While Donald Trump still refuses to recognize his defeat, his activists entered the Capitol on Wednesday in order to prevent the vote supposed to confirm the victory of Joe Biden.
The historian Nicole Bacharan is a specialist in the United States, author of "The World According to Trump" (Tallandier) deciphers this historic event.
Was there an attempted coup?
NICOLE BACHARAN
.
In any case, an attempted coup.
Refusing by force the result of an election that has taken place on a regular basis is akin to a coup d'état.
We know the instigator, it is Donald Trump.
Only, we saw that the control escaped him.
You really wonder what is going on in his head so that he does not understand that the words of a president have an influence.
He called on his supporters yesterday at noon (
Editor's note: Wednesday
) to march on the Capitol to contest the election, and it is only once they have entered parliament that he realizes, immediately suddenly, it goes too far ...
These statements and fiery tweets since his defeat, however, let foresee the worst: why the Capitol was not better protected?
Frankly, it was not that predictable, anyway nobody believed it.
Trump himself should not have expected this coup, he was probably banking on a giant protest in front of Congress, but not that.
In Washington, the federal capital, there are many layers of law enforcement and none of these police have anticipated events going so far.
VIDEO. Violence on Capitol Hill: Biden denounces "unprecedented aggression" against democracy
Can there be complicity?
No, in the police, I don't think so.
But there is an objective political complicity, that of these Republican parliamentarians who were preparing to challenge the result of the election during the ceremony yesterday, when they know that Joe Biden won.
Political complicity, however, they did not organize or promote the intrusion of the demonstrators into the Capitol.
We feel that the situation has escaped them too.
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Were spirits still white-hot since Trump's defeat?
They have been white-hot for over four years!
And all last year, Donald Trump repeated that if he lost the election it would be only because it would have been rigged.
He lost, will always refuse to recognize him, and many people believe that the election was stolen from them.
Not the majority of the 74 million Americans who voted for him, but enough that democracy is threatened.
Millions of people will never accept the idea that Biden is the president, firmly believe in everything that has been said by Trump and his henchmen about irregularities, rigged machines, destroyed ballots, etc.
What follow-up can we foresee?
Even if he calls for appeasement, Trump will not admit defeat, he never will.
He can say let's keep fighting, one way or another.
But he is not alone in the White House, in his family, his advisers, some can get scared and calm things down.
What about the US military?
The current Secretary of Defense, whom he has just appointed, is not even confirmed by the Senate, but he is a sanguine, an unconditional pro-Trump.
We are in an unprecedented period, we have heard of a recourse by the camp of the outgoing to the law on the insurrection which would allow it to mobilize the army and reorganize the election in the States where it lost.
But I can't believe the military would do it.
This week, ex-secretaries of defense published a column recalling that the army was sworn in to defend the Constitution, not an individual.
And anyone who participated in maneuvers to overturn an election would risk jail.
Some people around Trump got the message.
What consequences can this blow have for democracy?
American democracy is damaged, on the verge of death.
She will survive but it is very serious, these images have been seen all over the world, showing a country completely torn apart, with institutions that cannot hold up.
This president demolished America's prestige.
VIDEO. United States: pro-Trump protesters take over Capitol Hill