The scenes of anarchy witnessed in the United States Capitol this week deserve the strongest condemnation. President Trump incited a riot in the heart of American democracy. Urged on by a narcissistic commander in chief, radicalised muppets charged up the steps and desecrated Congress. 

But there is a journalistic duty not only to condemn but to analyse the root causes: how has America’s public discourse reached this abysmal state? In confronting that question it is necessary to peel away the hypocrisy and double standards of many of those in the US now indulging in hand-wringing over a situation they helped to create.

When that tireless champion of civil liberties, President Recep Erdogan of Turkey, called the Capitol riot “a disgrace for democracy”, he was being no more hypocritical than Joe Biden and the Democrats, who waited weeks before half-heartedly condemning BLM riots across 140 US cities that left 25 people dead and cost between $1bn and $2bn in damage, but denounced the Capitol invasion within an hour.