In the US right now, folks of a certain age have witnessed two major real-time events which shifted national action and discourse — the first was Sept.11, 2001, and the Twin Towers. The second just last month, the Jan. 6 insurrection/riot at the DC Capitol building.
The last one maybe hit closer to home, perhaps because it was home grown. Those storming the Capitol weren’t foreign peoples plowing hijacked airplanes into skyscapers, but Americans crashing through doors, windows, trashing offices and bent on killing other Americans, even beating a Capitol pollice officer to death with a fire extinguisher.
My youngest daughter called from Minnesota in the midst of the surreal melee: “Are you seeing this on TV?” she asked, sounding in shock.
“Duh!” I answered in a rather loud voice.

Although the death count was fortunately way below 9/11 — six related deaths and a shitload of injuries (some super-serious) to Capitol police and at least one COVID-19 infection — the insurrection/riot dodged a bullet on deaths as details of the incident came to light for days, revealing it could have been way-worse. Live TV didn’t catch the real horror.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, two days after the rampage: ‘“Much of what we saw — silly costumes, people taking selfies, grabbing the speaker’s lectern — looked like of kind a group that might even attend a Trump boat parade. But there was something way, way darker, more violent, more sinister, and more organized happening in that Capitol on Wednesday. And it’s time we see it clearly.”‘

Distinctly now the trauma and terror inflicted not only upon Representatives and Senators (even the Vice President of the US), but also all those essential workers, the Congressional staffers, were also pushed/shoved into great-harms way. A horrible event perpetrated by Americans literally spreading shit across the nation’s Capitol, all in the cause of the Big Lie proclaimed/incited by the T-Rump:

Hundreds of congressional staffers wrote an open letter to senators urging them to consider the trauma aides experienced during the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol and to convict former President Trump "for our sake, and the sake of the country." https://t.co/ImXXE0SGeC

— CNN (@CNN) February 3, 2021

The letter was signed by staffers from more than 100 House offices and 15 Senate offices.
Details from CNN this morning:

“We are staff who work for members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, where it is our honor and privilege to serve our country and our fellow Americans.
We write this letter to share our own views and experiences, not the views of our employers.
But on January 6, 2021, our workplace was attacked by a violent mob trying to stop the electoral college vote count.
That mob was incited by former president Donald J. Trump and his political allies, some of whom we pass every day in the hallways at work,” more than 370 staffers, who are predominantly Democrats, wrote in the letter released Wednesday.
…
“As Congressional employees, we don’t have a vote on whether to convict Donald J. Trump for his role in inciting the violent attack at the Capitol, but our Senators do.
And for our sake, and the sake of the country, we ask that they vote to convict the former president and bar him from ever holding office again.”

And a serious side note:

“No one should have to experience something like this in their place of work,” a staffer familiar with the drafting of the letter told CNN last week.
“And I think it’s important to tell this part of the story, because it’s not just members of Congress who come to work at the Capitol every day. And it’s not just staffers who work at the Capitol who were traumatized by what happened. And I think that is a piece of it. The trauma is there; the trauma is very real. And anytime that new pieces of information come out, you know, you’re kind of re-traumatized.”

The letter’s crucial point — per Forbes:

“Our Constitution only works when we believe in it and defend it. It’s a shared commitment to equal justice, the rule of law, and the peaceful resolution of our differences,” the staffers wrote.
“Any person who doesn’t share these beliefs has no place representing the American people, now or in the future.”

Pretty direct, and to the point. These people were scared shitless for a long while — the entire scope was several hours. The New York Times has a good timeline for the day, starting before T-Rump’s rally to the finish. The rioters break into the building just after 2 p.m: Three hours will pass before the sergeant-at-arms declares the building secure.

Time enough to become way-traumatized.

If you’ve read/heard Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s comments living through the insirrection/riot, you know the incident’s not pretty at all. Another daughter watched most of Ocasio-Cortez’s nearly-an-hour long Instagram post, but I’ve just seen clips, it’s too gut-wrenching — I read news stories, though, like this via BuzzFeed yesterday, and Katie Porter’s recall:

Ocasio-Cortez later described how after arriving at the other building and looking for another place to hide, she spotted Rep. Katie Porter and barricaded in her office with her staff for the remainder of the lockdown.

Speaking to MSNBC Monday night, Porter recounted how her colleague frantically looked for a place to hide inside the office.

“I was saying, ‘Well, don’t worry. I’m a mom. I’m calm. I’ve got everything here we need. We could live here for like a month in this office.’ And she (Ocasio-Cortez) said, ‘I just hope I get to be a mom. I hope I don’t die today,'” Porter said.

And this bit per People magazine:

“I am at a full 10 — fight or flight, thought I was going to die 10 minutes ago,” Ocasio-Cortez said, adding that she was flinging open doors in Porter’s office while the California representative was trying to catch up on the events that were still unfolding.
…
According to Porter, Ocasio-Cortez lamented her choice in footwear, not expecting such an assault: “I knew I shouldn’t have worn heels. How am I going to run?”

Eventually, they found Ocasio-Cortez a pair of sneakers to borrow in case “she needed to literally run for her life,” Porter said.

Horrifying, and the T-Rump carries the blame through his refreshed, updated version of the Big Lie:

From the ‘Big Lie‘ link: ‘Trump’s argument has been dismissed in more than 60 court cases, so there is plenty of evidence to conclude that it is false. But he is doubling down on what scholars of authoritarianism call a “big lie:” that he was the true winner of the 2020 election, and that the Democrats stole it.‘

(Illustration: Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Old Man in Sorrow (On the Threshold of Eternity)‘ found here).