Mass communication senior Matthew Cross walked into his living room Jan. 6 when he heard his mother say, “Have you seen the news?”
Mass communication senior Jacob Phillips opened the door of his apartment on the same day, surprised to see the television in his living room tuned into a news station instead of ESPN.
Political science senior Nate Wiggins said his phone kept pinging with news alerts about a protest at the Capitol, but he thought nothing of it until his mother called him and told him to turn on the news.
Mass communication senior Mia LeJeune watched live footage of the House and Senate counting electoral college votes to confirm Joe Biden as the 46th president. Moments later, she saw Trump flags parade through the same statuary hall. She said she and her friends joked that Trump supporters would try to seize the Capitol in the days leading up to Biden’s inauguration.
“It was just a joke,” LeJeune said, “but it became very surreal when I saw the live feed shut off and heard that Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi were sent to a secret location. I thought of my friends and colleagues who work in the Capitol, whose lives might be in danger because of these people.”
Wiggins said that what he saw shocked him.
“I saw people violently storming the Capitol as soon as I turned on the news,” Wiggins said. “I saw men dressed in fur and horns, a man putting his feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk and a woman covered in blood being wheeled out of the Capitol building on a stretcher. It was graphic and it was jarring. I just wondered how this could happen here, in this country.”
Supporters of Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 in a violent protest of the peaceful transfer of presidential power. After fighting with Capitol police, the rioters forced their way into the Capitol building. Senators were evacuated, and other lawmakers sheltered in their offices.
Some local businesses are under fire after photos circulated on social media of owners attending the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol. Donald Rouse Sr., co-owner of Rouses Supermarket, and Cinda Vanmerrienboar, wife of Red Zeppelin owner Ray Vanmerrienboar, both posted pictures of themselves at the protest on social media. Both business owners said on social media that though they were at the protest, they did not participate in the violence.
Collis B. Temple Jr., a member of the LSU Board of Supervisors and former basketball player at the University, said Friday that LSU should explore severing its relationship with Rouses in response to Rouse’s attendance at the protests, according to The Advocate.
“What Rouses says reflects on LSU,” Temple said. “What [Donald] Rouse posted on Facebook reflects on LSU.”
About a hundred rioters have been arrested since Jan. 6, including two from Louisiana. According to the New York Times, five people died as a result of the riots.
As a person with conservative political views, Cross felt like people on both sides of the political spectrum were waiting for conservatives to rally in support behind the rioters. He said he couldn’t understand that expectation because he doesn’t feel like the rioters represent conservative views, the Republican party or his beliefs.
“I’m tired of the stereotypes,” Cross said. “People like stereotypes because they like to tell stories about themselves and others, about who is winning and who is losing, but stereotypes create division.”
He said one of the first tweets he saw regarding the riots read, “Where are the Republicans that were calling for law and order now?”
“I’m right here,” Cross said. “And I think the [rioters] should go to federal prison because they committed a federal crime. There’s no reason for people to put all conservatives in this box.”
Phillips said he saw a sea of red shirts and hats as he watched the news with his roommates. He said that the image was almost humorous at first, but when his roommate told him that protestors got into both chambers of the Capitol, his mood turned grim. He went to Twitter and saw images of people in Viking costumes waving Confederate flags in the halls of the Capitol building.
“They were standing where the Speaker of the House or the President of the Senate would stand, and it felt like a piece of the significance of that place had been lost,” Phillips said. “Those rooms should be occupied by people who have certain authorities and privileges granted to them by U.S. citizens, and they were defiled.”
Wiggins followed news updates for several hours, and he drew contrasts between police presence at the BLM protests and police presence at the election protest.
“There was a huge difference,” Wiggins said. “We’ve seen so much footage of peaceful protestors suffering violence at the hands of police during BLM protests, and that presented a stark contrast to the police taking selfies and making conversation with Trump supporters in the Capitol.”
Wiggins said it’s tragic and frustrating that lives were lost at the Capitol that day. He said he feels like it was the result of the deep political divide in the country, but he doesn’t see this event as a representation of the Republican party. As a member of the College Democrats at LSU, Wiggins said that his fellow club members might not agree with his moderate view of the other party.
“Republicans aren’t a big, bad ‘other’ that we can’t associate with,” Wiggins said. “Ninety percent of the members of both parties are good, decent people who have a different belief system than us.”
LeJeune said that as a person involved in politics, she looks up to presidents in admiration, so she can understand why people who idolize Trump were enamored by his rhetoric regarding the security of the election.
“He convinced them that democracy was at stake,” LeJeune said. “He gave them a worthy cause to fight for in their minds, and I’m not surprised that they took action. I do know that I’ll remember that day forever.”
Cross said that he doesn’t think the country will heal from this tragedy in the near future.
“It just feels like another domino that has fallen in the last year,” Cross said. “Our ability to have civil discourse in this country is almost absent, and that’s what scares me. Party lines shouldn’t dictate whether or not people can speak to each other, and that’s a wound we have to heal from.”