Thread by @dappergander

I'm not really going to go into it because I'm finally back on a good sleep schedule, but today's lack of violence was both pleasing and unsurprising.

It's mostly a product of the 80%/20% rule, also sometimes called the Pareto principle.

You've heard this before, I would guess: 80% of X is caused by 20% of Y. Like, 80% of the posts are made by 20% of the accounts, 80% of sales are generated by 20% of the clients.

Regardless of what you might think, I think the 80%/20% rule also applies to the insurrection, though it's a bit twisted up by things like incitement and mob mentality and etc.

The point is, for every 10 people who breached the Capitol, it seems to track that 80% of them had no idea what to do when then got in.

That other 20% of the breachers were the ones who had a god-damned plan and they are terrifying.

And in the aftermath, that 80% are finding themselves well and truly shaken up. They're getting arrested, some of them on very serious charges.

And of course, all this ignores the fact that "Stop The Steal" was publicized by Trump, not just anonymous figures.

The proposed "action" today had no official support; it was just memes going around saying COME BURN IT DOWN WITH YOUR FELLOW PATRIOTS.

So first, they've lost the 80% (for now), and those 80% are the only thing running cover for the 20%.

Without the 80%, the 20% would have to fully expose themselves, a risk they're unwilling to take.

The same thing happened after Unite the Right.

After UtR, the militia types and Nazis felt well and truly energized, and planned a whole bunch more Patriot events for the following weekends.

And like... NOPE.
nymag.com/intelligencer/…

None of this means they're done. They're not.

I'm just saying there was no doubt in my mind we wouldn't see anything today.

The 80% absolutely wasn't showing up, and the 20% won't show up without them.

Plus, QAnon is spreading the idea that all the fences and barricades all around DC are actually a huge prison for everyone INSIDE the barriers, like some kind of "Escape from New York" scenario.

So they're not organizing carpools like they did for the certification. They're not encouraging followers to do anything.

In fact, they're encouraging followers to stay home because THE MILITARY HAS THIS HANDLED.

I'm leaving out a lot of stuff, obviously, not least of which was that the insurrection was, functionally, PERMITTED to happen by inadequate staffing on the part of authorities.

You add all this up and I think mass organized violence continues to be unlikely.

My real worry right now is lone wolf shit, and I still firmly believe we'll see more events like the RV bomb.

And quite frankly, that danger won't pass after the 20th. It'll exist for years to come.

The biggest danger in our immediate future is NOT seeing mass violence in the next few days and then retroactively deciding those folks on certification day didn't really mean it.

They still meant it, they just needed a set of circumstances to align for them to act.

Anyway, I'm off to bed.

Sleep well, unless you're @Twitter, who I fully expect will stay up late handing out more checkmarks.