Representative Malinowski Reflects on the January 6^th Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol

(Washington, DC) On the one-year anniversary of the January 6^th violent attack on our nation’s Capitol, Representative Malinowski reflects on his personal experience and shares his thoughts on moving our democracy forward. Watch his remarks here or read below.

“Thank you Jason, Madam Speaker, Mr. and Mrs. Sicknick, my colleagues.

As many of you know, I was born in a communist country. I came to America as a child and when I grew up, I spent most of my career before coming to Congress as a human rights advocate and as an American diplomat trying to champion to dictatorships around the world the idea of American democracy.

So I have my own particular perspective on what makes America special and on why so many people around the world to this day dream of becoming American. It’s not just words like democracy and liberty. More than that, it is because of an idea that is embedded in the Constitution of the United States – the idea that everyone in America, no matter how powerful, is supposed to play by the same rules and every American election is an opportunity to show that, to show what it means.

Unlike in many other countries, our winners don’t assume absolute power to do whatever they may want. Our losers understand that their rights are preserved. They accept defeat. We’ve all been there and live to fight another day. So on January 6^th, a year ago, I was desperate to be in the House gallery. I wanted to be there to see the ceremony that would mark the continuation of this sacred tradition. I was optimistic.

At 11:21am, I pulled out my little Twitter machine and I wrote, ‘Today is a celebration of democracy. The people have voted. The only power we have as Representatives and Senators under the Constitution we swore to defend is to count the ballots. And we will.’

Two hours later, we all know what happened. We lived it together. We saw from the gallery the Speaker being evacuated. We heard the hiss of the gas masks. We heard the voice of the Chaplain praying. Some of us tried to lock those doors – we failed. We didn’t see what we saw in the video. We didn’t see the battle outside, so maybe I wasn’t as afraid as I should have been. But here’s what I was thinking.

I was thinking about moments in my life where I had been in dangerous situations outside the United States. There was a time when I found myself being chased in the middle of the night by riot police in a Middle Eastern city – it’s a long story. I thought about a time when I visited Syria and Libya during their civil wars, and I thought how absolutely absurd it was that here I was standing in the inner sanctum of American democracy in Washington, DC, feeling the same rush of adrenaline, the same sense of danger as in those places. How could it be happening here? I was furious.

And all I could say to everybody as we fled and as we came to that place of safety in the House office building was the moment we got the all clear, we had to go back in there and finish the job of certifying the election. And thank goodness we did.

Ever since, those who want us to move on from January 6^th, to try to get away with blaming the rioters alone for the attack, it’s like saying that the hijackers alone were responsible for 9/11.

The real question, is what could have motivated those thousands of otherwise ordinary Americans to commit such a deviant act? Social media created the echo chamber in which the lie spread but the root cause was the lie itself. Today, more Americans believe the election was stolen than a year ago. More Americans believe that violence against their government is justified than a year ago.

On January 6^th, 2021, we thwarted the attack on the Capitol. On January 6^th, 2022, the attack on our democracy continues. And as we defend that democracy, let us remember there is no constitutional police in America. There is no constitutional jail in America. The rules underpinning our system of government and the peace it preserves have always been based only on our consent. We either agree voluntarily to abide by those rules even when we lose an election, or we lose our country.

I do not want to lose the country that my family chose. I do not want to lose the glorious example that America sets, that our democracy sets for the rest of the world. Those are the stakes. We cannot, we will not fail.

Thank you.”