Madeleine May Kunin is a former Democratic governor of Vermont. She is the author of “Coming of Age, My Journey to the Eighties.”
The violent assault on the Capitol of the United States was physically painful to watch. That building, where democracy rests, may not be a holy place for a country founded on separation of church and state, but it is a building that inspires awe.
Whenever I had the chance to testify before members of Congress, I felt I was in a special place. After I went through security and walked down one of the marble hallways, the air was different. The clip of footsteps on marble sounded official.
I felt a thrill, that this high-ceilinged Capitol was, in fact, the people’s house and my house, too. This is where history is embedded, and where history is being made.
I felt wounded when television showed me a couple of men, using great force, smashed the windows of a door that appeared to lead to the Senate chamber. When the camera turned to the inside of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to focus on the body of an occupier, sprawled out in her chair with his feet on her desk, it almost felt like rape.
Of course, the damage to our Capitol is far greater than bricks and glass. The very idea that a group of terrorist Americans can physically attack our government institutions is abhorrent.
But for the first time in my life, I felt fear — fear that the center would not hold. I have long been afraid that the president would one day change his fighting words into action. I was afraid that he was beyond normal by being obsessed with his own version of the truth — that he won “by a landslide” and that the election was “stolen.”
The pot has boiled over. He incited his followers to march to the Capitol and did nothing to stop them, when protest turned into insurrection.
The United States Capitol will be repaired, even in time for the inauguration. As I gain perspective from the events of Jan. 6, I try to put this revolutionary day in context. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as president and vice president at noon on Jan. 20. Sen. Chuck Schumer will be the Senate Democratic majority leader, which will allow for a new agenda. The American people are resilient.
The fact that the Senate and the House returned to complete their task — to certify the electoral ballots for president and vice president — has proven how invincible our government is. But we have also learned how fragile our democracy is. We, the citizens, must continue to defend it, for it to survive.
