Point of View of Modern Day Sedition: Witnessing the January 6th 2020 Attack on the Capitol
January 6, 2021, should have been a mundane day in Washington D.C. It should have been a date that most Americans did not really pay attention to with a routine certification of votes in a joint session of Congress. But that changed a year ago, with an incumbent President not conceding defeat. According to election results, the challenger won the November 3rd, 2020 election, 306 electoral votes for Biden and 232 for Trump, (a candidate needs 270 to win, the popular vote doesn’t matter). For the first time, an outgoing President did not want to admit that he lost the election.
Trump cried fraud and theft by the Democratic Party. We watch the month of December in 2020, with the constant fear of a constitutional crisis. No one seemed to know what would happen if he didn’t leave? What would happen? Would our military have to evict him? The scenarios were endless. For the first time ever, we had a President who did not want to concede his office, it seemed unbelievable to me. All these years of a peaceful transfer of power, something unheard of before 1776, and a model for the world since was rejected. As someone who studies politics, I couldn’t believe that this man did not want to admit defeat even a month later after the states certified his votes. He and his sycophants began to turn their attention to a particular routine procedure in which would make his loss official, January 6th.
All that day, I heard and read on television, social media, and other sources about a Trump rally, so I turned it to C-SPAN when he began to speak. Turns out the rally was called, “Stop the Steal.” Just the title of the rally was incentive enough to make his supporters believe his “great lie”. So the intent of the rally seemed clear. Anyway, I reluctantly listened to his lies. His voice and constant snorting out of his nose drive me insane, and I hate hearing him talk. He is the most inarticulate public figure I ever heard in my life, but yet there are his supporters in the crowd cheering him on. I often wondered if they even listened to what he was saying. He repeated his words and lies over and over again. Most glaring was his calling out Vice President Pence to do the “right thing.” I couldn’t believe it.
Finally, this unnecessary drama was coming to an end with the words, “So we are going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’re going to the Capitol, and we’re going to try and give. The Democrats are hopeless-they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we are going to try and give our Republicans the weak ones because the strong ones don’t need any of our help. We’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.” (https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial)
So with that mental torture finally over, I actually kept watching C-SPAN (the House channel) to watch the routine process. There were speeches challenging, votes against moving forward on the certification process. It all seemed like political theater reinforcing Trump’s lies by some of his most staunch Republican Representatives. Then news broke after giving his final words in his inflammatory speech: “Trump protesters have broken through barriers at the US Capitol,- Donie O’Sullivan @donie- January 6, 2021, Twitter.” (A Timeline of how the January 6 Attack Unfolded,” NPR, January 5, 2022, www.npr.org) Actually, the first broken barrier by his supporters happened before his speech ended, calling for them to go to the Capitol. Within half an hour, they overcame the police on the Capitol steps. Then I watched in horror, but then soon after that, the terrorists were breaking windows and breaking into the Capitol. News reports stated that the Vice President and then the House Speaker were rushed off the floor. Watching this travesty unfold, I felt overwhelmed and angry. I was waiting for the National Guard to rush in, as our military has done in other countries, to stop these terrorists from this attempted coup. Instead, it was the police, some of them even letting some of the terrorists inside. (Later there were videos of some police officers letting them through the doors). I watched it. I saw it. I witnessed it, through CSPAN. What should be noted, I am one of those Americans who are very critical of my nation and government, so for me to say that I was waiting for our democracy to be saved, well, I think it should be noted that even I was upset about what was unfolding. Most of the police officers though were trying to stop them from terrorizing the members of Congress, the staff, and workers. Keeping the peace and people safe from these supposed proponents of “law and order” were these officers' jobs, and many did just that.
