On the second anniversary of the January 6th insurrection when people stormed the capitol Public Citizen organized events across the country to show that they had not forgotten what happened.
Public Citizen tweeted, “we’re organizing, demanding accountability and justice for Jan 6 and advocating other pro-democracy reforms all across the country.”
In Bakersfield, residents met outside of Kevin McCarthy’s office to say they aren’t forgetting what happened and they want McCarthy held accountable for what happened.
Lori Pesante was there with her family and spoke about feeling the need to show up to this event for the second year in a row.
“I felt such a profound mix of emotions on the day of the insurrection and last year when we came out here to convene with others who were feeling the same way. I knew that today on the second anniversary I had to do the same thing, no matter what the circumstances,” said Pesante. “Today of all days at this time which would have been right in the middle of the unfolding of the events back in 2021 I wanted to make sure that myself and my family were remembering what happened.”
Bakersfield resident, Juli Solis spoke at the event about how she does not feel McCarthy and former president Donald Trump take the constitution seriously.
“January 6th is a day we’ll never forget. It’s going to go down in history because we were that close to losing it all,” said Solis.
During the event, the main themes were democracy and truth. One person in attendance had a sign that read “Stop domestic terrorism protect democracy reject extremist lies remember 1- 6- 21” on the front and “Protect democracy divided we fall remember 1-6-21” on the back.
“This is a fight for truth as much as it is a fight for democracy… I hope that nationwide we’re able to cultivate a collective knowledge base of the facts of January 6th,” said Pesante. “So that no matter how it gets twisted in the media, no matter how much time has passed we all still remember the conditions that gave rise to this. This is the kind of stuff we see in nonfunctioning government structures. We shouldn’t see this in a functioning democracy we need to prevent it from happening again.
According to Pesante, holding the event at Kevin McCarthy’s office was to bring attention to his role in the insurrection of enabling those who incited the insurrection.
“There’s audio tape evidence of him basically saying that this was wrong but yet he went and told everybody else that he didn’t say that then the audio proved that he was lying. So here’s a person that clearly knows better but isn’t doing better,” said Pesante.
Along with giving each person time to speak about what happened and how it impacted them, Pesante placed papers on Mccarthy’s office window for people to write notes to McCarthy.
Some of the notes left called for McCarthy to resign and said that he refuses to speak to his constituents.
“May God have mercy on your soul. You’re clearly not going to change your path,” said Pesante when asked what she would say to McCarthy if present. “I am one of the people you allegedly represent and you clearly don’t care anything about me or my family.”
