They might very well have aided the coup in a very active and deadly way.
I personally believe that a lot of the cops were on the side of the rioters. I expect there to be some police firings (which is to say, they’ll end up working one station over with a pay raise).
It also helped that most of them entered once the politicians had left. (The one that tried to enter early got shot.) Once the murder targets had been evacuated the cops probably decided that preventing theft and vandalism and espionage wasn’t worth (the effort/shooting a thousand people and getting murdered by the remainder/pick one) and just stood around after that point.
In case anyone is confused, or thinks I am, I have no delusions about why the police responses were different. And if anyone thinks that I applaud Trump’s summer disaster, jesus.
Really? “Too early”? Did all those Senators and Representatives who voted to overturn the results of the election return to work this morning like nothing happened? Or were they arrested and charged with sedition?
The lesson is already finished; the OP got it right.
The fact that you would ask this question calls many questions to my mind. Did you read the OP? 
Bombing Pearl Harbor “worked” too. Until Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We live in interesting times. Consider fighting for what you believe in.
I think they are largely correct in that value judgment (although the espionage part does give me more pause), and it would be nice if they’d make that same call with nonwhite people more often.
In addition to the video of cops chilling and ushering people in, there is also video of them holding the line against violence, and more than a few cops in the hospital. And one just died.
We might be talking about different things here. I’m talking about the violent actions that the OP describes. Those actions resulted in fewer elected officials voting against democracy than had previously planned to. Is it terrible that any did? Yes, but that’s not what this thread is about as far as I can tell. Overturning democracy was the goal of the rioters, and it got farther away than before they rioted.
And, yeah, too early. Maybe your crystal ball works better than mine, but is it at all murky? Is it remotely possible that we haven’t seen the full results of this in just 24 hours?
What you are talking about is missing the point of the OP. The OP is not about this insurrection except as how it relates to a future insurrection; that’s why the title of the thread includes the phrase “next time” and why the OP ends with “With that sort of takeaway lesson (“peaceful protesting doesn’t do a thing”), we can expect far more of this to come in the future.”
Velocity is right, too. That’s been the response of these folks to defeats and setbacks for more than 15 years now: double down and do it harder. All the events of yesterdays showed them was they need more people, more weapons and/or more organization.
But… violent protest didn’t do a thing either. In fact, it made their goals worse. Peaceful protesting on the other hand often does advance policy goals. Are there people who are too dumb or violent to understand that? Sure. But that doesn’t make that “the takeaway”.
Like, there will always be violent people who seek to use violence to advance their goals, but I’m missing how the takeaway message from this event is “violence works”. Because it didn’t, as far as I can tell. I can see how it might end up being that. If none of the rioters face any consequences. If none of the politicians that goaded them on face consequences. But don’t we need more than one day to see if that plays out?
It’s also possible for someone who thinks of violence as a good solution to think “of course violence works, they just didn’t use enough”. But that’s just a dogma. It’s not like that person is going to learn anything useful from any feedback.
Respectfully, you are quite wrong about the results of yesterday’s insurrection. Our democracy is significantly weaker than it was just 36 hours ago. The opposition will be emboldened by this, not discouraged.
He further cemented the unfailing fealty of his batshit crazy base.
We don’t know the end game yet.
Trump’s got a thing about bikers. He occasionally mentions bikers when he’s talking tough. He’s a fanboy.
Yeah, see? He thinks all this turmoil and shitshow is just good for ratings, and what’s good for ratings is good for him.
It’s all reality TV for him. The trouble is that for the rest of us, it’s reality.
I think you might be right. I hope you are not. I don’t think we know for sure today.
For one, the boldness of the opposition is not the only factor in the equation.
I’ll bet the party yesterday is taken a little more seriously today by the uniformed partiers. I’ll bet they have a big fucking parade of a funeral and everything.
“WASHINGTON (NewsNation Now) — A U.S. Capitol Police Officer has died after suffering injuries in Wednesday’s riots at the U.S. Capitol Complex.
More than 50 Capitol and D.C. police were injured, including several who were hospitalized, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said in a statement before the death was reported.
A source confirmed to NewsNation D.C. Bureau reporter Alexandra Limon the officer was taken off life support and died after they were hit in the head with a fire extinguisher by a rioter.”
A while back, it occurred to me to think of these people as essentially LARPers who don’t know they’re LARPing, and that perception has worked for me ever since.
I think Bo is asserting that only an immediate, harsh response at the time of the insurrection would have been sufficient dissuasion, and that since it did not happen, it IS possible to know right now. He’s saying anything that happens now (short, I assume, of summary public executions) is inherently not going to discourage future violence. I think that’s where the basic disagreement is.
All the world’s a game,
And all the men and women merely LARPers;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time LARPs many roles,
His hat being sometimes MAGA.
I think the OP is right. The Republican Party leadership (excluding Trump) needs to call for everyone who broke a law during the invasion of the US Capitol to be pursued by the FBI and prosecuted under federal law to the maximum extent possible. Make it clear that anybody who was involved in the violence is a criminal and will be pursued as a criminal, and anyone who was trying to break into the legislative chambers will be charged with terrorism. Denounce anyone who called for violence against Congress or the state legislatures. And then follow up these statements continuously and with support for legislation and actions to maintain the security of government and elections. This event was an attempt by the far-right to violently confront the US Congress in person in its own chambers, and far worse could have happened than what did. The leadership of the Republican Party needs to recognise that, admit it, condemn it, repudiate it, and work to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
I don’t think it will happen. There are some leaders in the Republican Party who are genuinely far right, and they’re influential. There are many others who are simply populist, but are willing to pander to the vocal far-right. And there are too few that are willing to stand up to the Tea Party/Trumpist elements of the party.
Instead of asserting itself as the party of law and order, and discarding the reactionary, violence-approving section of its party, the Republican Party will try to ignore, obfuscate and diminish the attempted takeover of the US Capitol. There will be talk of underlying causes and the need for structural reform to address concerns, and little action or actual leadership to prevent a repeat of the event. Which means the next time the far-right finds a cause to rally around, its violent elements will be more organised, more aggressive, and more goal-oriented. The Capitol invasion was bad, but it could have been far, far worse. If no action is taken to marginalise the violent far-right, then the next such event will be worse. And that action needs to come from the political right, not the left. Otherwise, it’s just too sides shouting at each other, while the actual misfits plan and commit mayhem.
Not gonna happen. The far-right is their majority now. There is no money, and there are no votes, for a moderate right-wing candidate anymore.