On January 6, 2021, supporters of former President Donald Trump, who falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, launched a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress’s formal certification of President Joe Biden's electoral victory. Rep. Peter Welch, who has been Vermont’s lone Congressman since 2007, was in the House chamber waiting to vote. As rioters rampaged in the halls, Welch was ordered to lay on the floor by Capitol police who stood over him and his colleagues with guns drawn. Welch heard a gunshot. He thought he might die.

“All of us thought that at some point,” says Welch. “When we heard that gun go off, and we saw that the mob was trying to break the doors down, that this could include violence. So the thought definitely occurred to every single person who was there, including the Capitol police officers. In fact, five officers died as a result of what happened that day.”

Welch notes that many of his colleagues experience post traumatic stress disorder after the terror they endured in the insurrection. Welch says, “My PTSD now…is the reality that our democracy is very much in peril.” He points to what followed hours after the attack on the Capitol: 147 Republicans members voted to overturn the election of President Biden.

“That's a shattering of the Democratic norm of the peaceful transfer of power,” says Welch.

I ask Welch if he believes that the failed coup was a rehearsal for a successful one.

“Yes, I do. It's definitely happening.” He adds, “There are efforts to use through legislation the capacity to overturn a presidential election, rather than the use of violence that failed on January 6. So yes, it's very much a work in progress.”

Welch says that his sense of urgency about defending democracy is what motivates him to run for U.S. Senate in 2022. “It's an all-hands-on-deck moment,” he says. “Our democracy is imperiled. And we have to preserve it….Given my circumstances, given my service in Congress, the decision I made is this is the best way I can help. And I am absolutely all in."