On January 6, 2021, it will be recalled as a day of bloodshed and violence. In an assault on the United States’ seat of power that resulted in the death of a police officer, Trump supporters launched an attack on the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. despite the fact that certain Congressional leaders were closer to the violence than others, all parties involved were shaken and terrified by the assault on America’s capital city.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the up-and-coming congresswoman, said the Capitol riots left her traumatized and in need of emotional assistance. She has since sought therapy to assist her cope with the trauma of witnessing the attacks, which resulted in several fatalities including that of a police officer.
In a conversation with Latino USA, Ocasio-Cortez, who is known by her initials AOC, said that she is now learning to “slow down” and appreciate life after she was nearly injured in January when Trump supporters assaulted her. She also referred to the assault as an “all-out attempted coup” backed by the then-president.
“Oh yeah, I’m doing therapy, but also I’ve just slowed down. I think the Trump administration had a lot of us, especially Latino communities, in a very reactive mode,” the congresswoman stated.
Ocasio-Cortez continued, “After the 6th, I took some time, and it was really [Rep.] Ayanna Pressley when I explained to her what happened to me, like the day of, because I ran to her office and she was like, ‘you need to recognize trauma.’ And I feel like I learned this the hard way after my father passed away when I was a teenager… That happened at a young age, and I locked it away. You have to live with it for years.’
As a consequence of the Capitol disturbances being an “extraordinarily traumatizing event,” she and other members of Congress have been permanently altered. She also stated that the riot had damaged congressional ties with other legislators because they could not agree on what occurred during the deadly assault.
The podcast interview between Ocasio-Cortez and journalist Maria Hinojosa aired. AOC said, “It has deeply, deeply affected lawmaking, policy-making, and it’s very quiet, it’s not spoken about.”
Now, the House of Representatives is demanding a 9/11-style inquiry into the “terrorist attack” on January 6, 2021. Republicans from both sides of the aisle supported the investigation because it resulted in the death of a police officer and several others. Also, Mike Pence was nearly kidnapped by insurgents, but he was rescued just before he would have been captured and murdered in the Senate chambers. He was about to be hanged by a mob that had almost captured him.
“Pence was the one person, arguably, that had one of the most important roles in making sure that procedurally the Electoral College counts went on as proceeded. Sixty seconds could have meant potentially the difference between what we have right now and a martial state,” Ocasio-Cortez stated. “This was an all-out attempted coup.”
“If 60 seconds went differently, if a different door was opened, if a chair wasn’t barricaded in a certain way, we could have a completely different reality right now,” she said. “We don’t want to acknowledge that that’s how close we got, but that is how close we got.”
