Storming of the Capitol casts a dark cloud on US role in the world

President Donald Trump’s backers spent years sowing the wind. Now they are reaping the whirlwind. As journalists and commentators line up to say the events unfolding last night on the steps of the US Capitol Building are unprecedented in modern times, the rest of the world watched on with grim familiarity.

Armed militias roving the streets and anti-democracy protestors storming legislatures are the kind of thing Americans are used to condemning from afar, rather than waking up to on their doorsteps. All that has now changed, and the country that once saw itself as the guiding light for world democracy will finally have to accept it has lost much of its glow.

For President-elect Joe Biden, however, the scenes were still clearly foreign. The “assault on the citadel of liberty,” he said, did not “reflect a true America.” Defending the idea of the country from its reality, he asked his supporters to reflect on how the nation, “so long the beacon of light and hope for democracy, has come to such a dark moment.”

Outside of the US, however, many will struggle to see the stand-off as anything other than the country doubling down on its direction of travel in recent years. Although its rhetoric on liberal values and the rule of law has been a central part of American diplomatic rows with countries like Russia and China, domestically it has long failed to live up to its values. From the Black Lives Matter protests to confrontations in shopping malls when people are asked to wear facemasks, a steady stream of incidents have revealed a country too polarized to have a shared sense of what it stands for.

Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman from South Carolina, summed up Washington’s worldview when she slammed the actions of protestors, insisting that “when America is strong, the world is strong.” That Cold War-era vision of the country as the leader of the free world, if such a thing exists, and a counterweight to the forces of illiberalism has now been further undermined.

Few associated with the current administration will escape charges of hypocrisy. Veteran Republican Senator Ted Cruz, for example, has long sought to paint himself as a foreign policy hawk with his sights set on Moscow. He has led the charge on sanctions against a host of countries that his party sees as a threat to democracy. How he can continue to have any credibility in that role on the world stage, after fanning the flames of conspiracy theories that led to the most serious challenge to the American state in modern history, is unclear. It will be all too easy for his opponents to paint him and his colleagues as cynics, who talk tough on values but abrogate them when their personal power is on the line.

But it is unlikely that the harm done to the United States’ standing in the world will die with Trump’s tenure in the White House. Biden, who will inherit the leadership in just two weeks, has long hoped for America to return to the seat it has largely given up among former friends and allies – the same ones who watched aghast as protestors fought with police and occupied offices. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was among the first leaders out of the gates, calling the scenes “disgraceful” and reiterating that “the US stands for democracy around the world.”

Although in many parts of the world American influence had already waned, if not vanished. It would make for a recovery unprecedented in history for the country to go so quickly from what some fear is the brink of civil war to a global democratic leader. With all its domestic divides, that is unlikely to happen just because the keys to the Oval Office have changed hands.

Biden, for his part, has seemingly gravitated towards a ‘values driven’ foreign policy, as opposed to Trump’s ruthless pursuit of American self-interest. Human rights, advancing democracy and spreading so-called international norms are chief among his priorities. That said, even under new management, his country’s reputation on those issues is now likely to be tarnished for good.

Countries like China, among the first on Biden’s list of global problems to contend with, will contrast the events in the US with its own domestic political stability. With the same certainty of American leaders who knew state Communism was doomed to fail, Beijing will have fresh evidence that democracy is brittle and easily undermined. And China isn’t missing the opportunity – more than 50 Hong Kong activists have been arrested in raids in the past day. While authorities will have expected the US to be preoccupied with its own political problems this week, the idea of Washington now slamming China over democracy is unimaginable.

Likewise, nations with younger and by no means perfect democratic traditions, like Russia, South Africa and Brazil have in the past faced tough criticism from the US. Ukraine, which itself experienced a violent transfer of power and is still struggling with corruption and constitutional crises, issued a statement expressing concern over the situation. It is hard to see how Washington could easily return to insisting other countries meet its criteria on fairness and transparency without acknowledging even a hint of irony.

But for all the novelty of seeing America brought low, the suggestion that world leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin will be rubbing their hands in glee are wrong. Though the idea that a strong US defines the state of the world overestimates its importance, the opposite is more justifiable. The international community can function without America, and in many cases, it has for the past four years. But the country in freefall, making political decisions on the basis of its own rifts and divides, is a worrying prospect.

Much as the attacks of 11 September, 2001 shook America’s domestic confidence to the core and forced its politicians to reimagine the world in which they lived, the storming of the Capitol will force foreign leaders to reassess the role it plays. A country that has long sought to hold others to its own standards will be forced to admit that, even at home, its values are nothing if not a work in progress. As Biden said in his teary call for calm, “the world is watching.”