Later, I would learn that one terrorist was shot by police, a California woman. She died for a demagogue, a narcissistic liar, who couldn’t take defeat. She believed his lies and paid with her life. Some of the death counts include four officers. One, Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police Officer died from strokes the next day after being pepper-sprayed in the face during the terrorist attack. Over the past months, four more officers would take their lives over the trauma of the Capitol attack. Four officers killed themselves: Howard Liebengood (Capitol Police), Jeffery Smith (DC Metro), Kyle DeFreytag (MPD), and Ganther Hashida (MPD). I cannot imagine the pain they felt. Later, I would see a video that showed one terrorist yelling at an officer, “Let us in, we supported you, traitor!” So much for, “Blue Lives Matter.” Just more lies fed to rabidly angry Trump supporters. Until this day, it doesn’t seem that you all care about anyone’s lives including your own. Trump only cares about his own, nothing else, no one else, I cannot stress this enough. He does not care about human rights, he does not care about the Constitution, he does care about ideology or philosophy, he does not care about policy or consequences. He does not care about any of you.
I stayed up until 4:00 AM, to ensure this otherwise routine Constitutional process went through. I saw Mitch McConnell’s face, it was ghost white. All the members of Congress seemed shaken, even some of the Trump House Members were shaking. I saw their faces, their fear, not only from the Democratic side of the aisle but their colleagues. All of them couldn’t believe what had happened. I couldn’t believe what had happened. According to the timeline, 3:43 AM is when Vice President Mike Pence, one of the few official duties of his office, called the majority of Electoral College votes for Joe Biden. I turned off the television, ranted to my husband as he stayed up with me to watch. My mind was swirling and trying to process what I witnessed that day. I do know that one reporter on CNN that evening, remarked how an attack on the Capitol hasn’t happened since 1812.
One of my initial thoughts was, “what if it was my ‘side’?” What I mean is, as human rights activists, some would label a “liberal”, “leftists”, etc., what if it were us? What if the protesters would have been non-white? For me, the answer is obvious. And it turns out to many Americans (left-wing), we all derived at the same conclusion: More of us would be dead, we would have been shot, bodies on the ground, and a year later, most of us tried for treason. I know the right-wing pundits on television and radio would paint it worse than they did any city riots or protests. You know why? Because the first line of defense was to start a lie stating that it was “leftists”, or ANTIFA, if you will, that disguised themselves as Trump supporters. When I first heard this, I told myself there is no way even the most staunch supporters are going to believe this. Well, I was very, very wrong about their power over their viewers. The Right-Wing did what they are good at, they fed a lie and were able to distort the truth, only by sowing doubt at first. Now, they are turning the lie into something new, calling the domestic terrorists, “patriots.” In only a year, they have managed to paint this act of sedition, treason, and terrorism into an act of “patriotism”. They have sowed enough doubt that independents (whatever that means) are not sure how to view the January 6th Insurrection. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll stated that 75% of Republicans falsely believe that the elections were rigged and stolen. Only 9% believe that Biden won fair and square.
In April of last year, there were local elections. I was a political campaign manager for one of the local candidates for Joliet City Council, a council member at large position, we didn’t win, but we worked our butts off. Our strategy, even during COVID, was to knock on doors. The Joliet local elections are nonpartisan, so we tried to knock on every door in every precinct, which included all five municipal districts and several townships. (We’re a nice size city). One time, when we were canvassing, we knocked on the door of a woman in a more conservative part of Joliet. Right away, we knew she was a Trump supporter, by the questions she was asking. At first, I wanted to tell my candidate, we should leave, but then she asked, “How do we know if we can trust elections?” I actually cried. It was sad to me that this narcissistic asshole had disenfranchised one of his own voters. Jeremy (my candidate) and I stayed and explained to her that you need to trust the voting process and not to give up. Yes, I know, many of you are like, “But why would you encourage a Trump supporter?” Call me an idealist, well, I am an idealist so the label would be fitting. I believe in the election process. I do not care who someone voted for in elections unless I am coming to your door for my candidate. Even if someone is not voting for my preferred candidate, I tell them to vote. That day, once we discussed how important voting was, she nodded her head sadly and said goodbye. (Side note: One thing about Jeremy, he will engage anyone in a discussion, respectfully and always listening. It’s what I loved about him as a candidate. His interpersonal skills beat mine a lot of times when it came to more conservative voters. Hmmm, I should ask him if I can write about our campaign one day. I am very proud of it.)
