Historian Michael Beschloss Calls for Memorializing Date of Capitol Insurrection in Same Manner as 9/11: ‘Day We Almost Lost Our Democracy’

Reed RichardsonFeb 2nd, 2021, 11:43 pm
 

NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss called for the country to treat the Capitol insurrection as the same kind of momentous historical event as the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Beschloss offered his historical take to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Tuesday night, as she offered live coverage of fellow law enforcement officers paying their respects to the remains of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, whose remains were lying in honor in the Rotunda. Sicknick was killed in the line of duty just a few hundred feet away from Rotunda on January 6th, during the violent, pro-Trump assault on Congress to block the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

“This is something we have never seen before, and god willing, we will never, ever see again,” he said “This was a President of the United States inciting an insurrection, a terrorist attack on Congress, a terrorist attack on the Capitol. It could have led to assassinations and or hostage taking, interruption of the certification of a presidential election. Conceivably, this could have taken away our democracy, and this is one reason why I think we have to observe the 6th of January every single year as a time that we had a very close call to remind us that we have to be eternally vigilant because democracy is fragile.”

“We observe 9/11,” Beschloss said, before pointing out that the fourth, hijacked plane could’ve targeted the Capitol and Congress. “Here is a terrorist attack that did happen. There has to be a commission, an investigation, a punishment of those who are guilty, and make sure that we fix our system so that the 6th of January will never be seen again in this country.”

Maddow then noted that the memorial to fallen Officer Sicknick marked the first, shared moment of grief since the Capitol insurrection.

“It feels like we haven’t had a moment to mark this trauma that you’re describing and that you say we should be marking every year,” she noted. “and also in terms of having us as a country remember and take stock and appreciate the gravity of what happened.”

Beschloss agreed.

“We have gone through four years of emotional and psychological abuse of the United States, which culminated on the 6th of January, which even then it did not end,” he said. “We have to mark that and take it very seriously. I understand why they made an effort quickly to clean up the House and Senate chambers and continue the certification of the election. But one downside of that is it almost normalized it, as if was an episode that lasted a few hours and that could be cleaned up. This is something that 50 years from now Americans will look back on as a day we almost lost our democracy.”

Minutes later, Beschloss provided a stinging coda to his remarks, aiming it squarely at the Insurrectionist-in-Chief. As President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden paid their respects to Officer Sicknick, the historian wondered aloud on Twitter how Donald Trump might be honoring the slain officer.

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

 

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