Many Americans like to avoid recognizing the ugly parts of our country.

When something terrible happens, you hear many people say things like “things like this do not happen in America” and “this is not who we are.”

This was the response some people had when pro-Trump protestors rioted through the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6. By the time to building was cleared, four rioters and one police officer were dead.

People quickly compared the scene to something you see in a war-torn nation or so called “third-world country,” but these things happened on American soil, inside our own Capitol.

Unfortunately, this is who we are. America is now a nation where crowds of extremists can infiltrate government buildings after being emboldened by the president and fueled by online conspiracies.

People ran through the Capitol carrying weapons and restraints while threatening to kill elected officials.

The people who attacked the Capitol are full of hatred and fear and the events last week were simply the result of rhetoric that has been escalating for years.

We at The Daily Eastern News hope that Americans stop dismissing things like this as un-American.

Ignoring the ugly parts of America will allow those things to continue to grow and spread. People like to only consider the positive things that are considered American, but that is taking the easy way out.

Hatred and conspiracies have become as American as baseball and apple pie, and the sooner we all acknowledge that the better off we will be.