It was Wednesday’s morning January 6. I stood with my husband in the freezing cold on the security line waiting to be one of the few thousand people allowed entrance onto the Ellipse Lawn. Two hours earlier, at 5am, we met up with my friend Leigh and her husband on the National Mall of the Washington Monument. They had flown in from Texas the day before.
Leigh and I bonded back in November, at the first DC rally, and have been calling ourselves partners in the revolution ever since. The instant we spotted each other’s hazy figures in the dark morning shadows of streaming people, we ran to each other and hugged tight, Iike long-lost sisters.
We had sweethearts, Chris and Oliver from Cleveland, directly behind us on line. Good old American boys with beards and tattoos. Herds of people were mounting behind them in an ever-growing line that wrapped around the Washington Monument and all the way up 15th Ave. In the damp air of dawn, We The People whispered the silent agreement for the sacred reason we came. America is our last hope for freedom.
I chatted with Chris. I told him that my grandparents used to live in Cleveland. He told me he lives near the Telshe Yeshiva in Wicliffe. He pronounced Telshe just like it’s spelled. It was super cute. I told him, with his beard, he could fit right in. We laughed.
Then there was the petite, beautiful Tasha and her tall husband, from Missouri. They were right in front of us when we finally made our way up to the metal detectors. She had bright intelligent eyes. We got to talking. I asked her why she came all this way to stand in the freezing cold.
Well it turns out that her grandparents were executed in communist China in the 1930’s. Why were they executed? For owning land. I thought of my own grandparents, the same Cleveland ones, who lived in Poland in the 1930’s. Their parents were executed too. For being Jewish. We had more in common than we thought.
We both understood that a tenuous door of freedom was slowly closing and we desperately want to hold that same precious door open for our kids and grandkids.
Then I shared with her an analogy that came to me. America is the last Deciding Domino. If it gets pushed one way, the world falls into communism. If it gets pushed the other way, freedom covers the earth. She liked my analogy.
We finally got inside and made our way onto the lawn. I asked heaven to help us get up close to Trump. I love seeing people on stage, almost close enough to touch.
Heaven came through. There was an open area of metal barrier at the far corner of the stage. We walked right up to it and held onto our piece. Later that night, when I saw aerial footage of the landmass of people behind us, I felt blessed.
At 9am the program started. We heard from the cast of all-stars. Mo Brooks, Vernon Jones, Eric and Don Jr., Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Madison Cawthorne, Rudy Giuliani and others. They all spoke in the open air, no protection.
When the early speeches ended, rally music blasted over the speakers for what felt like eternity. We were anxious to see Trump, he was already a half hour late. We danced in place to keep warm. The cold wind made us brace and huddle. The muck beneath our feet seeped into the edges of our shoes.
Trump came up to the stage. The crowd went wild. He stood behind bulletproof glass for the very first time at a rally. As Trump was talking, we felt breathless anticipation. We wanted him to say something new.
After a while, Josh couldn’t take the cold anymore. He was exhausted. He kissed me and went back to the hotel. I stayed for another 20 minutes. When I started feeling overtaken by the cold, I left too. Trump wasn’t saying anything earth shattering.
Making my way through the thick wall of people was unlike any crowd I’ve ever navigated. I could not see which direction was out. I looked up and used the Washington Monument as my North Star. It led me back to the street and back to my hotel. On my way out everyone smiled as I stepped over, under and in between them.
I passed through families with babies and saw every nationality you could imagine. My favorite sight of the day was witnessing a Muslim woman in a hijab fist bump a biker. The brotherhood was as thick as the crowd.
I got back to the hotel at the same time my husband did. He had a harder time ducking and weaving, poor guy. We went to our room together and conked out.
Then my phone went crazy. I sat up in bed and saw there was a commotion happening at the Capitol. I could not get my husband to wake up. He could sleep through an apocalypse. It’s a gift.
I slipped out of the room by myself and went downstairs. I went outside and followed the crowds of people walking peacefully down Pennsylvania Ave toward the Capitol.
Walking is an important word. At no time, did I see anyone running. If I did, I would have joined them and ran back to the hotel. I do not have a death wish. All I saw, for miles, was groups of people walking and talking.
I met a woman walking alongside me, Celia. Celia had come by herself all the way from New Orleans. Celia is a libertarian. We spoke about Libertarianism all the way to the Capitol. Celia was the one that took that picture of me. I took the same one of her. She was crying. She couldn’t believe her good fortune to be here for this historic day.
Celia and I stood in front of the capitol for about a half hour talking to different people in the crowd. We knew there were patriots on the scaffolding and on the outside of the building. They were right in front of us, as peaceful and non-violent as could be.
These people in the rafters were mostly over the age of 50 and struggled to scale the half-wall right next to me when they decided they had enough and wanted to leave. I had to give them a hand to get over the wall.
None of us had any idea that there was any real violence or that people were killed. Events were unfolding in real time as we stood there. We had poor reception on our phones, so we were clueless. All we saw were happy people. The air around us was friendly and calm.
I mean look at the picture, does anyone look scared? The whole day had been the most beautiful display of patriotism we ever saw.
When I saw footage later on of shootings and other violence I was horrified. All of us were.
I was also horrified when I saw footage of capitol police moving barricades to let people in. Why did capitol police open up those barricades to the crowd? Very suspicious. Almost as if the break in was a welcome diversion to the electoral count that conveniently got interrupted.
The same powers that be, who stationed National Guard and cop cars on every street corner of DC, left the capitol building vulnerable like that? Makes no sense.
When we drove into town the night before only a single street was open. The entire Waze map was red. We got turned around by police five times. I could hardly get into my hotel, how was it that easy to get into the Capitol?
We are surrounded by smoke and mirrors. What we watch on TV is information funneled through a left-leaning camera lens. Anyone who has been to Israel knows that reality on the ground is very different than the story told on TV.
I have learned many things in the past few days. I have learned that one man’s chillul Hashem is another man’s kiddush Hashem. One man’s villain is another man’s hero. It all depends on what lens you look through.
Dr. Zelenko and Ulysses S. Grant helped me narrow down these two lenses. Dr. Zelenko in a recent interview said, “Either you have a God-Centered consciousness or you are enslaved into the new Egypt.” President Grant said, “There are but two parties now, Traitors and Patriots.”
Like Grant, I want to hereafter be ranked with the latter. I have never received more love over the past day since that front page picture came out. Massive love and support from fellow patriots all over the five towns and friends as far as Israel.
Those involved in cancel culture underestimate the massive groundswell of patriot love out there. Anyone who has been to a Trump rally (I have been to 3) knows exactly what I’m talking about.
I think patriots have shown tremendous restraint over the last 9 weeks. Gentle and soft-spoken Celia said it best on our walk home, “We finally did something.” None of us condones violence. It makes us all sick to our stomachs. But a rigged election and a country stolen by traitors also makes us sick.
The most profound lesson I have learned from all this is that he who gets to tell the story, owns the power.
The real truth of what happened that day will come out and the ending to this story still belongs to God. I hold tight to the famous Trump refrain, that THE BEST IS YET TO COME.
When the paper came out with my smiling face on the cover and people jumped to all kinds of conclusions, all I wanted was the chance to tell my story. I want to thank God and Larry Gordon for giving it to me.