The most vivid memory I have of Jan 6 is the moment I returned to the House chamber after the riot had been quelled. I stepped over broken glass to get into the chamber. What ensued over the next hour was the most powerful experience of my career.
People spoke with hushed whispers. We touched each other’s shoulders gently with comfort as if at a funeral. Everyone was still in a daze, swimming in uncertainty of the moment. I took a seat along the center aisle as the speeches began.
I glanced around the room.
Could it happen again? Would we finally unite? For a brief moment I thought what happened would be a shock to the system, like a defibrillator pulling our country back into rhythm. The speeches were raw, talking about the need to pull together.
But then something changed.
When speeches switched back to the electoral college debate, I felt the energy in the room shift. I watched people pull out the same speech about election fraud they were going to give before, as if the riot never happened. The prospect of unity lasted only a few minutes.
That was when I knew the events of the day wouldn’t create the unifying moment we needed. The shock of Jan 6 was not enough to shatter the Big Lie. Many ask me if my colleagues who spout the Big Lie somehow believe what they say. At that moment I knew for certain they did. They believed every single word.
I couldn’t watch, and headed for the doors in disgust. While the riot damaged our Capitol, I felt that the scene I just witnessed would ultimately do more harm. The lasting damage of January 6 was not the roaring riot, but the selfish silence and purposeful amnesia afterwards.
I walked out the center doors of the House chamber, the same doors that Presidents walk through to give the State of the Union. Just hours earlier, they’d been smashed and barricaded. Security officers had drawn their guns. Again, guns were drawn on the House floor.
As I walked the halls away from the chamber I kept thinking, maybe our nation lost its ability to be shocked. After a pandemic and now January 6, could something actually shock us to the point where we rediscover our shared identity and common good, like our nation has in the past?
Then I reached the Rotunda. To see that room – the most beautiful room in the most beautiful building in America – desecrated and strewn with trash, broke my heart. I got on my knees and started to pick up.
As I cleaned up the debris, I wandered down a side hall and saw a Beneath this tablet the cornerstone…was laid by George Washington.” I stood there holding a bag of torn flags and broken glass, reminded that this building is bigger than all of us. I realized at that moment that I am but a mere caretaker of this building.
This realization of being a caretaker fundamentally changed the way I see my job. Changed how I see the responsibility of being a citizen. Our democracy was handed to us, and on our watch we must do our best to preserve it and then pass it off to those that follow.
I've been fixated on a singular question: how do we heal this country?
I spent a year searching for the answer, and came to see that it was right above me painted at the center of the ceiling of the Capitol dome. To heal is “E Pluribus Unum.”
E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. Phrase expresses our nation’s goal but doesn’t tell us how. What makes the “many” become “one?” Unity doesn’t just happen on its own. We have to put in the work.
Here’s what I know: It's not too late to unite this country. I was wrong to think unity needed a shock to the system to catalyze. We don’t need a shock. We need service.
Our job now is to be caretakers. Our job is to heal this country and hand it off to our successors. That’s why I’m running for Senate.
Will you join me in the fight to restore unity, integrity, and a commitment to service to Washington by splitting a donation to my campaign and No Dem Left Behind today?
