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My friend Ray and I were there on Wednesday, 06 January 2021 AD, both on Constitution Avenue in front of the Washington Monument and on the Capitol steps.
My rally buddy is a friend of the family and also a former P-3 pilot. Without going into details, let’s just say has done some “interesting” things since retiring from the Navy. Ray, who is local to the DC area, met me at the Hilton Garden Inn, near Foggy Bottom early in the morning. We had each prepared backpacks with water, munchies, first aid kits, extra phone chargers, ponchos, and such. The first event of the day was to be on the Ellipse, south of the White House, where a series of speakers was to address the crowd, culminating with President Trump. However, while in the lobby, we overheard a woman, speaking rather loudly on her phone, state, “No backpacks inside the Ellipse.” We looked at each other and I muttered, “Ass pains!” We decided to ditch the backpacks in my room and only take a few bottles of water and minimal munchies each.
As we stepped outside, I noted that the weather gods had given us a cold, damp day of about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, overcast skies, and a biting wind of 7 to 12 knots.
We took an Uber to the Mall area, the only time I acquiesced to wear a mask the entire trip by the way, and finally arrived at the rally area about 09:20. The Ellipse area did indeed have fenced off seating, no doubt where the backpack restricted area was, but it was already full. We finally made our way to the oblique right side of a Jumbotron, which was on the south curb of Constitution Avenue just west of 15th St NW, between the Washington Monument and the White House, where we could at least hear, and somewhat see the speakers.
As the hour worn, our spot, and the entire area around the Washington Monument, became increasingly packed. We were held together as sardines in a can, the wind taking a far less bite with her fangs with others shielding her furry. To be honest, while I don’t relish such crowded conditions, after nine months of no live events, no concerts, no restaurants, etc., it was nice to be together with a mass of other humans.
Oh and by the way,… 95% of folks were without face diapers! Hallelujah!!
Folks were cordial, engaged, hopeful, yet angry about what had occurred in the election. The lady of the couple directly behind us, who were from Newberg, NC, was a self-confessed, “recovering lawyer.” She, like myself, had volunteered for the Trump campaign in 2016, as well as worked on her local board of elections this past election. Between the four of us, we shared thoughts of dismay at the recent process in other states, what the DNC has done and become, Lord Roy Cooper’s constitutional overreach, and the abysmal disappointment in both of North Carolina’s senators. We also talk about our kids and shared photos of our hounds.
Trump was supposed to speak at 11:00, but didn’t begin until ~11:50 by my recollection. Most, myself included, were waiting for some big revel, something that would show some action, anything - arrests had been made of election officials for fraud, the Durham report is complete, declassifying damn near everything, Hillary was finally arrested - anything to show action rather than just rhetoric. That was not to be the case. It felt much as the other Trump rallies I’ve been to, although he did lay out point by point much of the data on the fraud from the six or seven states in question, which, honestly, was nothing new to those of us who had been paying attention.
About 12:40 or so, the couple behind us left to head up to the Capitol, even though the president was still speaking. We left shortly after, about 12:50, as the next event was the convening of the joint session of Congress at 13:00.
It felt good to be out of the sardine pack and to walk after standing in place for nearly three hours, and it was as if we were in a parade walking up Constitution Avenue. So many USA flags, so many Thin Blue Line flags, so many Trump flags, so many Don’t Tread on Me flags, so many MAGA hats, so much pride for the country! Yet at the same time there was the undercurrent of anger about the elections.
My understanding of the point in going to the Capitol was to assemble a mass of citizens so that the legislators would be inclined to think twice about certifying unconstitutionally derived, fraudulent, electoral votes for Joe Biden. Although never stated by Trump or either web site organizing the event, I had hoped that some folks might be allowed into the Capitol to the public area to read the legislatures the Riot Act, so to speak. And yes, I wanted to get in and bitch out the traitorous politicians. One’s voice can’t heard from out on the lawn, even with a megaphone. Just sayin’.
As we approached Capitol Hill, the crowd had already made its way up to the bleachers on the west side of the building that faced the Mall. We decided to get as far up as we could and made our way to the top. In fact, we were able to get all the way to the piazza at the base of the Capitol. By the time we got up there, the piazza was already full of protestors.
Once up on the piazza, helped over the wall by folks standing on it, we were about 20 yards from a fence line that the police had set up. There was lots of heated rhetoric, mostly demanding that the police stand down so that we could get inside and voice our opinion. The crowd, considering all things, was extremely restrained. I only saw one water bottle thrown at the police, which I thought was not cool. Otherwise, the crowd was just pressing to get in. To the left of us, the crowd pushed back on the police, through the north set of bleachers, and finally did start to work their way up towards to the actual building structure.
