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Notes -
"They were punished lightly by almost any historical standard" is worth noting. (but @ "perhaps, in fact, in the kind of country the rioters might dream of creating", J6 rioters were more enthusiastic trump supporting republicans with some Q people, as opposed to altright or 'new right' or neoreactionaries, afaict)
What is worth noting is a simplest trick that somehow people pretend not to notice. The first part of the trick is to call a mundane, and even tame, by comparison with many others, demonstration a "worst act of insurrection since substitute something grand here, like 9/11, or Pearl Harbor, or Civil War, or the murder of John Lennon - anything goes" and then the second part is proclaiming "for such a humongous act of violence, they were treated very lightly, by historical standards". Of course if you first grossly exaggerate what actually happened, and then treat the victims extremely harshly in comparison to what actually happened, but lightly in comparison to your rhetoric, then people who buy into your trick would think you are extremely merciful. But only the people who didn't see through the trick.
In the US, we have had our share of government building and other public space occupations, let alone violent riots with massive property damages. For example:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/thousands-teachers-seize-oklahoma-capitol-building-demand-education/story?id=54201499
https://ucaft.org/content/thousands-march-sacramento-and-occupy-capitol-building-support-education-funding
While it is probably disrupting, there's nothing outrageous in that either - it's a political place, and doing politics there is what it is for. Sometimes it gets a little out of hand, and sometimes law enforcement needs to be called to cool down some overly hot heads, but there's nothing to get apoplectic about. Except, of course, when the Red Tribe does it. Then it's the end of democracy.
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They were punished lightly by the standards of authoritarian countries, but are those standards particularly important or relevant?
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