President M. Lee Pelton condemned Wednesday’s siege of the United States Capitol building, a last-ditch effort by Trump loyalists to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“On a day that began as a hopeful one for so many, exemplified by the outcome of a historic voter turnout in Georgia, this president and his marauders brought despair and darkness upon us,” Pelton wrote. “History will not treat them with kindness or generosity.”
The armed mob halted the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory, which began Wednesday morning and continued after the Capitol building was secured in the evening. Pelton stated that he hoped to see Congress vote to ratify Biden’s victory without further grandstanding.
“What should have been a jubilant occasion of the peaceful and orderly transfer of presidential leadership – not only for the general election winners but also for those who lost – was instead a day of riot and violence,” Pelton said.
Pelton said his heart was heavy by the events unfolding in the capital, expressing that President Donald J. Trump and his allies had created a conspiracy surrounding the results of the presidential election.
“The current occupant of the White House – in words and deeds – nurtured cynicism and hate, the dreadful by-products of fear and ignorance – the most toxic cocktail in human history,” Pelton wrote. “The President and his most ardent supporters created a fantasy about the 2020 presidential election – an election which he lost by 7,000,000 popular votes – and an electoral college margin of victory that Trump previously described as a “massive landslide” when he won the presidency by the very same margin four years ago.”
Pelton blamed the election conspiracies for inciting the riots and siege on the Capital, saying they were a direct attack on the “cornerstone of democracy”.
“The president audaciously summoned a multitude of his supporters to the nation’s capital and set them loose like the Furies – the gods and goddesses of vengeance and mayhem,” he wrote. “Their violence emptied the Congressional chambers and sent even those who were there to endorse the fantastical fiction that the incumbent had won the election scurrying for their lives.”
Pelton called for fellow Republicans and those in opposition to the President alike to denounce his actions, saying that the nightmare this administration perpetuates will only continue until action is taken.
“We will be cursed to live this awful nightmare over and over again until people in his political party and others have the moral courage to say to the current president: ‘It is enough. You have done enough damage to the republic,” Pelton. “Now is the time for our civic, business, and non-profit leaders to come to the aid of our country and help save our democracy.”
Pelton sent out a similarly emotional letter in May following the murder of George Floyd and the protests that ensued shortly after.
Anti-trump protests were reported at Nubian Square and at the Massachusett’s Statehouse. Emerson Police Department declined to give a statement on whether they were employing any on-campus security for potential protests.
