As I continue to process the horrific events that took place at the United States Capitol last Wednesday, I can't help but think back to another time during my life when our nation came under attack. And to think of the similarities and differences between the two incidents. Especially the differences.
September 11, 2001, started like any other day. I was 18 years old and had recently begun my freshman year of college. That morning I went to the dining hall and ate breakfast before returning to my dorm room to get ready to head off to my morning classes. Upon my return to that small double room, 9/11 very suddenly became a day very unlike any other day. The television was on (very odd), on the television there was a live shot of the twin towers with smoke billowing out of them, and my roommate quickly said, "Two planes just crashed into the World Trade Center."
It was immediately obvious that something unimaginably horrible was happening.
Classes weren't cancelled yet so I headed off to class not long after. While walking across campus I passed some construction workers who were listening to the radio and I heard something about the Pentagon having been struck. In class news and rumors flew (remember those days when we didn't all have the Internet in the palm of our hands?). By some of the early reports, the attacks were even more widespread and destructive than they were in reality. I remember hearing something about a bomb going off at the State Department, which of course had not actually happened. But the reality, obviously, was horrible enough. At the time it was the worst day of my life and there wasn't really any competition.
January 6, 2021 did not start like any other day. It was an unusual, tension-filled day from the start. We all knew that Congress was meeting to certify Joe Biden's election victory and that numerous congressional Republicans were planning to continue their assault on democracy by objecting to the results. We also knew that Trump was holding a rally not that far from the Capitol, a gathering of his supporters who had already been whipped into a frenzy by lie after lie after lie about the election and about so many other things.
I guess it should have been obvious in retrospect that something really awful might happen. Certainly I was nervous. But I wasn't expecting... that.
I was sitting on my sofa, working on my laptop, as I've generally been doing every work day during this awful pandemic. I was periodically checking Twitter, as I also generally do.
Okay, more than periodically.
The previous day I had seen a report about some Trump supporters getting into it with cops in DC, and I kind of thought - oh, that's nice, it's about time! - after all the other news stories this year about various protests and the response, or lack thereof, by law enforcement. Peaceful BLM protests being violently cracked down on by police. Heavily armed anti-mask zealots invading state capitol buildings while cops stood by and watched. Finally, I thought, the MAGA wackos are getting a taste of their own medicine.
So on Wednesday, when early in the afternoon I saw reports of a mob gathering outside the United States Capitol and starting to get in scuffles with police forces, I at first thought it was more of what had happened the previous day. Surely the protesters (I still thought of them as protesters at that time - not yet as rioters, or insurrectionists, or terrorists) would take some licks from the cops and eventually disperse without doing any real damage.
Then around 2 or so I saw a tweet stating that the Capitol had been breached.
The expression "shit got real" comes to mind but when I really think about it? I don't think it got real yet, not for me, or probably for most everyone all over the country as we all in one way or another became aware of the news.
I ended up spending most of the rest of the day watching the news on TV. I was horrified by what I saw. But as horrified as I was that day, it was nothing compared to the horror I've felt in the ensuing days.
I think on 1/6 I was, in a way, watching it more like I was watching a movie or TV show than real events that were really happening in real life.
I suppose 9/11 was also like that, in a way. But on 9/11, man, seeing the WTC collapse? There was no way to deny the sheer magnitude of horror we were all witnessing. No way to not just feel utterly sick and utterly full of dread.
On 1/6, most of the images that we saw, on that afternoon, were tame, often even laughable. A crazy guy in a buffalo costume posing for the camera in the chambers of Congress? Another goofy looking guy with his feet up on Nancy Pelosi's desk? Do those really look scary? It was clear something really crazy and unsettling was happening, but the full extent of it...
The full extent really only started to come out over the next few days and I'm sure there's even more that we still don't know, but the grim details of what happened that day, that most of us have now probably seen but had no idea of that afternoon... A functional gallows erected outside the Capitol. An angry mob chanting, "Hang Mike Pence!" after their treasonous leader told them that the Vice President had betrayed their cause. That same mob beating a police officer to death. Windows and doors being smashed as the mob descended on the locations where vulnerable members of Congress cowered. One rioter being felled by a single shot fired by a brave, outnumbered security officer who resorted to lethal force only when it became truly necessary.
Eugene Goodman, a Black police officer facing off, alone, against an angry white mob, and luring them away from the undefended doors to the Senate chambers. He should be considered a hero in a similar echelon as those brave Flight 93 passengers who gave their lives to protect the Capitol on 9/11.
9/11 was instantly more terrible than anything I'd ever experienced in my life. In the days that followed, the terror remained, but as I think back on it, I think that with each passing day, life gradually moved - not back to normal - but back to a place where I could enjoy the day-to-day moments of life without constant anxiety and dread. It didn't happen right away. But each day seemed a little less bad than the previous one.
1/6, in the moment, didn't seem as terrible as 9/11. But the ensuing days have had the opposite effect. Each day, as more details have come out and the actuality of what happened and is still happening has continued to sink in, has seemed worse.
Looking at it now, I think that 1/6 is more frightening than 9/11. (At least from the perspective of a citizen of the USA - I don't want to diminish the horror that was experienced by the victims of the misguided wars our country launched in response to 9/11.) On and after 9/11, there was never even the tiniest shred of possibility that Osama Bin Laden would overthrow the United States government and install himself as leader. Islamic extremists were never attempting to take over our government and any such attempt would have been utterly futile. On 1/6, the man who currently is president of the United States - and who, thanks to our broken Electoral College system, could have been reelected if the vote counts in a few select states had shifted a little bit in his direction - incited his followers to attempt to overthrow the government and install him as an unelected dictator.
And hours after that happened, a majority of the Republicans in the House of Representatives still voted to overturn the results of the election!
It is incredibly frightening that so many of our fellow citizens have been swept up in this authoritarian movement. It is horrifying that, in our two party representative democracy, one of the two parties has largely rejected the concept of democracy and has now moved beyond gerrymandering and voter suppression into outright violence.
And now we see numerous Republican elected officials and right wing pundits saying that impeachment would be too divisive and we need to just move on for the sake of unity.
This is like if after 9/11, people had said that trying to get Bin Laden would be too divisive, so we should just let him off without consequences and move on.
It is true that we need unity. We need unity against the people who tried to overthrow our government. Anyone who opposes consequences for Trump is picking the side of the people who tried to overthrow our government. The rest of us - conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike - need to unite against them. Only then can we move forward as a country.
And even after Trump is gone from the presidency, the seditious movement he fomented isn't going to disappear. That's a big reason why 1/6 is scarier than 9/11. Because a small group of extremists on the other side of the globe can't do nearly as much damage as what could potentially be done by a homegrown radical movement that has now infected the minds of millions of Americans. But I have hope that things are going to get better. I have hope that 1/6 was a big wakeup call for a lot of people about the threat that we face. And I know there are more of us - the people who want our democracy to continue - than there are of them.
Another reason that I think this past week has been so extremely unsettling (not that the events themselves aren't unsettling enough) is that thanks to COVID so many of us are already so isolated and already under such enormous stress. We can't gather to comfort and reassure each other the way we normally would. I remember shortly after Trump was elected, and I was feeling disconsolate. (For good reason, I'd certainly have to say from the vantage point of four years later.) And my parents came to visit me and we went out for a nice dinner. It was good just to spend time with family. So many small comforts like that are missing now. But it's important to remember that it won't be like this forever. I hope everyone is doing the best they can to take care of themselves and to be there for each other even if it can't be in person. When we look back on this time, years in the future, I think it's going to be hard to believe we really lived through it all. Or that things really were as bad as they are at this moment. I look forward to that day.
