I had predicted that Donald Trump would try to overturn the election results in every way possible, including the incitement of violence. But even I didn’t imagine how far the defeated president would go on 6 January 2021. Even in my wildest imagination, I had never contemplated that a violent group of extremists, many of them white nationalists inspired by a vile doctrine of racist and antisemitic hatred, would storm the Capitol and overwhelm the Capitol police, physically take over the US Senate chamber and threaten the lives of the vice-president and the speaker of the House. Being trapped in a room with other senators, guarded by police officers and FBI agents with machine guns, was a scene I never could have predicted – and never want to see again. But I knew then, as I know now, that the deep divisions Trump and his allies had opened up in America, and which they continue to inflame, make the possibility of more anti-democratic violence real. That was one of the many reasons why I later voted to convict Trump for inciting an insurrection, and why I would do so again.
For weeks before and after Biden’s inauguration on 20 January 2021, thousands of national guard units from states across the country, including Vermont, established checkpoints around the Capitol and secured the perimeter. This was a far cry from the usual peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another that our nation was accustomed to. Instead of what we read about in eighth grade civics class, Washington on those winter days felt like a city beset by civil war. When I spoke with guardsmen and women, I was struck by the fact that they knew exactly why they were there. They were defending the constitution and preserving our fragile democracy.
