'Well, This Is About to Go Down'

Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Jamie Raskin remember the Capitol attack

My initial reaction was, Well, this is about to go down. I think in some ways, having grown up in Brooklyn during the height of the crack cocaine epidemic—2,000-plus homicides from the mid to late eighties into the early nineties—any of the feelings that I had at that moment on the floor, that something was about to happen that was very serious and potentially deadly reminded me of some of the tough spots that I may have found myself in a long, long time ago growing up as a teenager in New York City. It turned out that the level of violence was something that I think none of us have ever experienced: a full–blown violent mob and riot. — Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

I can see a God of Trauma looking kind of like Janus, the two-faced god, who looks both to the past and to the future at the same time. Trauma, on the one hand, can strip you of everything most precious in your life. But then, amazingly, paradoxically, the God of Trauma can link you to other people in a much more profound way than you've ever known possible. It's not necessarily a fair trade. I mean, if you said to the God of Trauma, well, that sounds like a good thing, to understand other people's pain and suffering and to grow in wisdom. But it's not worth it. The sad part is that the God of Trauma just says, “Well, it's not up to you.” —Rep. Jamie Raskin