This is my opinion on voting: If it were a scam, like the late, great George Carlin, liked to claim it was, they wouldn’t be working so hard to discourage or stop people from voting. This has been true since our beginning. The founding fathers only wanted white, land-owning (wealthy) men to vote. Right? Not even the working-class white men got to vote. Since then, the rest of us had to fight for our right to vote. I mean, we just celebrated women getting the vote a hundred years ago. Hell, I have right-wing, white women claiming that the United States should repeal that. What the hell? Anyway, voting matters. So have faith, know that we are a nation who can only get better if we work together. Today has been filled with our nation discussing this terrible anniversary. President Biden spoke earlier today stating, it “will never happen again.”
Like I said, I am idealistic when it comes to human rights and democracy. We still have a long way to go. The concept that I am most proud of as a Political Science student is the idealistic tradition of the “peaceful transfer of power.” A year ago, that tradition and cornerstone of our democracy was threatened, especially that day. A tradition that all spectrums of political ideology could be proud of in our nation. But in moments a year ago, that was taken away from us from a narcissistic demagogue who couldn’t admit defeat. He fed his believers lies, and they chose to believe him. Even today, he is repeating the lies. It will never stop. Between the pandemic and this, 2021 turned out to be as bad as 2020. And I am sure the Right Wing pundits will have their field day trying to spin their lies with their gaslighting. Even though the January 6th Commission has texts from some of them, pleading with Trump’s staff to call for calm, they circled their wagons on their opinion shows, lying about what happened. So today they will double down, spinning it from blaming leftists in disguise to the insurrectionists being “patriots.” Which is it? Both?
My question is, “When will we be smarter?” Technology literally is in the palm of our hands with credible information everywhere, and we’d rather believe conspiracies and speculation rather than our own eyes. I could scream all day at his supporters about what I witnessed that day, but I think it would just lead to more yelling. The insurrectionists, the traitors, or to be less dehumanizing, the people who seemed more loyal to one man than their country shook our democracy to its core. I cannot say if some of them really believed Trump’s lies or were just willing to believe in it, knowing they were lies. Maybe some of them really believed that the election was stolen from them. Some still do. But truth doesn’t matter to them, winning does.
I can say that the election was not stolen. Actually, something very positive happened with this past election, over 150 million Americans voted on November 3rd, 2020! From what I have heard, that is the most votes ever cast on any election day in our history! Whether you voted for Biden or Trump, we should have been excited! I was truly amazed! But how short-lived that was when Trump, after the fight for Electoral votes, did not concede, his only concerns were his pride and pocketbook. His lies began the same night. So with one man’s fragile ego, we have had constitutional crisis after constitutional crisis, including Trump being impeached twice. Then January 6th happened. Instead of loving this country, he and his supporters only love him.
With his hateful and deplorable words, along with his media liars, he has managed to disrupt and cause doubt in our election process, disenfranchise his voters, and divide us even more. Today, in response to Biden calling him out, he stated, “Biden, who is destroying our Nation with insane policies of open Borders, corrupt Elections, disastrous energy policies, unconstitutional mandates, and devastating school closures, used my name today to try to further divide America,” Trump said. Well, he doubled down on the election lie. And I can tell you that the Biden Administration has yet to reverse any of the immigration policies of the Trump Administration. I know this as a human rights advocate. So there are no open borders. School closures? COVID maybe? Unconstitutional mandates? Oh, yeah, the whole vaccine issue. (Next week’s writing). Dear god, the man lies about everything even when being called out. I honestly think he thought being President was one big reality show. And now our democracy might pay for it. I hate “reality” television.
One final word, we need to strengthen our voting rights, not restrict them. So many have sacrificed their lives for this democracy in some shape or form, it would be a pity to see us fall when we should be moving forward. We are a democracy, this means our elected officials work for us! Our civil servants work for us! It is not the other way around. If we give up on our electoral and voting rights now, I am afraid all will be lost. These statements may be hyperbolic, but I seriously think we are headed to a dark place of no return, but we can keep moving forward. We have to believe this but it starts with us participating in our democracy, not shutting ourselves out.
