The party’s national convention pushed into its second night on Tuesday, seeing Biden officially elevated as the Democrats’ 2020 presidential candidate alongside running mate Kamala Harris. During the roll call vote prior to the nomination, however, spectators couldn’t help notice that delegates in American Samoa, a US territory, were flanked by a pair of uniformed soldiers, giving the appearance that they had been taken captive.

Throwing off “disturbing” vibes, the scene was a “perfect picture to describe US imperialism,” some netizens observed, perhaps referring to the fact that parts of the territory were first annexed by American decree, seeing the US Navy take possession of wide swaths of its largest island before fully colonizing in 1900.