One year ago today, America experienced an event like no other. America’s own citizens attacked and forced their way into the United States capital building, protesting the results of a presidential election. Nothing like this has ever happened before and people fear that this horrible day could lead to similar incidents happening in the future.

Gusty winds blew through the air on that Wednesday morning. The United States Congress was ready to count electoral votes to swear in the next president. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump gave a speech outside the White House. Here, he rallied his supporters that this election was stolen from him.

“We will never give up. We will never concede,” said Trump on that fateful day.

The impact of this alone is enough to get the public scared of future incidents. If Republicans like Donald Trump were this extreme, should we even let them in office? This question was brought up many times in conferences and meetings over the course of the following year and has made the public fear future presidential elections.

Towards the middle of the day on Jan. 6, 2021, the protestors became violent. They surpassed police and made their way into the capital building. Rioters broke windows and searched their way through the offices of many congressmen, including that of Nancy Pelosi, the current speaker of the House of Representatives. 

It was discovered that many of these rioters had very ill intentions. Some of the more radical ones could have had intentions to hurt Pelosi, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence. Pence was completely against Trump’s idea of a fraudulent election, making him a target of protestors.

“My oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” said Pence.

Eventually, the protestors fled the building the Congress was able to go back into session. Joe Biden has then sworn in as president shortly after. Taking a step back to view the whole event, it is clear that this was intentional. If the Republican party is that desperate to keep their positions in government, who could say this type of situation wouldn’t happen again? Could it also happen after the 2024 presidential election? These questions and many more are what people are asking these days, but it seems only time and hope will provide answers.

“The implications of January 6 are reverberating through the polity: two-thirds see the events as a harbinger of increasing political violence, not an isolated incident. That leads to larger misgivings. When people see it as a sign of increasing violence, they’re more likely to think violence is a reason democracy is threatened,” said Anthony Salvanto, executive director of CBS news.