It should come as no surprise that the youth and young Asian leadership at AAOP views the attack at the Capitol on January 6th as an abhorrent act of treason and an attack on our country and on our people. This attack, an attempted insurrection, was brought on by a President who refused to accept that millions of people, including record numbers of Asian Americans, turned out to stand with and for each other and elected Joe Biden by overwhelming margins.
This is what treason looks like: an angry mob of armed white people inside our Capitol, threatening our government — an angry white mob that included many elected leaders complicit in this attack.
This insurrection happened because several Republican representatives, on federal and local levels and even the President, have been encouraging lies about this election to undermine the will of the people in a desperate attempt to hold onto power they clearly do not deserve.
It was infuriating to see the double standards in how police responded to the insurrection compared to the George Floyd protests. Police demonstrated restraint when confronted at the Capitol while targeting, detaining, and killing Black people and violently repressing protesters who fight for justice.
Every elected official responsible, from the President to Senators, House Members to state legislators, who fed, fueled and incited these attacks must be removed or resign. While impeachment is the first step towards holding to account the president, we need to hold all those responsible for inciting the insurrection accountable because, as stated by Representative Ilhan Omar, “without accountability, our nation cannot unite and cannot begin to heal.”