Whether it is a sporting event, a courtroom, a traffic accident, or news from inside Trump’s White House, it doesn’t matter, one will hear it over and over. “You have to have been there to really know.”

We have five senses for a reason and without being there, one can only use two, at best. With respect to January 6th, many of the Capitol Police had all five of their senses engaged, for hours, while also having to deal with a sixth sense that they might not survive the day.

James Blassingame is a 17-year veteran of the U.S. Capitol Police, and he sat down with PBS NewsHour for an interview to talk about his thoughts on what happened on January 6th, an event so traumatic that he’s currently suing Donald Trump in an attempt to hold Trump accountable. Blassingame described what it was like that day and, as is always true, noted that one had to be there to appreciate the horror.

Everything Trump and MAGA starts with racism.

Blassingame said no one had ever called him the n-word to his face. He is thirty-nine years old:  “That streak ended on January 6. I was called a n****r. I was called a traitor. I was called various epithets.”

Blassingame also talked about another record, he’d held. In his career, he has never once drawn his weapon and thought he might that day: “I was like ok, this is it.”

He never did draw his gun not necessarily for humanitarian reasons. Leaving his gun at his side might have saved his life:

“And the only reason why I didn’t do it… was because the mentality was, this is a four-alarm blaze. And if I pull my gun out and start shooting, I’m throwing kerosene on it. Maybe there’s a chance I survive if I don’t pull my weapon, but, if I do, I’m probably not going to make it out of here alive. You don’t have enough bullets.”

But he saved his most powerful words for the end:

I would think certain things are above politics.

I mean, it’s deplorable to say — as bad as it looks on film, believe me, it was much worse. They can stitch together as much footage as they want to, but I’m telling you, and anybody that was in that scrum will tell you, it was much worse in person than anything you’re ever going to see on film.

And for the narrative to be modified or changed, so that it’s trying to make it seem something other than what it was, it’s disheartening, especially — we go to work every day and we have to protect members of Congress. And for them to come and say, thank you for your service, and appreciate what you do, but you don’t, because this is very simple, just having a commission to find out what happened, so this doesn’t happen again.

Because I personally feel that, again, this is something that there’s a very real threat moving forward.

This is something we’ve been hearing more and more, like a quickening drumbeat. “It is more dangerous,” “the threat is worse,” “next time will be even more violent,” we keep hearing it from people that are on the ground, using all those senses and that sixth one. Which brings us to one last thing that we’ve repeated on this site too many times. Until one finally passes, things can always get worse. January 6th might not represent the culmination of all things MAGA. What if it was actually just the beginning?

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak