The 1/6 Committee posted a powerful compilation video of the events of January 6th on Twitter.
It was hard to watch. Many of these videos I had never seen before. It brought up so many memories of that day. I was working and Alissa and I had been watching the news coverage off and on, wondering what would happen as the former-President steadfastly refused to concede.
I remember pulling up live YouTube coverage and seeing a riot unfold. I called down to Alissa to pull up the video. We watched in stunned helplessness. I was glued to everything I could watch. It reminded me of watching September 11, 2001 unfold live when I was a freshman in high school.
Horror turned into relief as everyone rallied around the idea this was not ok. The country, briefly, was united that THIS IS NOT DONE. Not in America.
Through the years, I have been upset at the outcomes of various elections, or the action (and, more often, inaction) of the Federal government. But we take the wins and the losses together. We aren’t Democrat or Republican, primarily, we are Americans. And we can (and should) fiercely debate and disagree, and leave it to the voters. Sometimes what we believe is selected by the voters, sometimes it isn’t.
Every politician, every election says this is the One. This is the last great hope for our country. They stir up fear and concern to hopefully get people to the polls.
But it feels fundamentally different to me that we would go from that to this. That a mob of people would storm our government because this election didn’t go your way. That they would bring violence into our disagreements. That they would shout about assassinating our elected officials. And I have little doubt they would have if they were not thwarted.
And now, half of our political establishment seems to have decided that’s ok?
It’s not Ok. It would not be Ok no matter what side did this, and our Democracy faces a serious test. I hope we pass but I have exactly zero confidence we will.