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Police use tear gas to evict protesters at the Capitol on January 6, 2021
Photo: Shannon Stapleton / REUTERS
On January 6, 2021, a wild mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington, it was an all-time low in American history.
A year later, news from the US capital sounds rather harmless: It has snowed.
So is everything all right again?
Certainly not.
The calm is deceptive - and that should be clear to everyone.
There is some evidence that January 6th was not a slip-up, not an accident in history.
Far greater dangers await America's democracy in the coming months, there may be more violence, more chaos.
It can get worse than January 6th last year.
The fact that America is politically divided is no longer the only problem.
The country has often been divided in different ways in the course of its history.
Much more important today is that the different camps find themselves in a spiral of madness: It is often no longer just about achieving one's own political goals, but rather about putting down the enemy.
There is a lot of distrust, the need for revenge, even pure hatred.
First the party, then the country
On January 6, 2021, the pent-up anger on one side of the political spectrum discharged, the day gave a brief glimpse into what is possible. One should actually assume that the country will learn its lessons from this and that the two big parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, will do everything possible to ensure that this does not happen again. But the opposite is true.
The Democrats certainly have their share in the fact that the political climate in the USA has heated up in recent years.
Too often some have put the party's interests above those of the country and refused to make political compromises with the Republicans for short-term political reasons.
At the same time, sections of the political left have radicalized themselves in an unhealthy way, which is expressed in battle cries such as "Defund the Police" ("Take the police's money away!").
But none of this comes close to the twists and turns of the political right in the United States.
Donald Trump and large parts of the Republican Party ruled by him are in the process of mentally saying goodbye to this democracy.
It is they who pretend to want to save the country and who are in truth destroying the foundations of the republic.
Autocratic impulses
Under Trump, the “Grand Old Party” has developed to extremes in a breathtaking way.
Trump and his most radical supporters could be trusted to turn the US into an autocratic regime.
Diversity of opinion is no longer envisaged within the party.
Voices of reason, moderate party sizes are excluded or isolated.
MPs who are not one hundred percent behind Trump must expect not to be re-elected by the base for the next elections.
That's how most of them cuddle.
Republicans in Congress weren't even ready to join the special committee that was supposed to clear up the January 6th.
Their leader in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, first dutifully condemned the mob's attack, but then canceled cooperation with the Democrats - probably also out of fear of Trump's revenge.
Only two MPs from the party, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, are participating on their own.
They are therefore treated like traitors by the Republicans.
Kinzinger has already renounced running for Congress, and Liz Cheney is fighting for political survival in her native Wyoming.
Trump and his fans have sent an opponent to Cheney for the Republican primary there.
Unlike Cheney, she is loyal to Trump.
Naturally.
In addition, Trump and his supporters have never given up their "big lie", the "big lie" that allegedly he and not Joe Biden won the last election. This "stab in the back legend" feeds the anger that will fuel Trump and his fans in the next election campaigns. There are important decisions to be made: the midterms will be held in the autumn. Soon thereafter, the 2024 presidential campaign begins, in which Trump will very likely run again as a candidate. He wants to ride back to the White House on a wave of hatred. Its goals are power - and retaliation for the allegedly "stolen election".
If there is no longer any consensus in a democracy about who won or lost an election, the road to civil war is not far.
What if Trump loses again?
Will there then be another uprising?
Will it take place nationwide?
In a new poll by the broadcaster CBS, 62 percent of those questioned said they expected more violence after the next election.
More than 30 percent considered the use of force to achieve political goals to be justified under certain circumstances.
Attack on the right to vote
The current attempts by the Republicans to change the electoral laws in individual states in their favor are further exacerbating the conflict. In states like Georgia or Texas, members of minorities who prefer to vote for the Democrats may have more problems casting their votes in the future. At the same time, in some states Republicans want to give the state parliaments they rule the right to overturn the results of elections if they do not suit them. In the name of a supposedly noble mission to "make elections" safer, the gates are opened to abuse and manipulation. In the end, it could be the supporters of the Democrats in these states who - rightly - are indignant about the outcome of the election and take action against it. The chaos would be perfect.
Of course, America wouldn't be America if there wasn't such a thing as hope for a happy ending.
The good news: According to the January 6 CBS poll, 62 percent of Americans currently believe that Trump shouldn't run for president again.
That means: Trump may be idolized in his party.
But a majority of the citizens reject it or at least view it with skepticism.
That can change at any time.
But for US President Joe Biden and the Democrats, that is an opportunity.
You can still prevent the Trumpists from returning in the next elections if you convince the voters with good policies.
It is not entirely out of the question that Republicans will come to their senses again.
You could turn your back on Trump and his poisoned politics under the impression of such numbers.
However, they don't have much time left for this.