USA / Michelle Obama condemns US Capitol riots, calls Trump 'unpatriotic'

Washington: Former First Lady Michelle Obama took to social media platform Twitter to condemn the infamous riots carried out by outgoing US President Donald Trump's supporters who refused to acknowledge Joe Biden's win in the US elections 2020.

"All I know is that now is a time for true patriotism. Now is the time for those who voted for this president to see the reality of what they've supported—and publicly and forcefully rebuke him and the actions of that mob," she said.

While she said the riots had raised several questions about "security, extremism, propaganda, and more", she cannot stop thinking about what the treatment and reaction from the police and government would have been if the rioters looked different. "There's one question I just can't shake: What if these rioters had looked like the folks who go to Ebenezer Baptist Church every Sunday? What would have been different?," she wrote.

Like all of you, I’ve been feeling so many emotions since yesterday. I tried to put my thoughts down here: pic.twitter.com/9xzRvrpk7y

— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) January 7, 2021

She also called upon the social media networks and urged them to ban Trump from their respective platforms, in order to bring peace as many believe Trump had been inciting and promoting violence through his posts.

"Now is the time for Silicon Valley companies to stop enabling this monstrous behavior—and go even further than they have already by permanently banning this man from their platforms and putting in place policies to prevent their technology from being used by the nation's leaders to fuel insurrection," she said.

Trump was, within few hours, 'indefinitely' banned from Facebook and temporarily banned from twitter — but he returned to Twitter within 12 hours.

Michelle's husband and former US President, Barack Obama, too, had earlier expressed disappointment over the riots through a statement on Twitter. Describing it as a moment of "great dishonor and shame for our nation", he blamed Donald Trump for the riots. "History will rightly remember today's violence at the Capitol, incited by a sitting president who has continued to baselssly lie about the outcome of a lawful election," he said.