"The disillusionment with politics that Trump has exemplified and exploited has just been proven right, by the way the election has gone," Mr Robinson said.

"They can't even run a proper election there.

"I've lived my whole life with this, 'America's the greatest country, blah, blah, blah'... The way we go about the world preaching about free elections, boy, we sure look bad on this one."

Read more: Carl Robinson on love, life, drug addiction and the Vietnam War

The US Capitol in Washington DC was locked down as supporters of President Donald Trump clashed with police and stormed the building.

Mr Robinson is a journalist and author who extensively covered the Vietnam War.

Mr Robinson has dual US-Australian citizenship, and has been living Down Under for the past 44 years.

"You could call me a Trump supporter... Mostly because he's been shaking the box and taking a different perspective on the world's problems," he said.

Mr Robinson was critical of media coverage of the US election that he viewed as unbalanced, and didn't "take a second look" at claims of electoral fraud.

"Tens of millions of people voted for Trump and didn't think it was a proper election, so it's not surprising it's led to this," he said. "It (the riots) shouldn't have happened, but I wasn't that surprised. It shows the level of anger among people who feel the election was fraudulent."

Dr Anthony Ashbolt, Honorary Senior Fellow in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong said the riots represented a "crisis for American democracy".

"It's a crisis that reflects not only deep divisions, but also the creation of conspiracy theories that have no hold on reality whatsoever, that have infested the internet and also run through the White House," he said.

"You have this unbroken link between the QAnon conspiracy theory group and the neo-fascist groups like the Proud Boys... Right through to the White House, and it has now resulted in an assault on the people's house (Congress)."

Dr Ashbolt also slammed Mr Trump's role in "fomenting" the violence.

"He told the 'protestors', the riotous mob, to take their demands to Congress," he said.

"And he knew what would happen.

"Trump would be aware that the key people behind the rally were associated with groups like QAnon and the Proud Boys."

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