Sean Casten4 years ago, I was locked down in the Capitol. When the majority of the Republicans voted to overturn the election AFTER the attack, something broke in Congress that still hasn’t healed. Truth is truth. And while it should never be partisan to defend democracy, we can’t pretend it isn’t.
All of us who were there had partial views in real time. What was happening near us, texts from colleagues, snapshots of TV coverage outside, alerts from USCP. One of the many virtues of the J6 committee was compiling those fragments to explain the totality of what happened.
Memory is an unreliable narrator. Our stories, years later may weave in things we learned about later. And set against that is the continued, willful efforts by Trump & his goons to misrepresent history. Know only that one does not lie about things you’re proud of.
There are a lot of people who work on the hill. Fewer that day because of COVID restrictions, but there are still a lot of (current and former) members, staff, capitol police and other staff with easily-triggered trauma.
With a few individual exceptions, the GOP as a party has still not acknowledged their complicity in the attack and the attempted cover up. That keeps the threat of more violence alive. The best lack all conviction, as Yeats said. But it is the opposite of the oath they took.
I don’t know how we heal from this. Does democracy destroy the authoritarian, anti-democratic forces in the GOP or do they destroy democracy? It will be a close thing. But know that love has the numbers. It will win as long as it has the courage - and endurance - to act.
In the meantime, please spend some part of today elevating the truth. When one entire party and certain social media apps will be awash in disinformation, truth needs volume. If you’re reading this now, you have an amplifier. Turn it up.
As one small contribution to that, here is a piece my oldest daughter wrote for her HS newspaper about her perspectives on the day from the family group chat - with my real time notes appended. https://dgnomega.org/11458/feature/two-perspectives-on-the-insurrection/
Two perspectives on the insurrection: A congressman and his daughter
This story was written by junior Gwen Casten and her father, U.S. Congressman Sean Casten IL(06). This narrative tells what happened on January 6, 2021 and is told from Gwen’s perspective in Downers Grove while receiving updates during school and Representative Casten’s in Washington D.C. while at the U.S. Capitol. Gwen The night before:...
David J. Atkinson@SeanCasten I watched #Jan6 unfold on TV with some updates on social media. The magnitude of the threat was incomprehensible in the moment.
I felt this way in Tokyo on 3/11/11 during the great quake, tsunami, and the meltdown of two reactors at Fukushima. As a US gov employee, I had access to reports from our embassy and from military sources. Those were far scarier than public news.
For a decade, a large truck rumbling by would trigger me. I wish you and your family well.