Never forget. Remember. In all the darkness, there were and will continue to be bright lights standing up for truth.

And then we saw that Trump sat watching events unfold on TV, only to issue a half hearted call to stand down when he could see that his scheme wasn't going to work. We witnessed the chaos and violence of traitors attacking our Capital. We saw. We heard. We will not forget.

January 6 is a day of national trauma. Many of us feel it deeply and carry scars. We witnessed the preceding weeks of lies, denials, and vague threats, and then watched when Trump incited a mob to storm the Capital to try to stop Congress from certifying the election and kill his own VP.

But it leads to unfreedom and we must resist. First and foremost, we will resist by remembering.

We need to recover fidelity to reality if we are to stop our spiral into madness. With help of the most powerful propaganda tools in history (courtesy of silicon valley robber barons), Trump will be asserting his own "truth", a "truth" that is useful for his ambitions for expanding his power.

But we must remember that Trump voters too are victims. They have been deceived. They are not the monster themselves, even if they have enabled him.

It's hard not to be angry at the hapless fools who voted for Trump after he had shown his true colors time and again. One only needed to listen to his words to see his unrestrained ambition and contempt, expressed most clearly in his love of violence and demonization of marginalized people.

Ever the narcissist, Trump called January 6 "a day of love". His fans attacked Congress on his behalf and he must have relished such devotion expressed through violence. The needless death, destruction, and weakening of our rule of law were all "loving" in his mind.

Much like the million plus American deaths caused by Covid, and the massive harm caused by millions of cases of long Covid, were made all the more tragic by the spite of anti-maskers, Covid-deniers, anti-vaxxers and suchlike, so does this mournful anniversary feel especially painful.

In a few weeks, we can expect full pardons of all the traitors and a federal effort to rewrite history so as to cover over the largest disenfranchisement attempt in our checkered history.