaders of America’s opponents, including Russia and China, would celebrate chaos.
“Champagne is flowing in the Kremlin and Zhongnanhai today,” he tweeted.
Beijing’s Global Times propaganda medium barely managed to contain its delight, using terms like “karma” and “retribution” in a series of Chinese social media posts about the events.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington issued a security reminder to Chinese citizens in the USA, describing the situation as “serious” and reminding them to “pay attention to security precautions and carefully [re]consider going to public places. “
Supporters of President Trump are confronted by United States Capitol police outside the Senate Chamber, inside the Capitol.
(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)
For authoritarian governments that have absorbed repeated lectures on democracy and human rights by the administrations of the United States, images of police and National Guard units positioned on the streets of Washington and crowds in camouflage-patterned clothes wandering the Capitol corridors have offered a considerable amount of schadenfreude . Some did not resist trolling their American critics.
Venezuela’s socialist government – which has survived U.S. sanctions, the challenges of Washington-backed opposition groups and a huge humanitarian crisis – said in a statement that “condemns political polarization” in the US and hopes that the country “can find a new path to stability and social justice”.
In Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan purged political opponents and extinguished dissent, an important member of his ruling party, Mustafa Sentop, expressed concern and called for calm.
“As Turkey, we have always been in favor of law and democracy and we recommend them to everyone,” he wrote.
Even in South Korea, a strong American ally, there were signs that the last few months of the Trump administration have affected U.S. influence.
In a radio interview, South Korean lawmaker Song Young-gil seemed to refer to his government’s recent ban on sending propaganda pamphlets across the border with North Korea, which some members of Congress criticized as a violation of freedom of expression.
“It makes me question whether the United States is in a position to lecture us on democracy,” Song, a member of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea, said in an interview with YTN radio.
He added that events in the United States should serve as a wake-up call for political polarization in his own country.
“Seeing the situation in the United States teaches us that, whether you are on the right or the left, disregarding the constitution and insisting that your side is right really destroys democracy,” he said.
For human rights activists from Hong Kong to Thailand and beyond, who at times were inspired by the representative model of government in the United States, the unrest underscored the difficulty of preserving the democratic regime in the face of leaders trying to subvert it.
Earlier Wednesday in Hong Kong, where pro-democracy protesters sometimes raised American flags in the face of Beijing’s crackdown, more than 50 people were arrested for alleged violations of Beijing’s draconian national security law.
Peter Lewis, a host of a radio show in Hong Kong, tweeted that the scenes in Washington were “also a tragedy for #HongKong, which strives to preserve its own democracy. How can #USA be a model of democracy and tell other countries how to hold their elections if that happens? “
Longtime Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi said: “While people in Palestine and many other places in the world are struggling to achieve democracy, there are those in the United States who are actively sabotaging theirs.”
Others were less surprised to see the end of Trump’s presidency in violence. Ja Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, called it a “logical conclusion” to the months of Trump’s baseless claims about electoral fraud, and said it only heightened doubts about the United States’ ability and willingness to serve as a global leader.
“Much will depend on the Biden government and the Democratic leadership of Congress to restore confidence,” said Chong.
In the meantime, the last days of the most chaotic American administration in memory were offering the world another dramatic show made for television.
At a chicken-wing restaurant in Mexico City, a television usually tuned to reggaeton music videos or football matches showed live footage of Washington. On Germany’s ZDF TV, Washington correspondent Elmar Thevessen told his viewers how a pro-Trump crowd surrounded him and his film crew, along with several other media teams, and seized and destroyed much of his equipment, forcing them fleeing the area.
“The president has awakened the ghosts we are seeing here today,” said Thevessen in the broadcast. “What happened is a kind of symbol of the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency.”
Bengali reported from Singapore, Mexico City’s Linthicum and Berlin’s special correspondent Kirschbaum. Times team writers David Pierson in Singapore, Victoria Kim in Seoul and Alice Su in Beijing also contributed.