Politics-What's on your mind?

[GeorgiaMa'am]

Retired Admiral James Stavridis has a smart, optimistic and rational viewpoint regarding yesterday's protest at the Capitol during which a riot broke out. He spoke on today's episode of HARDtalk, a BBC radio podcast, and had some very thoughtful and interesting things to say. Here are some highlights:

Stavridis: "I was angry. It felt a bit to me like 9/11 . . . I suspect in the Capitol as the work of Congress returns there must be anger by many. This was an absolute desecration of the highest temple of democracy in our nation . . . That attack yesterday by rioters, incited by an American president, was a violation of our constitution in my view . . ."

Host: "How could it happen . . . that at least some of those uniformed personnel were really not interested in trying to stop that mob entering the building?"
Stavridis: "We are going to need a full investigation of the Capitol Police . . . It is either a lack of planning, a failure of intelligence or rot from within that Capitol Police force. We will need a full investigation . . . and if the commander of the Capitol police is still in his job by the end of the week I would be surprised."

Host: Help me to understand exactly who these people are who stormed that building . . .
Stavridis: I think that there are elements of domestic terror involved in the events yesterday . . . What has caused them to come together is a sense of grievance and anger which was fueled by the President of the United States with his baseless claims that the election was fraudulent . . . Some of these groups have talked about secession from the Union, they have talked about civil wars. I don't think the vast majority of Americans are remotely in that place yet . . . I think our next president is smart enough to recognize that job one is going to be bringing together a very polarized nation . . . We are not headed to a civil war."

Stavridis: "Donald Trump came into office, made a lot of promises, what happened? He lost the House, he lost the Senate, he lost his own office. He has completely failed . . . A subset of the American population remains firmly behind him, somewhere around 35%."

Stavridis: "I think democracy is not going to collapse in the face of authoritarianism."

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To hear the full podcast, go here: Admiral James Stavridis: The aftermath of the capitol riot