Twelfth Night/J6
Notes on an insurrection
[Ed. note: What follows is an excerpt from a not-yet-published essay I wrote that features, among other things, what I saw unfold at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. I would much rather be writing about today as Twelfth Night, marking the end of the festive season, but J6 is an anniversary I will not forget. Neither should you. —JH]
On January 6, 2021, a mile and a half from the rowhouse where my family and I spent so many COVID days, a mob invaded the Capitol. What I’d grown up believing would never happen in modern America—a violent attempt to undo the outcome of a free and fair election—was unfolding almost in my backyard.
Around 2 p.m. that day, on my way home from an errand, I heard the news on the radio. I should have gone straight home. Instead I parked and made my way to the corner between the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress, facing the east side of the Capitol. To my mind, it’s one of the most beautiful intersections in the city, though it wasn’t beauty that draw me there that day. I needed to see for myself.
Since 9/11, Washingtonians had learned never to venture too close to certain Federal buildings. We had no senators or congresspeople; now we couldn’t even access parts of our own city, shut out by bollards and barricades and hurricane fencing.
The January 6 rioters didn’t care about barriers. Nothing—not fences, not police, not democratic norms—stood in their way. I watched them roil across the plaza in front of the Capitol, through territory normally occupied by tourists and joggers, and surge up the steps. Even from two long blocks away, I could hear the yells and the roars as they breached the building.
Across the intersection from where I stood, a man wrapped in an American flag yelled at a group of police officers, who seemed unsure how to react. They probably couldn’t believe it either. Behind me, a young blonde woman who looked like a congressional staffer chit-chatted with a middle-aged couple in red MAGA hats. She had her dog out for a midday walk. “Trump supporters are always so nice,” she said.
I heard explosions at the top of the Capitol steps. Fireworks? Tear gas? Some kind of cannon? All of these possibilities seemed absurd, or would have on any other day. But I could see the smoke and hear the yells of the rioters as they forced their way in. I didn’t know then how overwhelmed the Capitol Police and the MPD were, or that it would still be hours before the National Guard got the okay to go in and help shut down the violence.
I went home. There was no place else to go.
Over the next few days, as video and eyewitness accounts of Jan. 6 flooded the media, DC braced for more attacks, more violence. These people would try anything. That much was clear. But Inauguration Day came and went, and terrible things did not happen. This time the National Guard took up posts on every corner close to the Capitol, making friends with neighbors and their kids and dogs. The transfer of power took place peacefully, behind taller fences and more layers of security than even this city was used to.
From my bedroom window I watched the Marine One helicopter ferrying the ex-president and his wife out of town. They flew close to my house, following the course of the Anacostia River, headed east and south, until I lost sight of them.
Here we are, four years later, and the security fencing has gone up again. It is some comfort that Jan. 6, 2025 will not unfold the way Jan. 6, 2021 did. The Capitol will not be breached, the results of the latest election will be certified without violence, and there will be a peaceful transfer of power. In the next few days, Jimmy Carter will lie in state under the Capitol dome, a reminder that politicians sometimes work on behalf of things greater than themselves. The flags are flying at half-mast for him. I hope they’re not flying at half-mast for democracy too.
Wishing you a free and peaceful 2025,
Jen
