The person in charge has sabotaged US politics from its core.
Trump-supporting extremists stormed the Capitol, overwhelming police at the building. In unprecedented images, the rioters broke windows, wandered through Congress, posing for photos. Four people have died. An armed standoff was caught on camera.
Many in the mob appeared to be allowed by authorities to mill around the building and wander away.
Some filled the steps and stage where President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration is to take place in two weeks and where previous presidential inaugurations have been held.
Trump lied to his followers that the election was fraudulent and stolen from him and them. He has never officially conceded. He has pressured election officials. He has stirred up a mob.
Before today's chaos Trump said in a speech to supporters: "You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength". He demanded that Congress try to overthrow the election results.
Throughout his presidency he has incited violence, encouraged militant groups, widened divisions, spread destructive conspiracy theories, and showed disrespect for his basic responsibilities.
Other Republican politicians are complicit in throwing fuel on this fire. Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, the leading proponents of the election vote count-objections the protesters disrupted, should wear this disgrace like a stain.
Take away the status of America's standing in the world, its military and economic might: Rioters crawling over the Capitol, with Congress in lockdown, egged on by a defeated president is an attempted coup.
In his earlier speech to supporters Trump said: "We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Ave... and we're going to [try] to give our Republicans - the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help - we're to try and get them kind of pride and boldness they need to take back our country".
Even in his later video statement urging the rioters to go home, he repeated his bogus claims: "We had an election stolen from us ... this was a fraudulent election".
At some point there has to be personal consequences for the behaviour of Trump, and his political enablers. Some political leaders have been willing to pander to extremists prepared to trash the centre of the country's politics without being immediately cleared from the area. It took hours for the police to gain control and only 52 arrests were reported.
Biden hopes to restore unity but trying to ignore what happened just stores trouble for the future.
He may be helped by attempts by at least some Republicans to put distance between themselves and Trump. The violence today has been a shake-up and the fact that the Republicans have collectively lost the presidency, Senate and House is sinking in.
Biden said the scenes did not reflect what America is. "At this hour our democracy is under unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times... let me be very clear: The scenes at the US Capitol do not reflect the true America."
But he has a massive job to restore America's tattered reputation in this dark moment.
After a year in which the US has looked broken and nakedly dysfunctional, today it also looked like a failed democracy with a political rebellion that raised the spectre of deep, ongoing unrest.
There's also new questions over political stability with Vice-President Mike Pence appearing to take charge of dealing with the unrest.
For once Americans will have to contemplate how this will be seen in the rest of the world. The country that fancies itself as a beacon of democracy has unleashed anti-democratic forces on itself. Today it was receiving the type of official calls from abroad for a calm and peaceful transition it normally issues itself.
It can no longer lecture other countries from any perceived high moral ground and leaders overseas will have to take note.
While Trumpism infects one of the two major parties in the US, dangerous instability is only an election away.
