L AST week’s scenes in America as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in a bid to overturn the democratic presidential election result were horrifying and disgraceful in equal measure.

There is no doubt that the words and actions of the soon to be former president encouraged many of these individuals who have total disregard for how a democratic election result should be respected.

It was welcome to see leaders from around the world including the Prime Minister condemn the scenes and call out President Trump for his rhetoric. While it was shocking to see them enter the debating chamber and fly a confederate flag inside Capitol Hill, their bullish attempts were thankfully unsuccessful.

However, they served as a reminder that the rights and freedoms that we take for granted, particularly in the Western world, are more fragile than we sometimes think.

In the aftermath of these events, there have been those on social media who have gleefully shared photos of Donald Trump alongside prominent Conservative politicians as an attempt to cast aspersions on their character.

While those pictures may well haunt politicians in my party in the years ahead, in casting these aspersions, the SNP appear to have forgotten how close a relationship the former first minister Alex Salmond built with Donald Trump after entering power in 2007.

They are also blind to the fact that certain aspects of the narrative of Trump’s supporters in America are not that dissimilar in some respects to nationalist rhetoric right here in Glasgow and in Scotland.

Replace the Star-Spangled Banner and the many fancy dress displays on offer in Washington with a Saltire and kilts, then it all of a sudden doesn’t seem too different to many of the pro-independence rallies that routinely take place in our towns and cities.

It may not be pleasant for us to hear, but some of the more extreme aspects of the “joyous, civic” nationalism celebrated by the SNP is not a million miles away from the hatred that spilt out on to the streets of the American capital.

Nationalism, in all its forms, always has an “other” to whom the ills of the world are blamed. For the rioters on Wednesday, it was the “liberal elite”, “the fake news media” and prominent Democratic politicians like Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. Here, it’s the English, the Westminster Parliament, those evil Tories, and yes the “biased press” but for whom all of us traitors who reject the ideology of nationalism would come to realise the error of our ways and beg for forgiveness.

The truth is, as anyone who’s had the misfortune of incurring the wrath of the abuse online from independence supporters over the past six years will know, the aftermath of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum did not bring about a happy cuddly, form of nationalism.

Those in the SNP, including the First Minister, are at pains to say their form of nationalism is different from all the rest and the way they portray themselves in public certainly does a very good job of hiding the most extreme elements of their support to the wider public.

However, in the very exceptionalism they claim for themselves, the nationalists betray the same sense of misguided superiority that they share with the President of the United States.

It might not be as blatant as a wild Trump tweet at 4am (banned from Twitter though he now is), but the intention under the surface is the same – to stir division, a failure to take responsibility, dodging democratic decision making and wanting complete control of every aspect of government.