Bloomington Native Is Named Illinoisan Of The Year

Illinois News Broadcasters Association held an event in which they named Bloomington-Normal native and U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger as Illiniosan of the Year. The event primarily consisted of Kinzinger talking about his experience during the January 6 insurrection.

During the event, Kinzinger touched on certain topics that occurred during the summer of 2020. He brought up the importance of local news during the arise of fake news. 

“It connects people to their community at a time where people feel the total loss of community and that’s why I have in Congress said–one most important thing we can do to fight this information and to fight this feeling of hopeless and division is to empower local news,” said Kinzinger.

Kinzinger explains how he warned other politicians about the possibility of violence on January 6 because people thought their votes were stolen in the election.

“I almost used these exact words. You need to understand when people feel disenfranchised and they think their vote is stolen they will turn violent and I really believe there will be violence on January 6 and at that time Kevin McCarthy simply goes “okay Adam next caller.”” 

Kinzinger continued with his own experience during the Insurrection and what his thought process was.

“I felt. Not to get overly spiritual, I tell ya. I felt a real sense of evil at one point, which I felt twice in my life. Just a real sense of loss of control and at one point, I wondered if I had to defend myself in my office because I was seeing tweets on Twitter saying “Kinzinger where are you? We are coming to get ya.” Things like that.”

Kinzinger closed the event by speaking on what he was planning on voting on the next bill.