Trump promises orderly transition after Capitol rampage - 'I suspect he'll sulk'

Congress has certified Democrat Joe Biden's presidential victory after Wednesday's chaos. US fundi Brooks Spector weighs in.

After Wednesday's chaotic scenes at the US Capitol, Congress has certified Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election.

Proceedings were delayed when a mob stormed the Capitol in what Biden and others have described as an insurrection.

Lawmakers had been evacuated as supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump occupied and ransacked the building, even finding the time to take selfies inside.

World leaders have come out in condemnation of what's seen as a shocking attack on democracy.

Trump's own video statement to his diehard supporters was an exercise in mixed messaging.

While the outgoing president did ask the mob to go home, he also told them they are loved and "very special".

Ray White asks US foreign policy expert Brooks Spector for his take - was it in effect a coup or simply a protest?

My conclusion is it was a really strange kind of coup-like effort in that it wasn't against the government... After all Donald Trump is the president and he and his buddies were inciting the crowd to do what they did.

Brooks Spector, US foreign policy expert and associate editor - Daily Maverick

Shall we call it an internal coup, or an attempted internal coup? It was an effort to subvert the natural processes of the elected representatives in the Congress doing what their job is constitutionally, which was to certify finally and officially the electoral vote for the new president which is Joe Biden.

Brooks Spector, US foreign policy expert and associate editor - Daily Maverick

It's a routine function of the Congress, but this time it became the dividing line between rationality and madness!

Brooks Spector, US foreign policy expert and associate editor - Daily Maverick

Spector says stability has always been assumed an inherent part of the American political experiment.

Wednesday's "madness" sends a very different message to the country and the world at large.

[that it has] footings of sand rather than concrete or granite; that you can have a demagogic president who stands in front of a crowd and says let's go to the Capitol and a couple of thousand people do just that and they ransack the building!

Brooks Spector, US foreign policy expert and associate editor - Daily Maverick

The way people from other countries were talking about it - governments and private citizens - was the kind of thing that under more usual circumstances a senior US official would say to the demagogic president of [fictitious] Itchystatchystan: You must stop this kind of behaviour!

Brooks Spector, US foreign policy expert and associate editor - Daily Maverick

The outgoing president has now promised "an orderly transition" come 20 January, but is that likely?

I suspect he's going to be sulking in his tent, to quote the Iliad, nursing his wounds. I can't imagine that the DC Metropolitan Police or the Capitol Hill Police or the military won't have forces out in serious numbers to make sure that nothing again happens on that day.

Brooks Spector, US foreign policy expert and associate editor - Daily Maverick

Yesterday, as far as I can tell, they did not have even the slightest inkling of an actual plan to defend the Capitol. They just assumed somehow it was going to be like a bunch of unruly tourists!

Brooks Spector, US foreign policy expert and associate editor - Daily Maverick

Listen to Spector's insights on The Money Show:

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