Rep. Andy Kim Reflects On His January 6th Experience [View all]

[Nevilledog]

https://hillreporter.com/watch-rep-andy-kim-reflects-on-his-january-6th-experience-106107

We watched the events of January 6th unfold in real time, either on TV or online. As we shared our collective viewing experiences on social media six months ago, the same sentiments were being repeated again and again: How can this be happening? How can they be allowed to violate the halls of the Capitol like this? It didn’t just feel like they were vandalizing Congress, but each of our individual homes as well.

We also worried for those trapped inside the building by the seemingly endless mob and their attack on our democracy. We heard that Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi were evacuated, the rest of Congress right behind them. But we also saw tweets from Lauren Boebert giving away Pelosi’s location. Other members of the GOP, most of them eschewing the mask mandates, also downplayed the events, acting so casually in lockdown that it set off alarm bells with their Democratic colleagues.

Those same Republicans returned to a still-desecrated Senate chamber hours later to continue their effort to block the certification of the 2020 Presidential election after the insurrectionists had failed them. They stood in defiance of the peoples’ vote, they demanded their Dear Leader be given another chance to stay in power, and they have been working every day for the last six months to erase the truth of January 6th and replace it with a whitewashed version of that day, a version where a few tourists just let their patriotism overwhelm them to the point where they had to relieve their bladders and bowels all over the seat of our democracy, as will happen on any regular tour of the Capitol.

As Twitter marked the somber half-year anniversary of the worst domestic terrorist event in America since the Oklahoma City bombing by trending “#NeverForgetJanuary6th”, Democratic members of Congress and others were sharing their own experiences of that dark and tragic day.