Quora Answer: What Do Singapore Police & Citizens Feel about the U.S. Capitol Riots?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What do Singapore police and citizens feel about the tens of thousands of Trump supporters, and their unauthorised occupation of the U.S. Capitol during the riots?” 

As a Singaporean, I watched it with a sense of schadenfreude.  This is the United States of America, self-proclaimed shining city on a hill, land of the free and home of the brave, unmasked as a dysfunctional democracy run by a ruling kleptocracy.  What we are witnessing is history, the moral and intellectual demise of a superpower.  This was that watershed moment. 

On one hand, it was expected that years of polarising propaganda masquerading as news and a dishonest media, afflicted upon a disenfranchised and under-educated electorate, would have an effect.  On the other hand, no one expected it to be so spectacular, and so entertaining. 

The President that caused it is still agitating his followers.  The party he nominally belongs to still cleaves to him.  The rioters will be prosecuted, but the problem is still unsolved.  This is not mere corruption, but absolute moral bankruptcy in the political process.  There is no coming back from this.