By Nina Payne
Trinity Times Correspondent
The 2024 presidential election is providing Trinity Washington University sophomore Stephanie Batres with her first opportunity to vote and as she spends the summer contemplating how she’ll cast that ballot, the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is on her mind.
Batres sees the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power as an assault on democracy and believes it’s imperative to keep that from happening again.
However, she believes this event and other issues surrounding the 2024 election may keep many of her college peers from voting.
In former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, he has been calling those convicted in the Jan. 6 violent siege of the Capitol “January 6th hostages,” suggesting he would pardon them if he’s elected for a second non-consecutive term this November.
Though Trinity Global Affairs Professor Joshua Wright called Jan. 6th one of the worst days in American history and believes that day should be a factor in how citizens vote in the 2024 presidential election, he said it shouldn’t be the sole issue they consider.
Wright recalls coming home from campus on Jan. 6, turning on the television set and being horrified when he saw images on the news of the Capitol riot, saying it was like watching a movie.
He was dumbfounded and said he simply just couldn’t believe what was taking place.
Several university students told Trinity Times Jan. 6th still evokes fear for them.
The Capitol building was attacked by a mob of supporters of then President Trump, who had spoken to them earlier in the day at a “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House, asserting false claims of a “rigged” and “stolen” 2020 election and telling them they needed to “fight like hell” if they wanted to preserve their country.
Trump is facing federal indictment in connection with Jan. 6, charging that he conspired to defraud Americans about his 2020 election defeat and obstructed the official proceeding in Congress to certify the vote for now President Joe Biden.
The Capitol riot became a brutal scene of hand-to-hand combat with police, sent members of Congress running for cover in fear of losing their lives, and delayed the election certification until after the siege was over.
Jan. 6 is a day that shouldn’t be forgotten, Batres said, noting that the whole event scares her, especially since the 2024 presidential election will be a rematch between Biden and Trump.
“I do think that something like this can happen again,” said Trinity student Janeen Stevens, an Occupational Therapy major, acknowledging that before Jan. 6 she didn’t believe such an insurrection was possible in the U.S.
After rewatching footage of Jan. 6 this past April, Stevenson told Trinity Times that event was overwhelming to her, prompting her to wonder “what the world is coming to?”
On the day in 2021 when the Capitol riot took place, Stevenson purposely avoided the incident, admitting that at the time she had a lot going on and didn’t want to take on that “emotional stress.”
Though now very concerned about how the Jan. 6 insurrection could impact U.S. democracy in the future, Stevenson said she’s not sure which candidate will be the better option for her and her community, saying that with the same two candidates as 2020, there is “nothing new, nothing fresh.”
Stevenson also wondered how seriously elections will be taken by the U.S. electorate if candidates refuse to concede elections in the future, even when every court in the country upholds the results.
“As we’re in this new election cycle, there’s that fear that this could happen again,” Wright said. “If Trump loses again, could there be another rally?”
Although Jan. 6 raises fears and concerns for many Trinity student voters, Wright believes that it should not be at the forefront of conversations for the 2024 election, citing other prominent issues such as abortion rights, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and other global and domestic matters that should be the main focus of this year’s election.
He personally thought the U.S. Supreme Court should have disqualified Trump from being on the ballot in the 2024 presidential election.
However, since the court has ruled the former president can’t be excluded from the ballot, Wright believes voters should weigh multiple issues when selecting the next president.
Acknowledging college-age U.S. citizens have vocally expressed their displeasure with President Biden’s policies on Israel and skepticism in general of Trump, Wright said his main goal this election season is to encourage young people to vote in this year’s election even if they are disheartened by their choices.
He’s also encouraging students to inform themselves from credible news sources about the issues of the election, so that they can make informed decisions when they cast their ballot.
“It is important to have voter literacy,” Wright said, “to not be persuaded by rhetoric, but to really know the facts.”
Encouraging students to vote in the 2024 election may be difficult, Batres said, noting that she has had many conversations with her friends who are discouraged and don’t really see the point.
“Everybody should vote, your vote does matter,” she said she tells her college friends. “Keep voting and be aware of what’s happening if you really want to make a change.”