What happened today wasn’t protest. It wasn’t dissent. It wasn’t even rebellion. It was sedition wrapped in slogans, an angry mob invited into the Capitol by a president who told them that loyalty to him outweighed loyalty to the Constitution.
They came waving flags, smashing glass, and taking selfies like it was a carnival. Some carried Confederate banners through the halls where lawmakers once debated civil rights. Some erected a gallows outside, as if they’d already written their own verdicts. Others walked in grinning, convinced they were patriots on a pilgrimage.
The mob didn’t invent this. They were fed it. Senators and congressmen spent weeks amplifying lies. Talk show hosts told people the election was stolen. Social media served the lies up on repeat until repetition felt like truth. And when the president told them to march, they did.
The disgrace isn’t only the broken windows or the blood spilled in the chamber. The disgrace is how predictable it was. Security was lax, despite warnings. Politicians who fanned the flames now pretend to be shocked at the fire. And still, even after the mob left, members of Congress stood at their microphones and repeated the same lies that brought the mob to the door in the first place.
The media shares the blame. For months they treated the president’s lies as spectacle, something to “both-sides” instead of something to dismantle. Outrage is good for ratings. Drama keeps the clicks coming. They replayed every baseless claim like it was legitimate debate, and today we saw the result.
This is what happens when accountability is always delayed. We had four years of lines crossed, each one followed by a shrug. Fire inspectors who were ignored, inspectors general who were fired, elections undermined, whistleblowers smeared. Every time, the excuse was: “The system will hold.” Today the system cracked.
And let’s not kid ourselves that this is over. January 6 wasn’t a finale. It was a stress test. It showed every extremist, every grifter, every opportunist just how far you can go with lies and mob energy. Some people failed today. Others took notes.
The speeches about “unity” that will follow don’t erase this. The only thing that matters now is whether people are held to account. If they aren’t, the mob won’t need to break down doors next time. They’ll be invited back in.
Discomfort is the point. This is what sedition looks like. Don’t let anyone reframe it as a misunderstanding, a tourist event, or a protest gone wrong. It was exactly what it looked like: a mob at the door of democracy, testing the hinges. And today, the hinges gave way.