On January 6th, just a few days after the new year, Trump supporters from all over our country gathered in Washington D.C, During President Trump’s “Save America” rally to protest the election results. Just minutes after police presence showed up, many of those supporters began rioting, some armed supporters breaking into the capitol. January 6th was the day Congress would confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, meaning that there were congress members and lawmakers present in the building around this time.

The mob became more violent and broke through police lines and breached the building. “There was absolutely no control, the police had no control over the rioters. It was as if they themselves didn’t know what was going on,” said junior Amanda Diforti. 

As rioters entered our nation’s Capitol building, many began to jump over security points, break windows, march through the building, and even loot congress members’ desks like Nancy Pelosi’s. One rioter was even seen with his foot resting on Nancy Pelosi’s desk and leaving her a note as well. “Seeing those images, made me upset. I think it just further shows how divided and out of control our country is,” said Junior Gia Benedetto.

Benedetto isn’t the only one who had a strong opinion about the riot, many feeling as if our nation has just become more divided in a time where we should be united the most. “I would say that my heart was heavy and unsettled. As our nation has already been divided for some time I couldn’t help but feel disheartened that the violent choices and actions made only increased the divisions we are facing in our nation. I have the utmost respect for our democracy,” said Mrs. Schoenhardt, a history teacher at Riverside Brookfield High School. 

Late May of 2020, protests for the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) began to riot. These protests and riots went on for several weeks, in 550 locations around the country. During this time, rioters and looters destroyed and damaged many important buildings and places around our nation. Many began to compare the BLM riots to the Capitol riots, one fighting police brutality and violence against a certain race and the other fighting election results. Unfortunately, both riots have led to fatalities. 

“The Capital riots, however, were not fine. Everyone was alerted of the protest that would be occurring weeks, maybe even a month, before they happened by the president himself. He planned the thing, and yet where were the riot shields? The rubber bullets? The layered cars? The tear gas? The lack of protection for the officials within the building was astounding. It really showed the law enforcements priorities, they put more effort into fighting protests based around literal lives than stopping acts of terrorism. Anyway those ‘protectors’ let these people storm the capitol and even joined it,” said junior Sarah Wood.

Shortly after President Trump incited the storming of the capital through social media outlets, some social media platforms including Twitter banned him from posting ever again; they even made sure he couldn’t tweet from other accounts as well. 

“My personal opinion is that it is good that he received some sort of punishment after he basically incited this event. He had been acting so inappropriately online for the longest time, and it is good that he finally got the necessary restrictions,” said Junior Harrison Covarrubias.

  Through it all, Congress was still able to confirm Biden’s win. He will be the 46th president of the United States. A lot of people have many hopes and wishes for Biden to fulfil as he enters the office as our new leader. “I believe we can restore unity through supporting our future President,” said Mrs. Schoenhardt. 

Today, Donald Trump has been impeached for inciting violence against the U.S. Government. This isn’t his first time being impeached; he was first impeached in late 2019 due to abusing his power as a leader of our nation and now will potentially be charged for his crimes. “I think it’s a day late and a dollar short for Donald Trump to be impeached, it’s a symbolic move at this point I agree with, he should’ve been removed from office,” said Mr. Fuller, an english teacher at Riverside Brookfield High School. Now, as Americans we can only hope for peace in our democracy and for our new leader to lead us in a better direction.