'There I was with my mittens on the moon, at the Last Supper, on the Titanic, on top of buildings'

I had predicted that Donald Trump would try to overturn the election results in every way possible, including the incitement of violence. But even I didn't imagine how far the defeated president would go on 6 January 2021.

Even in my wildest imagination, I had never contemplated that a violent group of extremists, many of them white nationalists inspired by a vile doctrine of racist and antisemitic hatred, would storm the Capitol and overwhelm the Capitol police, physically take over the US Senate chamber and threaten the lives of the vice-president and the speaker of the House. Being trapped in a room with other senators, guarded by police officers and FBI agents with machine guns, was a scene I never could have predicted - and never want to see again. But I knew then, as I know now, that the deep divisions Trump and his allies had opened up in America, and which they continue to inflame, make the possibility of more anti-democratic violence real. That was one of the many reasons why I later voted to convict Trump for inciting an insurrection, and why I would do so again.