Modestly, in the death notice section of The Washington Post last weekend, appeared an “In Memoriam” for Brian Sicknick. A photo of the young man in uniform was accompanied by his date of death, January 7, 2021. A brief text stated, “You gave your life courageously defending our democracy. The sacrifice you and your fellow Capital and Metro officers and the pain of your loved ones has been ignored by those who are void of conscience. The rest of us honor you.”
The notice included a quote from Abraham Lincoln, “We take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick was one of five men who died from injuries suffered defending the U.S. Capitol building from the mob of Trump supporters who called for the hanging of the Vice President of the U.S. as they stormed and desecrated the Capitol that fateful January 6, 2021, five years ago.
The deeply falsified account of events of that day on a website published by the Trump White House this week, among other things, denied that anyone died from that assault.
It is worth including more from the Gettysburg Address by Lincoln, from which the quote was taken for inclusion in Officer Sicknick’s notice this week.
Lincoln’s famous speech was delivered in November 1863 on the site of the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, Pa., where four months earlier, 45,000 lives were killed, injured, captured or went missing. Lincoln intoned, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
When I was growing up, memorizing the short Gettysburg Address, which is fewer than 275 words, was presented as a challenge that many students took up. That was, say, 90 years after the address was delivered, and it is hard to fathom that another 70 years have transpired since. We now stand in sore need of such “a new birth of freedom” as Lincoln spoke of.
There is a man in the White House now who threatens everything that the blood of so many of our citizens at Gettysburg and since has been lost to defend. The recent Congressional testimony of investigator Jack Smith has established beyond a doubt the culpability of Trump in the incitement of the violence of that fateful Jan. 6.
An article, “Government Website Gives False History of Jan. 6 Riot,” by Amy B. Ward in the Jan. 7 Washington Post this week, is a powerful refutation of the White House lies on that website. It noted that in his testimony, Smith said “the president bears the bulk of the blame for instigating the attack and he emphasized that crimes that occurred at the Capitol that day were for Trump’s benefit.”
In the aftermath of Jan. 6, 2021, what if the prosecution of those guilty of instigating the riot had somehow been different? Maybe events as they unfolded since would be different. Had Smith’s findings been made public sooner, and the nation mobilized to see justice done, perhaps Trump never would have been permitted to run for president again.
This is not for mere speculation or hindsight. What the nation, and world, now faces will not be undone easily. The 2026 elections and any beyond, including the presidential one currently scheduled for 2028, will not be fair and honest so long as Trump holds any sway over the matter.
We face not simply a radical version of normal. We face something far more sinister.
