After The Attack Jan. 6: A Terrifying Day For Congress Members & Dealing With The Trauma

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- 'After the Attack. Jan. 6 was a terrifying day for members of Congress. Weeks later, they are dealing with the trauma.' By Christina Cauterucci, Slate, Feb. 1, 2021.

On the morning of the Capitol insurrection, Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Florida, was watching the debate over the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory from the balcony of the House chamber when she began to feel uneasy. It was too crowded up there for her liking, and she was worried about COVID-19, so she left to wait for the vote elsewhere. As Frankel was exiting the balcony, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Virginia, who is a former CIA officer, stopped her. Spanberger recommended that Frankel remove the pin that identifies her as a member of Congress, lest any malicious Trump supporters, who were then gathering outside the Capitol, identify her as a target. Frankel complied, though she thought it seemed excessive.

“I had no warning of any danger. I was clueless,” Frankel told me. “I don’t go on social media. I had not been watching television that day. I don’t even know if I knew that the president was having a rally.”

Frankel had to take care of some business elsewhere in the Capitol, where she assured a Capitol Police officer that she was a congresswoman and authorized to be there, but had been advised to remove her pin. “And she said to me, ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry, we’re going to keep you safe,’ ” Frankel said. “Famous last words.” Frankel would spend five hours that day barricaded in a room alone with Rep. Grace Meng, D–New York, while mobs of rioters searched the building for legislators. When the lockdown alert came, the two women were in an empty lounge together.

They shoved furniture against the door and waited. From inside the room, they heard chanting, yelling, and stomping as the rioters streamed right past the lounge.

They texted their family members and staff. Frankel gave a live interview to a West Palm Beach, Florida, NBC affiliate, her voice lowered to just above a whisper. Her son, who’d served in the Marines, called her to check in and tried to explain the best way to block a door. She sent him a picture of what they’d done, and he approved. But Meng was still worried that the mob would try to break the door down. Frankel told me she’d planned to pretend they were both “secretaries” if the rioters broke in. “But what actually scared me more was what would come after, when they opened the door and realized that I was a minority, a woman of color,” Meng said.

“I was scared what they would do to me if they [saw] what I look like.”

Eventually, the legislators got a text from staff members that the Capitol Police force was overwhelmed and wouldn’t be coming to save them. In that moment, Meng feared for her life. “Thank God we were fine afterward,” Frankel told me. “Physically fine—mentally, I don’t know,” she said with a laugh. Much has been reported on the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. There are law enforcement investigations of militia groups, other investigations into the failure of the police response, and new reporting on the riot every day. But while all of these developments play out, the congresspeople I spoke to are still trying to process what happened, deal with lingering feelings of anger and fear, and help one another grapple with what was not just a giant news story but a very personal traumatic event.

For days after the ordeal, Frankel continued her work while battling extreme exhaustion, as her body & mind recovered from the stress of being trapped in a room with violent agitators outside. When we talked 8 days after the attack, Frankel said it was the first day since the riot she hadn’t felt “totally wiped out.”...

Read More, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/capitol-riot-january-6-trauma-terror-attack.html



- Rep. Grace Meng barricaded in a lounge at the Capitol on Jan. 6. She has noticed that she now feels “nervous” when she hears people she can’t see making loud noises outside the room she’s in. Ming has also gotten calls from fellow members of Congress & their staffers, some of whom she barely knows, to check in on her after hearing what she’d gone through. “And I said, ‘I’m fine, I’m good now,’ ” “And then they would just break down & cry, or they would just say to me, ‘I’m not OK.’ And some of these are grown men.”



- Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester, Pramila Jayapal, & Abigail Spanberger evacuate the gallery as rioters breach the Capitol.

[SWBTATTReg]

1. trump and his stupid supporters that aided and abetted this effort to overrun Congress in

performing their duty in certifying electoral votes from the states should never ever be allowed in government or allowed to vote, or allowed to run for an office, anything...if this is the way they handle losing an election...no rest, no peace until each and every one of these thugs are caught, trialed, and if convicted, pay the price.

[regnaD kciN]

2. Unfortunately, it didn't terrify ENOUGH of them...

...specifically, the Republicans who made up over a third of Congress and who, hours later, still voted to participate in Trump’s coup – and the even larger number of them who now want to flush the whole thing down the memory hole and not hold him accountable for his actions.

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3. Isn't that the truth, but the threat of loss of money & power

would work

[MustLoveBeagles]

4. K&R