On Wednesday afternoon in the nation’s capital, a group of violent insurgents tried to halt the peaceful transition of power.

It’s unbelievable, but there seems no other way to describe the situation that unfolded yesterday at the US Capitol. The national media have taken to describing the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol as a “mob.” And it’s true that they were a mob—in that they had no real plan for seizing power and no coherent strategy.

It’s more accurate to call them right-wing insurgents. Lacking the strength of numbers (their preferred candidate lost the presidential election by 7 million votes), the insurrectionists used force to halt the workings of our constitutional democracy. Wednesday should have been a solemn but joyous day—one important step in the exchange of power. Instead, it developed into chaos and bloodshed.

There’s another word to describe those who ransacked the People’s House: traitors. Those individuals who took over the Capitol building—forcing the people’s representatives to duck and cover on the House floor—literally ground the constitution to a halt. In doing so, they betrayed their country. I live a mile from the Capitol in a peaceful and diverse neighborhood. On Wednesday, we had to barricade ourselves in our homes as unmasked strangers roamed our streets and police sirens screamed with helicopters roaring overhead.

The root of this treason is, obviously, Donald Trump, who has spent most of the last two months spewing election-related conspiracy theories and much of the last four years undermining the bedrock of our democracy and fueling white supremacists’ agendas. On Wednesday morning, during a speech at a rally near the White House, Trump told his supporters, “We will never concede” and urged them to “fight” and “show strength.” He said he would join them in the march to the Capitol (though he himself retreated to the White House) and then, later, after the violence on Capitol Hill, told the insurrectionists, “we love you; you’re very special.”

The rot, however, goes much deeper than the soon-to-be-former president. Donald Trump may have been soundly defeated in November (say it with me again—7 million votes). But Trump’s base remains, and it threatens to warp American democracy. By “Trump’s base” I’m not just talking about the insurrectionists who overran the Capitol but also those Republican officials who stoked the anger and suspicion that led to the attempted coup.

Yes, there are some congressional Republicans of conscience who have resisted Trump’s attempts to reverse the will of the American people. They are few and far between. More than half of congressional Republicans signed onto a lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to overturn the election results in four key states. On Wednesday morning, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri—one of the main instigators behind the plot to overturn the Electoral College results—gave the radical right-wing mob a closed fist salute on his way to the Capitol. And then there was Texas senator Ted Cruz, who deployed a bunch of sophistry to argue that the election certification should be delayed because many Americans are suspicious of the election results—suspicions that he himself has helped cultivate with his blatant demagoguery. The bullshit from the podium stretched well past midnight, as more than a hundred House Republicans voted to upend the will of the people.  

As the rot goes deeper, the chaos stretches wider. Even as the right-wing extremists occupied the US Capitol in DC, Trump supporters massed at statehouses nationwide. In Oregon, the authoritarians burned an effigy of the governor; in Arizona, they set up a guillotine outside the statehouse. In Olympia, Washington, insurgents—some of them armed—broke into the grounds of the governor’s mansion.

The perpetrators of this mob violence need to be held accountable. There is plenty of visual evidence of those who invaded the Capitol, and those who can be identified need to be charged and tried before a jury of their peers.

The intellectual instigators of the attack must also be held responsible. Any elected officials who through their incendiary rhetoric encouraged or abetted the assault on the Capitol must face judgment—if not in the courtroom, then at least at the next ballot. A People’s House cannot include a sedition caucus. 

And we need to hold accountable the systems of power and law enforcement structures that allowed this disgrace to happen in the first place. When the mob was breaching barricades to take over the Capitol, where were the police? Compare the Capitol Police’s sluggish response to the massive militarized police presence that occupied Washington, DC, during last summer’s popular mobilization to affirm that Black lives matter. During those protests, police tear-gassed, beat, and arrested peaceful protesters as heavily armed National Guard units stood in front of the White House. Apparently, it’s safer to storm the Capitol with a Confederate battle flag than it is to kneel in the streets of DC while protesting in defense of Black lives.

The insurgent violence was terrifying, but make no mistake: Those of us in the environmental, social justice, civil rights, and liberation movements are not afraid. We won’t stand down, and we won’t stand by. We will, instead, speak up. And we’ll speak up louder than ever—for an inclusive democracy, for the rule of law, for justice, and for a livable planet. Above all, we’ll work to translate our words into actions. 

Democracy is, fundamentally, a conversation. It’s a conversation among citizens about how to order a nation’s affairs—how to mount a common defense, how best to invest in the common good, how to balance liberty with responsibility toward others, how to safeguard opportunity for the next generations to whom we are merely ancestors. In a democracy, we may often raise our voices in passion, yet we should never bare our fists in anger.

Maybe it sounds corny, but I’m convinced that one of the best antidotes to authoritarianism is conversation. 

If you, like me, were disgusted by the shameful actions at the Capitol, here’s one small thing you can do: Talk to anyone you can find and denounce the attacks on democracy. If you know of a Trump sympathizer—a cousin or neighbor or another member of the Sierra Club—who may have expressed any inkling of support for the attempts to overturn the election results, try your best to make clear that there is no freedom without democracy. However you can, make the case that our only chance of forming a more perfect union lies with keeping faith with the constitution and finding common cause on justice and protecting the environment.

Speak up. Work with us to explore, enjoy, and protect our democracy—and by extension our planet. Your voice can be the shield of democracy. Lift it high.