Insurrection violated us as well as Capitol

As sickness and anger rose in me while watching supporters of Donald Trump storm the U. S. Capitol, I thought of the culturally significant spaces that are part of our lives in the Bay Area. I thought about San Francisco’s Beaux Arts City Hall, evocative of the architecture of Washington, D. C. I thought about the Opera House, court buildings, theaters, museums, public libraries and university campuses. Those buildings, which are given the reverence we assign to seats of power and temples of art and ideas, were designed to feel protected, permanent and secure for those inside. Wednesday’s events showed me just how fragile that sense of security is for even our most sacrosanct halls. If senators and representatives can’t be safe in their fortress on the hill, what the hell chance do any of us have?

The violence, loss of life and chaos of bloody Wednesday is one of the most alarming chapters in the 245year history of the country. There was something specifically harrowing for many of us about seeing places where the rituals of government are performed treated with blatant contempt. To watch as landmarks we are taught to revere as architectural reminders of the democratic values of our country become a parade ground for marauders waving treasonous flags is a gut punch.

There are spaces we are socially conditioned to treat as sacred. From an early age we know to act differently there. You don’t speak loud; you are reminded not to touch, not to step outside the velvet ropes and to behave with reverence. The architecture of Washington, D. C., was meant to evoke the monumental permanence of cultures such as ancient Greece and Rome: They not only represent the roots of our democracy but also nod to a future in which the republic will still stand. Watching a building that carries the significance and symbolism of the U. S. Capitol be overcome by costumed philistines is a cultural violation.

As historic windows were smashed, the sculpture hall invaded and politicians’ offices ransacked, a rage mixed with grief overcame me. I worried about the fate of the art collection, built over centuries to tell the story of our nation. I feared for the destruction of paintings and sculptures as well as the architecture ( a bust of President Zachary Taylor was stained with blood). But it wasn’t just the mob’s actions that were nauseating; it was their brazenness. Rioters took selfies once inside the Capitol. They posted pictures of themselves on social media inside Speaker Nancy

Pelosi’s office and wrote threatening messages on her paper. They climbed the walls of the exterior of the building and hung from the gallery balcony. I didn’t know whether I was witnessing a coup or just the worst Black Friday sale ever with so much violent buffoonery on display.

There are images that are still burned into my mind days later. A man on the base of the statue of President Gerald Ford, defacing it with a red “Make America Great Again” hat and Trump flag. Another waving and smiling as he carries a lectern out of the chamber with the official seal of the government on it, walking as casually as if he’d picked up a lamp at Ikea. A man in a fur hat with horns, shirtless with his face painted, posing on the chair of the Senate president like some rejected monster from a Maurice Sendak story.

That’s what ultimately got me. This wasn’t just a violation of our government, of our elected officials. This was a violation of a building that belongs to us, “We the People.” This mob came into our house, a place endowed with all the complicated history of our country and better aspirations for our system. They treated the halls of liberty and justice for all like a stage for their liveaction roleplay pseudoguerrilla fantasies.

Out of my window I can see the dome of San Francisco City Hall, not unlike the dome of the Capitol building.

I worry about its safety in a world where mobs of democracy denying insurrectionists roam free. But even more than the spaces themselves, it is the systems and ideas these buildings represent that are sacred.

This was a violation of a building that belongs to us, “We the People.”