This Thursday, Jan. 6, citizens will gather in Boulder’s Veterans Park at 12:30 p.m. to observe 15 minutes of silence on the anniversary of the attack on the United States Capitol a year ago.
Will you be there?
On Jan. 6, 2021, a rally in support of then President Donald Trump spawned a throng that overran the Capitol as Congress was certifying the election of President-elect Joseph Biden. The building was locked down, and members of Congress and many of their staff were evacuated. In the course of the assault, four rioters died.
How you feel about that affair, a year later, may depend—as does so much these days—on which patch of political turf you inhabit. Many on the left and in the center, myself among those, view the episode as a tragic assault on values and principles at the bedrock of our nation. As I wrote a year ago on this page, “for the first time in our history, America has failed to realize a peaceful transition of power. That failure is egregious and inexcusable.”
The view from the right is more nuanced. According to an ABC/Ipsos poll last month, 52% of Republicans believe those involved in the attack were defending democracy; 45% said the assault threatened democracy. Half of Republicans surveyed last June by Monmouth University called the events of that day a “legitimate protest” of the 2020 election—which most Republicans, according to numerous polls, believe produced an illegitimate result.
It will be tempting to view Thursday’s vigil as a referendum on the original act: If you were appalled a year ago, you’ll likely join in; if you agree with former President Trump that the attack was a “complete unarmed protest of the rigged election” and that “the insurrection took place on November 3,” you’ll probably sit out the anniversary.
But there’s another option: Suspend politics for a moment, and come together as a community to find common ground.
Jan Anderson, my predecessor as owner of The Monitor, came up with the idea for the observance in Boulder. “I do believe January 6 was a sad day for our country,” she told me. “Not just for one group, but for everyone.”
Anderson sees the events of a year ago—and, indeed, much of the polarization that has riven the U.S.—as a communications problem at heart. The election result may have been a trigger, but many on the right were troubled by many things—what they have seen as government overreach, the weakening of individual liberties, and the loss of control over their future. Those grievances weren’t well communicated or well heard. And Anderson says, “I don’t think they’re any better understood today, or that people are listening any better today than they were before.
“This is a great community, and as a whole we have done a pretty good job over the years of listening to each other. But I think we have to make a concerted effort to talk to each other to make sure we keep the community we want. If every community would just stop a minute and listen, and think a minute before speaking out, we’d be better off—in Jefferson County, in Montana, in the nation.”
And that’s really what Thursday’s vigil is about. It’s not meant to be political. There will be no speeches. Anderson and her co-organizers just want to bring people together to reflect—on the events of the past, yes, but also on their shared future. How can peace and civility emerge in our community, and in our nation? How can the divides in our society be bridged? What are our roles as individuals in making that happen?
That’s the sort of conversation that many people can get behind. Dan Johnson, a political conservative who lives in Montana City—and who opposed the Jan. 6 uprising, among other acts of political violence—thinks the national media tends to polarize Americans, labeling us in black-versus-white ways that isolate us from each other. Better, he says, to “turn off your TV and talk to your neighbor. No matter who they are, you usually can come up with a way to figure things out.”
Which isn’t to say that a moment of silence in Veterans Park will transform us. “I don’t know how to fix all the really big problems,” Anderson says, “other than to convince people to try. Maybe nothing will come of the vigil, but I know that it’s worth 15 minutes of my time, of everyone’s time, to think about how we can work together to accomplish things.”
So, let’s gather in Boulder on Thursday. For just 15 minutes—and then see where that takes us. The risk is low; the risk of not joining, much greater. The real damage to democracy is done when we don’t listen to each other, and when we don’t even try to imagine a better world.
