MEMPHIS, Tenn — As troubling as the images and videos of Wednesday's riots, the rampaging, windows with bullet holes and looting in the halls of congress are to see they're even harder to understand when compared to the brute force used by law enforcement during last summer's protests.
National Civil Rights Museum President, Terri Freeman marvels at the double standard between the Capitol raid and Black Lives Matter protests.
"Knowing you have all of these thousands of people descending on Washington DC and not being prepared to deal with an angry mob there's no excuse for that," said Freeman
Freeman sees much to unpack of Trump supporter's mob raid on on Capitol Hill and so does University of Memphis Professor of History, Aram Goudsousian.
"I know that some people are saying this is the last gasp of Trumpism, but I'm not necessarily that optimistic. I think we're going to have to reckon with this going forward into the Biden Presidency in one way or another. "It is forceable, armed, into Congress itself and is encouraged by the current President of the United States. This is unprecedented in American History. This is damaging beyond our conception to American Democracy,"said Goudsousian.
Yes, there have been protests for human and civil rights, many of them and nearly all have been met with brutality and rejection from leaders.
"They were all based in a universal fact and a universal truth. Here is a protest that is being built around lies, built around fiction, being built around a conspiracy," said Goudsousian.
Neither Goudsouzian nor Freeman believe the cult of conspiracy theory that fuels the likes of Qanon benefits that democracy.
"If there is someone in power that is going to be their leader their going to follow that," said Freeman.