Understand, We, “The People,” did, and do pay, for the Capitol Building and the lifelong salaries of the legislators with OUR tax dollars! For a Citizen, or even a hoard of Citizens, to enter the Capitol Building is NOT a crime! Some might argue that it can be charged as trespassing. However, I would push back hard on that. As long as no damage is done, which would be vandalism, how can entering publicly owned property to address those who work for you be trespassing?
Among other things, the First Amendment guarantees the right “... to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The best expression of the angst most of us feel is this, from an article yesterday in American Liberty Report:
What did these idiots think was going to happen after the past four years? They normalized political (sic) against the right. They shut down our businesses with their COVID fun and games in order to steal an election through mass mail-in ballots. They cheated so blatantly in the 2020 election that it was obvious to any child (but not a United States Senator).
In response to the cheating, they gave us no option to petition the government for a redress of our grievances. The courts – all the way up to the Supreme Court – told our side that had (sic) “no standing” to complain about the obvious election fraud. The state legislatures and the Congress which are supposed to represent us did not in fact represent us. Our voice in the political process was stolen. And they thought that we would take it lying down?
Ray and I knew that there were likely Antifa/BLM folks among the protestors. However, my thinking was that they would start a fight with the MAGA/Trump folks. We didn’t learn of the Antifa staged break-in, nor the shooting inside of Ashli Babbitt, until after long after we were headed back to the Hilton Garden. I guess I must learn to think more devious, like the Left. Know thy enemy. I’ll leave further commentary on what transpired for another post, time permitting.
But back to the Capitol piazza. Even as we were making our way up the hill from the lawn, we could see and hear explosions. As we got closer, we realized that these were from tear gas grenades. Yet we pressed on. Once over the wall we were certainly vulnerable and the police we throwing them out every few minutes, which was way not cool, and why we all were yelling at them to stand down. The MAGA/Trump folks presented little, if any, threat to the police, the Capitol itself, let alone to the legislators. We JUST wanted to be HEARD.
We finally took a hit of tear gas. I turned in time, but still got a good dose in my left eye, as well as a bit in my right eye, and immediately started flushing with water that was remaining in my last bottle. Ray took the tear gas straight on and his eyes were out of commission for a good 10-15 minutes. I grabbed his arm and we made a tactical retreat to the wall. On the way, someone, who was more prepared than we, gave us each a shot of milk in the eye. Another offered Ray saline, which I declined as I was able to open my right eye at that point, and continued to work our way back to the wall.
We held there for a bit. At one point a woman standing to the left behind me on the wall, knelt. I turned to ask what she was doing. “Praying for the country,” was her reply. I reached up my left hand, held her right, and joined her in prayer.
About 14:30, we climbed back over the wall and headed down the hill. As we progressed down, the crowd thinned, at which point we were finally able to reestablish communications with friends and family via text and data messages. It is then we learn that folks had made their way inside the Capitol Building, but we still didn’t know the full story at that point. We stopped about halfway down to turn our gaze back to the Capitol and observe the progress. At 14:45, I was finally able to get a short call out to my girlfriend and let her know we were OK. During the call, the emergency alert about the curfew the DC mayor imposed came in.
As we made our way off the Capitol Lawn, along with thousands of others, and toward the metro, we looked back to see hundreds of folks on the north west balcony of the building. I commented to Ray, “I really hope that the politicians took notice, I really do.” “Agreed,” he replied.
The mayor’s curfew was not the impetus for our retreat. We were getting tired, cold, and our eyes still stung, especially Ray’s. When we vacated the piazza, we had already made the decision to fall back. In doing so, we could live another day to persevere in the fight to preserve freedom, liberty, and The Constitution of the United States, which we had both taken oaths to support and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; for indeed, she is gravely threatened by both of late.
Endnote & Postscript
This was my tenth and final article on LinkedIn, which I've republished here on February 02, 2021. Because I wanted to push out my article on Neil Peart the morning of the 7th, and I had to drive six hours back to North Carolina in the afternoon, I did not get around to publishing this until the morning of Saturday, January 9, 2021. Later that afternoon, my account was permanently restricted, although not for this post as I mention on in the Welcome section.
The link to the American Liberty Report article appears to be dead now, but I've included it in the event that the publishers there see fit to reconnect it.
In the intervening weeks, we've learned much about what actually transpired inside the Capitol building that afternoon and who was actually responsible. If the reader is unfamiliar, please dig, for it is NOT what the mainstream media would have one believe.
Namaste,
Mark Stansell
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