ROSS FERRY, N.S. — A longtime Cape Breton resident with former ties to the United States Senate says he is dismayed by this week’s riot at the Capitol Building in Washington.
Parker Donham now lives in Ross Ferry on Bouladerie Island. But more than half a century ago he worked for Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy who twice sought the Democratic Party presidential nomination before running as an independent in the 1976 presidential election.
While working on McCarthy’s 1968 bid for the Democratic presidential nod, the now veteran political blogger, communications specialist and award-winning journalist enjoyed access to parts of the Capitol Building that few get to see in person.
“It’s disheartening, it’s really disheartening and I find it sad to see the elected representatives forced to flee the chamber and hide in secure locations while disreputable people took over their desks, stealing artifacts and breaking windows,” said Donham, who is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States.
“It shows the dangerous levels that divisions have come to in the United States right now.”
Like thousands of other Cape Breton residents, Donham was captivated by the events on Capitol Hill as they unfolded on Wednesday afternoon and evening.
“And then I found myself online this morning trying to find out if anyone was seriously talking about trying to implement the 25th amendment, which is the procedure for getting rid of a president who has lost the competency to be president,” he said.
And, indeed, he didn’t have to wait long as Thursday’s news was packed with stories of the growing number of calls to remove President Donald Trump from office even though the controversial head of state has less than two weeks before Joe Biden is inaugurated as the next president.
While the events at the U.S. Capitol sparked Donham’s memories of his own time in Washington, he said they also reminded him of a situation that happened in April 1994 in Halifax at Province House, home of the Nova Scotia legislature. At that time, a large group of vocal unionized tradespeople occupied the gallery of the legislature and eventually disrupted the proceedings to the point that then Premier John Savage walked out of the chamber. Some of the protestors even found their way down onto the chamber floor.
“There were no broken windows, no actual violence and certainly no one got shot, but the lawfully elected members of the legislature were basically thrown out of the chamber and these guys took over,” he recalled of the unionists’ protest of the provincial government’s plan to pass legislation to reverse the Supreme Court’s so-called Steen Decision that ruled that any general contractor with bargaining relationships with a union would only be allowed to hire union subcontractors.
“That caused a huge change in the legislature. After that event, they implemented the kind of security you now see in the legislature. I think that was a regrettable development because before that all residents had some access to our political leaders. Not after that.”
Of course, Donham is not the only ex-pat American living in Cape Breton with thoughts on the current happenings in their former homeland.
Adam McCormack moved from Kansas City, Mo., to Howie Centre in 2019. And while he wouldn’t say the relocation had anything to do with Trump, he did admit that he and his wife were attracted to a more calm lifestyle.
McCormack, who also followed the events in Washington through the news media, said he wasn’t overly surprised at the uprising.
“I would say it was an obvious result,” he mused.
“My wife (Dana) told me she expected this when he was first elected and I agree with her. He doesn’t know how to lose gracefully so the temper tantrum was absolutely expected. I don’t think Trump is the problem as much as he is a symptom and the sickness (in America) that runs deep led to his election in the first place.”
Johnstown resident Che Heron, who was raised in Cape Breton, returned to the island just last summer after decades in the United States. For many years he was a police officer in San Francisco. He said he felt for the Washington, D.C., police who were overrun by the riotous mob on Wednesday.
“Many people just see police, but they are human beings and they must have been overwhelmed,” said Heron about the advance of protesters, many of who wore Make America Great Again (MAGA) hats and waved American flags while making their way into the Capitol.
“I have been in situations where we (police) were surrounded by thousands of protestors and it is serious stuff. In the United States, the rules of engagement are very clear. If you run at an elected official, the president or vice president or any senator, if you put them in harm’s way you will be stopped with deadly force.”
Heron added that he wasn’t overly surprised by Trump’s alleged part in inciting the protest-turned-riot. In fact, in an October interview with the Cape Breton Post, he even predicted that the president would not concede without a fight.
David Jala is a political reporter at the Cape Breton Post.
