SALT LAKE CITY — As hundreds of people descended on the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday afternoon in Washington D.C., those around the country were watching the historic day of violent protesting unfold.
“This should not have happened,” said Tim Chambless, a political science professor at the University of Utah. “This is a day of infamy, this is a day that has to please the enemies of American democracy, Vladimir Putin in Russia has to be please with what he’s seeing.”
Chambless categorized his feelings on Wednesday as ‘sadness’ and being ‘filled with controlled rage.’ As an American Government teacher, he has taken college students to tour the U.S. Capitol building for decades.
“Break down doors, shatter windows, a woman has been shot and killed,” he described. “This is American upon American violence, this is not from a foreign country, this is an action of domestic terrorism.”
Meanwhile, Utahn Evan McMullin, who ran for President in 2016 called the days actions shameful.
“Obviously, the President has misled millions of Americans, millions of my fellow conservatives and republicans about what happened in the election,” said McMullin. “It is something that I never thought I would see in America, I served overseas for a number of years and have seen coup attempts abroad and I just never thought I would see a mob of try to storm our capitol and take control of it’s processes.”
McMullin has an extensive background in counterintelligence including time with the CIA and working overseas.
“Aside from being embarrassing what it does is it means we are weakened as a nation we have less influence on the global stage, less legitimacy as we advocate for democracy and freedom overseas as we should do,” he said. “The nation has never seen this, we have never seen what we saw today.”
Both Chambless and McMullin agreed that some of the countries that the United States works with overseas were taking the days events in with different thought.
“This is a day of infamy, this is a day that has to please the enemies of American democracy, Vladimir Putin in Russia has to be pleased with what he’s seeing,” said Chambless.
“Aside from being embarrassing what it does is it means we are weakened as a nation we have less influence on the global stage, less legitimacy as we advocate for democracy and freedom overseas as we should do,” said McMullin.
