What happened at the Capitol on January 6 was not like what happened last summer. Nor was it like what happened in Charlottesville. It was a different kind of violence, designed to obstruct the Constitutional process of counting Electoral votes. And it was egged on by Trump.
The bad faith comparisons do nothing to absolve either Trump or the mobbers. The Capitol incident was worse than Portland/Kenosha, etc. or Charlottesville, not because of the intensity or length of the violence, but because of what was attacked. It was treasonous.
This is why Trump's culpability begins well before his speech on January 6. It began when he primed his most intense supporters to believe that he had actually won a landslide victory, but that some bizarre conspiracy involving voting machines and God knows who else "stole" it.
Trump wasn't complaining about "unfair" outside treatment either. He wasn't complaining about a foreign actor or biased media or whatever. No, he was claiming that actual vote tallies were shifted on a grand scale. That is a massive accusation that cannot be leveled casually.
Trump had every right to pursue recourse in the state and Federal courts if his campaign thought there were election irregularities. And those challenges were denied. But not only did Trump ignore the dozens of decisions against him, he doubled down with ever-wilder accusations.
Trump behaved this way because he has no respect for the Constitution he swore an Oath to protect and defend. He even turned on his most loyal ally - Mike Pence - who had the audacity to follow the Constitution. The result of his repeated rejection of the process was violence.
That was his mob that attacked the Capitol. They made it clear that they were "fighting for Trump." Not until hours later did Trump bother to "call off" his seditious mob from ransacking the Capitol. The mobbers should go to prison for a long time. And so should Trump.
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