Touché.Over the four years of the Trump presidency, the idea of the US as any kind of moral arbiter has suffered repeated blows, and this has been reinforced by this week’s denouement, with an attempt at just the sort of power grab that the US state department would condemn elsewhere.
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“What we saw in the US last night and today really showed that first how brittle and weak western democracy is, and how weak its foundations are,” said the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, in a speech broadcast on state television on Thursday.
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[I]n Moscow, Beijing and other capitals where autocratic governments have been subjected to frequent US criticism, there was a good dose of schadenfreude at the chaotic footage of protesters overrunning Congress. The events were also held up by many authoritarian governments as proof of a long-held insistence that the US is in no place to give other nations lectures on democracy.
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[Rouhani] called Trump an “unhealthy person” and said he had “tainted his country’s reputation and credibility. He disrupted US relations with the entire world.”
Russian lawmakers were quick to jump on events in Washington as proof of US moral bankruptcy, though they also threw in some words of support for Trump’s baseless suggestions of electoral fraud.
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[I]t is clear that American democracy is limping on both feet,” wrote Konstantin Kosachev, the chair of the foreign affairs committee of Russia’s upper house of parliament, in a post on Facebook.
“America no longer charts the course and so has lost all right to set it. And, even more so, to impose it on others.”
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Chinese officials had a more specific grievance, attempting to compare the violent scenes in Washington with the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
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At a daily press briefing in Beijing on Thursday afternoon, China’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying claimed the deaths in Washington showed that US police were more brutal than their Hong Kong counterparts. “While the degree of violence and destruction in Washington is not as serious as what happened in Hong Kong, four people have died,” she said.
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Other countries took joy in mimicking the kind of rhetoric usually sent their way from Washington when reacting to the events. Turkey issued a travel warning telling Turkish citizens in the US to stay away from crowded places and demonstrations, in a statement that echoed the tone of dozens of American communiques in recent years regarding instability in Turkey.
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The parliament speaker, Mustafa Şentop, said Turkey had “always been in favour of the law and democracy and we recommend it to everyone”.
In Venezuela, politicians close to the president, Nicolás Maduro, were cock-a-hoop with the chance to bait Trump, who has spent the last two years unsuccessfully trying to overthrow Maduro’s Chavista regime. “I’ll be brief: the United States – what a disaster,” tweeted the Socialist party boss, Diosdado Cabello.
“As they say,” said the oil minister, Tareck El Aissami, “What goes around comes around.”
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“When I served this nation overseas, we were constantly issuing pronouncements about the peaceful transition of power and the need to protect the democratic will of the people,” wrote Patrick Gaspard, the former US ambassador to South Africa under President Barack Obama and later the president of the Open Society Foundations. “Donald Trump and his radical movement have done deep damage to America’s standing as a democratic beacon.”
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In response to an American reporter writing on Twitter that the US would never be able to claim status as a model of democracy for the world, Margarita Simonyan, the editor of the Kremlin-backed RT network, wrote: “They never were. It was just a matter of time for you to actually see it.”
Guardian
But what about historical allies?
Bit late for that idea.“Inflammatory words turn into violent acts – on the steps of the Reichstag, and now in the #Capitol,” Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, tweeted, as Trump loyalists led a violent assault on the heart of the American republic.
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“The outcome of this democratic election must be respected,” Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general and former Norwegian prime minister, tweeted on Wednesday evening after US president-elect Joe Biden condemned “this godawful display” and warned: “The world is watching”.
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Pleading for calm in the US capital, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the violence perpetrated against American public institutions was “a grave attack on democracy”.
“I condemn it. The will and the vote of the American people must be respected.”
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“President Trump and many members of Congress bear significant responsibility for what’s now taking place,” Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven said. “The democratic process of electing a president must be respected.”
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In Britain, prime minister Boris Johnson condemned what he called the “disgraceful scenes in US Congress”. “The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power,” he added.
The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, tweeted: “The US rightly takes great pride in its democracy, and there can be no justification for these violent attempts to frustrate the lawful and proper transition of power.”
The Irish taoiseach, Micheál Martin, tweeted: “The Irish people have a deep connection with the United States of America, built up over many generations. I know that many, like me, will be watching the scenes unfolding in Washington DC with great concern and dismay.”
Charles Michel, the president of the European council, tweeted: “The US Congress is a temple of democracy. To witness tonight’s scenes in Washington DC is a shock. We trust the US to ensure a peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden.”
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The disquiet reached allies on the other side of the globe. Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison said he condemned the violence of the protesters and “look[ed] forward to a peaceful transfer of government to the newly elected administration in the great American democratic tradition”. However, he stopped short of criticising Trump.
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, wrote: “Democracy – the right of people to exercise a vote, have their voice heard and then have that decision upheld peacefully should never be undone by a mob. Our thoughts are with everyone who is as devastated as we are by the events of today. I have no doubt democracy will prevail.”
Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, told the Vancouver radio station News 1130: “Obviously, we’re concerned and we’re following the situation minute by minute. I think the American democratic institutions are strong, and hopefully everything will return to normal shortly.”
Japan’s top government spokesman, Katsunobu Kato, said the Japanese government country was “hoping for a peaceful transfer of power” in the United States.
Guardian
I couldn't agree more.The Organization of American States (OAS) said it condemned and repudiated the attack “by protesters who disavow recent electoral results”.
“Democracy has as its fundamental pillar the independence of the powers of the state, which must act completely free of pressure,” it added in a statement. “The exercise of force and vandalism against the institutions constitutes a serious attack against democratic functioning.”
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Poland’s former foreign minister Radek Sikorski, who chairs the EU-USA delegation to the EU parliament, tweeted, “The US Cabinet should immediately, under the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution, declare @realDonaldTrump insane and terminate his presidency.”
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“Trump blows up American democracy,” Eliane Cantanhêde, a prominent political commentator in Brazil, said. “A day that will go down in history. A president to be thrown in the dustbin of history.”
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