January 6, 2021, is a day that will either live in infamy or mark the beginning of a violent trend towards authoritarianism across the world.
Today, terrorists who were fueled by years of wild conspiracy theories and misinformation enabled by Trump and his Republican cronies stormed into the Capital of the United States of America. In their reign of terror, they have not only shocked the nation to the point where many Republicans have decided to abandon their election-denying rhetoric, but have demonstrated how terrifying and quick the descent down the dark hole of authoritarianism could be.
The Republican party, which has enthusiastically supported Trump and his authoritarian antics for the past four years, has demonstrated that it is committed to doing anything in order to achieve their political means, even if that meant destroying faith in our democratic institutions. Republicans who have explicitly decided to spread lies about the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential election will hopefully face the direst political consequences for their dedication towards dismantling what remains of our already crippled democracy.
Democracy is purely based upon what the people decide to make out of it. This highlights the unique beauty of Democracy, which is that its weaknesses are also its strengths. As long as we, as citizens, possess even a small amount of control over our electoral process, we all bear some degree of responsibility in our country’s decisions. Whether we decide to utilize our democratic influence to uphold the unprecedented corruption of the deceitful Republican party or introduce a new era of economic and societal change is solely up to us.
