What January 6 Taught Me About Courage and Cowardice
Five years ago today, I walked into the Capitol with a knot in my stomach that I still struggle to describe. I had served in that building for years. I knew its rhythms, its quiet corners, the way the marble echoes when the halls are empty. January 6, 2021, shattered all of that. It didn’t just break windows or doors. It broke an illusion many of us had carried—that the foundations of American democracy were so solid they could never really be shaken.
I remember standing there afterward, surrounded by debris and disbelief, thinking: This is not who we are. And yet, it was. Or at least, it was a part of us we had long refused to confront.
On the fifth anniversary of January 6, the memories are still raw. Not because of the violence alone, but because of what it revealed. The anger. The lies. The willingness—by too many in positions of power—to light a match and walk away while others watched the fire spread.
I often think about fear. Not the fear I felt that day, but the fear that drove people there in the first place. Fear of losing status. Fear of demographic change. Fear that was carefully cultivated and weaponized by those who knew better and chose ambition over truth. That fear didn’t come from nowhere, but January 6 exposed how dangerous it becomes when leaders refuse to challenge it.
What stays with me most, though, is not just the mob. It’s the aftermath. The silence. The rationalizations. The quiet deals made in the days and weeks that followed. I watched colleagues—people who knew exactly what had happened—decide that the safer path was to move on, to minimize, to rewrite. I learned then that democracy doesn’t just die from violent attacks. It erodes when cowardice becomes policy.
Leaving Congress forced me to reckon with that reality in a deeply personal way. Public office teaches you many things, but one of the hardest lessons is this: institutions are only as strong as the people willing to defend them when it costs something. January 6 clarified the price of principle. For some, it was too high.
I’ve been asked many times if that day made me cynical. The honest answer is complicated. It stripped away naïveté, certainly. It ended any lingering belief that norms alone will save us. But cynicism implies detachment, and I feel anything but detached. If anything, January 6 bound me more tightly to the idea of this country—not as a myth, but as a responsibility.
I think about the police officers who stood their ground that day. About the staffers who barricaded doors and texted loved ones, unsure if they’d make it home. About my wife, who learned all too personally that being in politics includes the whole family. About the election workers across the country who kept counting votes despite threats. They didn’t have cameras or applause. They simply did their jobs because they believed in something bigger than themselves. That, too, is America.
Five years later, the danger hasn’t vanished. The lies haven’t evaporated. Accountability has been uneven, and the temptation to “just move on” remains strong. History teaches us that forgetting is often more comfortable than learning. But comfort is not the same as peace, and denial is not unity.
What gives me hope—real, grounded hope—is not the absence of threats but the presence of resilience. I see it in young people who refuse to accept that politics must be cruel or corrupt. I see it in Republicans, Democrats, and independents who understand that democracy is not automatic. I see it in veterans who know that loyalty to country is not loyalty to a man, and in citizens who show up, again and again, to vote, to organize, to speak.
January 6 was a moment of national trauma, but trauma does not have to define the future. It can clarify values. It can sharpen resolve. It can remind us that the American experiment has always been fragile—and that its survival has always depended on ordinary people choosing courage over convenience.
Five years on, I still believe in this country. Not because it is perfect, but because it is unfinished. Because each generation is handed a choice: to inherit democracy passively, or to actively defend it. January 6 reminded us what happens when too many abdicate that duty. The years since have reminded me that many more are ready to pick it up.
The work ahead is not glamorous. It won’t always be televised. It requires telling the truth when it’s uncomfortable, rejecting lies even when they flatter us, and remembering that losing an election is not the same as losing a country. Democracy asks something of us—not just every four years, but every day. It asks us to make an alliance with people we normally wouldn’t, because when we are threatened, small political differences become meaningless.
On this anniversary, I don’t feel despair. I feel resolve. The same resolve I felt walking out of the Capitol that night, determined that violence and lies would not have the last word. Five years later, they still haven’t. And as long as we are willing to learn, to stand, and to choose country over self, they never will.
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