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So what's the right wing claim?
"It was basically a LARP, nothing happened, they walked around for 20 minutes then got escorted out, a couple people went over the line and one of them got shot"
or
"It was actually a serious incident, but the request from the capitol police for backup was deliberately denied so that Democrats could bait the (otherwise imbecilic and LARPing) protestors into potentially committing crimes and making headlines"
?
Actually, both of the above can be true at the same time. (I actually believe both statements are mostly true.) But if they are, it reflects abysmally on Trump supporters and everyone else on the conservative side defending those involved. In reality, the 'Capitol Riot' was just more militia LARPing from the schizo conservative equivalent of black bloc anarchist types who think that smashing the street level windows of Starbucks' corporate office heralds the end of capitalism.
Focus on Jan 6 is embarrassing and demoralizing for the right. Conservative coup attempt (and yeah, it seems likely at least some of those involved genuinely believed they could change the result) and its participants look like attendees of a family tailgate in the parking lot of a Missouri walmart, and behave like retirees on a bus tour group visit to the Smithsonian.
Even the tiki torch parade was more intimidating.
Does it matter whether the Jan 6 protestors were fools or badasses? It may be satisfying to some, but I don't think it's very important to the country the moral value or lack thereof of the protestors. What's much more important is to what extent Congressional leadership and multiple high-level people in many military and law enforcement agencies coordinated to ensure that the Capitol would have very minimal protection on Jan 6 despite ample intelligence of how big of a protest there was going to be, as well as lots of provocateurs. Unless we believe Mr. Sund is completely full of shit, I think it's hard to conclude anything but that exactly that happened. They wanted an ugly riot and they did what it took to ensure that they got one.
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My take on it is that had there been a better show of force before the event fully started, had there been NG, police, SWAT, and whatever else sufficient to keep the protests on the lawn, there wouldn’t have been any real rioting. It’s because the cops couldn’t keep things from getting out of control before they entered that it was anything other than a loud protest.
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Yes, but ++, the LARP was easily avoidable if the blob had just had any level of coordination and competency. To such an extreme levels that it appears that allowing the LARP was intentional.
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From what I can gather, the narrative is supposed to be something like:
"It was the set-up by the Democrats tried to bait/incite riots and use it for headlines etc, but unnsuccessfully so because of how peaceful and orderly Republican protestors are. Even with the plants, it only ended up mildly raucuous. The democrats tried to save their efforts by coordinating a massive exaggeration of what happened and suppressing actual picture of what was pretty tame, even after attempts at goading them into BLM level rioting."
In short:
I'm not saying that's true, but it's the narrative. It's still probably too complex to be digestable talking point than just picking option A or B.
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So, listening to the entire interview, the former chief of the capital police does eventually compare Jan 6th to other riots not only in DC, but across the country. And he gives you the impression that it was, in terms of quantifiable violence and destruction, not as bad as other riots. He specifically goes into the riots where multiple Secret Service agents were seriously injured and that historic church in DC was lit on fire.
But it got out of control because unlike other riots, they were denied the intelligence and resources necessary to contain it. He cites specific examples. Like how the FBI never shared intelligence with them about domestic terrorist coming to the event. Ordinarily before any event, even Holidays, the FBI has a joint intelligence sharing event. Or how other three letter agencies never deconflicted the undercover personnel they had in the crowd, despite having done so not just previously, but routinely. Or how the National Guard was withheld from them, despite being physically close enough to see what was going on.
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