The insurrection of January 6th remains top of mind, not only because it is the focus of an unprecedented second impeachment trial for a U.S. president, not only because we just saw felled Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick honored in the rotunda desecrated by the rioters who killed him, and not only because news of criminal charges against those rioters keeps breaking.
The deadly insurrection is top of mind also because, weeks later, details of the day continue to emerge. New video clips, with new angles and implications, keep surfacing. And fresh first-person testimonials offer a deeper perspective on how catastrophic that day was and how much worse it could have been.
One of those remarkable testimonials came this week from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC, in the form of a widely-watched Instagram Live feed. For an hour, AOC narrated her experience on January 6th, with both color and emotion. What she described was galling, heartbreaking, and riveting all at the same time.
She revealed that she is a survivor of sexual assault. She explained how and where she hid. She responded to those who have made ludicrous calls to move on in the aftermath of the mayhem:
