A push to “Stop the Steal” of the November presidential election has been growing among President Trump’s supporters. This movement reached its peak on Jan. 6 when protesters stormed the Capitol building, disrupting Congress’s certification of President-Elect Joseph R. Biden’s win. 

After last year’s election, protests to overturn its results began to pop up around the country. As time passed and President Donald Trump’s legal team’s efforts to overturn state results fell flat, he focused his efforts one more time: a large-scale protest that would occur the same day Congress met to confirm the Electoral College’s votes and validate Biden as the nation’s 46th president. 

Unlike other demonstrations around the country that took place on short notice, this one was planned and publicized weeks in advance. On Dec. 19, Trump posted on a now-banned Twitter account: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there. Will be Wild!”

Trump’s supporters responded to his call, showing up in droves with the intent of reversing the election. One individual who was interviewed by The Sun said: “We [Capitol protestors] want to stop the steal, we want a free election, we want President Trump in office. Today, we came up here to the Capitol’s steps, tried to get in, and they started gassing us and macing us. We want to be heard. All we want to do is be heard, but nobody wants to listen.” Another woman added that “We are not going to stand for [fraud].”

Unfortunately, as the day progressed, protestors became more violent, breaking through doors, roaming around the under-protected Capitol, and making sure to take plenty of pictures while inside. After the break-in, the National Guard was activated and the building was cleared. But when all was said and done, five people had been killed, including Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick and U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt who was shot while attempting to breach the House chamber. 

On Jan. 7, in response to the violence of the previous day, President Trump released a video in which he said that “America is and must always be a nation of law and order,” adding that “the demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. To those who engaged in acts of violence and destruction: you do not represent our country, and to those who broke the law, you will pay.”

Despite Trump’s comments–which were meant to relieve some of the pressure he was receiving in the media for allegedly inciting the violence–members of the political world continued to batter him. 

For example, moderate Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told the Anchorage Daily News: “I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage.” This comment is part of a broader call by members of the Democratic party, namely Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, to impeach Trump in the remaining days of his presidency. 

Although the President and the events he supposedly incited seemed to be under attack by both Republicans and Democrats, there were those who took the opposite position.

For instance, conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza tweeted a picture of a large crowd of Trump supporters gathered around the Washington Monument with the caption: “We aren’t going away.” Similarly, African-American author Candace Owens wrote on Twitter that she has “zero shame about having supported [Trump] for the last 4 years,” adding “I will never be silenced.”

Regardless of President Trump’s fate and what the political world has to say about him in his last days as president, it is evident that the events of the last few days will go down in the annals of American history.