The assault on the Capitol as seen by six Americans one year after the event

The assault on Capitol of January 6, 2021 is one of the events of recent history in U.S that, along with the attacks of 9/11, Americans will not forget and possibly will not forget until there is a generational changeover.

In his retinas it was recorded how a mob of hundreds of followers of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) stormed the headquarters of Congress when a joint session of both houses was held to ratify the victory of Democrat Joe Biden in the presidential elections of the previous November .

This is how six voters from the United States remember that day, three Democrats and three Republicans.

Chastity Bowick, Boston (Massachusetts)

Democratic voter. Executive Director of the Massachusetts Transgender Emergency Fund.

Bowick was taking a break at home for lunch when she watched in awe on television as hundreds of protesters stormed the Capitol.

“Seeing how this assault on property in the United States was happening gave me less hope about the advances of the transgender movement in the United States,” lamented this activist.

In his opinion, allowing something like this to happen leaves discriminated groups in a vulnerable situation. “If this has been allowed to happen to US property without remorse, we can only imagine what will continue to happen to people like me and my community,” he said.

Alice Parkin, Ashburn (Virginia)

Republican voter, homemaker, and mother of five. It is part of the Mormon Church.

Parkin, 57, was listening to the radio in her huge brick house in Loudoun County (Virginia) when a mob stormed the Capitol, a “sacred” place for democracy and that has a very special meaning for her, since that there in 1989 she met her husband while the two were working for some congressmen.

“I began to hear (on the radio) that there was a crowd, that there was rioting and I turned on the television. I could’nt believe it. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, the destruction, what was happening with that crowd, with the broken glass, the broken doors and the Capitol, they were storming him, breaking in by force. This is a building that I love ”, he said.

Parkin, a longtime Republican, voted for Biden in 2020 because she believed Trump was contributing to sectarianism and polarization. She wanted her vote to help heal and unite America, but the assault on the Capitol shook her on a personal level.

“It was disgusting, it was heartbreaking and it was horrible to imagine what was happening there,” he admitted.

Rosa Vergil García, Denver (Colorado)

Democratic voter. Co-founder of the organization “Una Mano Una Esperanza”, which helps Latina immigrants who are victims of domestic violence and other crimes.

“In January of this year we saw what happened in Washington DC. And I think it is something that should not happen again, “said Vergil García, 60.

This activist believes that a better preparation on the part of Latinos to understand politics in the United States and a greater participation of them would help reduce the possibility of new disturbances in the Capitol.

That is why he started, in collaboration with other charities, a state-wide project for civic training of Latino leaders, with which he will coordinate training courses in social justice and diversity.

Ray Baca, El Paso (Texas)

Republican voter. Retired, he used to work for a property management company.

Baca, 70, does not see the eruption of hundreds of pro-Trump protesters on Capitol Hill as an assault, but as a protest of dozens that has gotten out of control.

“On January 6 I was not in the capital, I was here in El Paso and what began simply as a demonstration of support for the president got out of hand,” he recalled.

That day, Baca found out in the afternoon what had happened when he watched the news.

“I did not realize until late afternoon, when it began to appear on the news, that several people, after hearing the president speak, had marched to the capital to express their reservations about the election,” said Baca, referring to the Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of fraud in the November presidential election.

For Baca, it is “an exaggeration” to describe these events as a “revolution” or an attempt to “overthrow the Government”, since the assault was carried out, in his point of view, by a few, “half a dozen, perhaps a dozen of people who did not know the limit of what is their own and what is not their own ”.

Maria Aspiazu, Orange (California)

Democratic voter. She is Ecuadorian and lives with her husband and children in Orange.

This 52-year-old woman was driving when she found out what was happening on the radio.

“I couldn’t believe they had stormed the Capitol because the United States had always represented more stability,” Aspiazu said from his living room.

She compares that moment with other signs of political insecurity experienced in Latin America in recent decades. In this case, he says, it was a demonstration “that got out of hand” by the organizers to such an extent that several people died.

Floyd R. Pellham, Tucson (Arizona)

Republican voter. Vietnam War veteran.

Pellham, 73, was in his shop on January 6, 2021, when he heard the news on the radio.

For this veteran, “it was no surprise”, since, in his opinion, the progressive press had previously led an intense campaign against Trump inciting this type of violence.

And, according to Pellham, the assault on the Capitol was “orchestrated” by the Democratic Party, despite the images of that day with protesters violently entering the headquarters of Congress with flags bearing Trump’s name.

“What happened on January 6 was that the diabolical Democratic Party orchestrated all these acts to blame President Trump, a conspiracy against him, because they were afraid that he would continue to uncover all the tricks that Democrats have done for years, corruption that is within the Government, ”said Pellham.

This conservative voter believes that Trump had invited his followers to demonstrate “peacefully”, which, in his opinion, was taken advantage of by those who were against him. “

“President Trump is not a perfect man, there is no one perfect, but at least he has the courage to do what is best for the United States,” emphasized Pellham, who affirms that he will vote without hesitation for the former president if he runs again. the Presidency in 2024.