To the editor: Reporter Sarah D. Wire's first-person account of the riot at the US Capitol made me relive the terror, disbelief and disgust that many Americans experienced on January 6, 2021.
I say “many” because, as impossible as it may seem, a large number of citizens of this country do not believe that what occurred was an actual coup attack against the seat of our nation's democracy.
Meanwhile, a few pages away, in a photograph that appears in the newspaper of the same day, there he sits, the one in charge, as if he were a normal politician and a candidate for the presidency.
It is beyond comprehension that people can continue to ignore or question the events of January 6, much less support an insurrectionist for office.
Maddie Gavel-Briggs, Pasadena
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To the editor: The Capitol riots took place three years ago, but I remember that fateful day like it was yesterday. That's because in 1972 I had the honor of serving as a congressional staff aide in the same building that the Capitol Police were bravely trying to protect.
Yes, he regularly walked the halls of Congress; And no, the January 6 rioters weren't just tourists, as one Republican lawmaker infamously described them.
I am very grateful that the rioters failed in their effort to prevent the counting of the electoral college votes. If they had succeeded, who knows what our democracy would be like today?
Denny Freidenrich, Laguna Beach
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To the editor: I have often wondered how the representatives who were almost attacked at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 could become deniers and supporters of the former president.
Wire's retelling of events showed me a psychological trajectory. Being physically there could not have been more terrifying, as the assault was the complete opposite of the tradition, order and rules that define the place.
Faced with such an attack, the members became Hamlet, for whom “conscience makes cowards of us all.” Was this terror, facing one's own cowardice?
One response to such trauma is denial. What better way to enact that denial than to join the one who incited the violence?
Lynne Culp, Van Nuys
