J6 was not an “insurrection” by any definition. It barely qualifies as an “attack”, at least as we commonly understand the word. It has none of the elements of any of the following legitimate attacks:
The 1954 attack where four Puerto Rican Americans fired guns in the House of Representatives, injuring five congressmen (the four shooters received prison sentences, but President Carter commuted one of their sentences in 1977, and granted clemency to the other three in 1979).
The 1971 bombing of the Capitol building by a group calling itself the Weather Underground – they said it was in protest of the ongoing U.S.-supported bombing of Laos.
The November 1983 bombing that through the second floor of the Senate wing of the Capitol. A group calling itself the Armed Resistance Unit later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in retaliation for military actions in Grenada and Lebanon. Seven people were eventually arrested in connection with the attack.
The History Channel describes J6 this way:
“On January 6, 2021, on a day when representatives met to formalize the presidential election results, hundreds of rioters supporting President Donald Trump and seeking to overthrow President-Elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory pushed through police barricades and stormed the Capitol, some smashing windows to enter its halls. A protester who was shot by police, died in the chaos, and more than 100 police were injured.”
I like how they use the inflammatory word “overthrow”, especially when most of these people simply wanted Congress to do their constitutional duties of due care. While there have been about 700 arrests, the charges against these people have mostly been for trespassing and other minor crimes. At least the History Channel did note it was “hundreds of people” out of the tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of people at the rally.
But there are comparable events we can use as baselines.
Compare the J6 numbers and related reactions to:
The violent DC riots on Inauguration Day in 2017.
Not really a riot, but Congressional Republicans were fired upon at a baseball practice in June of 2017. Representative Steve Scalise was seriously wounded.
The storming of the Capitol by thousands of left-wing protestors and banging on the doors of the Supreme Court building during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.
Then factor in the violent protests, looting and arson carried out by BLM/ANTIFA for months on end during 2020 in Seattle, Portland, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Waukesha and even Salt Lake, for goodness sake.
But in reaction, as they say in Sesame Street lingo, one of these things is not like the others. These activities barely drew the media’s interest except when they felt the need to excuse or legitimize the “mostly peaceful” violence.
Why would that be, one might ask?
Well, there was a Republican in the White House in 1954 (Eisenhower), 1971 (Nixon) and in 1983 (Reagan). Of course, President Trump was in the White House from January 2017 through January of 2021 – but Biden was positioned to be inaugurated within in weeks if January 6th and the Democrats controlled Congress.
Could it be that attacks on Republican governments are legitimized while protests of Democrat regimes are seen as insurrections and personal affronts?
The evidence would seem to indicate that might be the case.
There is certainly an air of “How dare they?” and “The peasants are revolting!” permeating the hyperbolic Democrat rhetoric about “democracy” and “sanctity” and their sudden respect of constitutional procedure (after routinely violating the same in the run up to the 2020 election), especially since the Democrats didn’t seem particularly concerned about the attacks on the federal facilities in Seattle and Portland or even the fire set at St. John’s Church during the BLM “protests” in DC.
In truth, none of this is about an “attack on democracy”, it is about a bunch of sanctimonious, insecure, yet powerful Democrats who are deathly afraid (or know) something was wrong with the 2020 elections, that there is a real possibility they serve an illegitimate president and administration, that somehow, somewhere, there was cheating (to their benefit) and before it is discovered and proven, any who question them must be rooted out, punished and silenced.
This is nothing to do with the J6 protesters or those who chose to riot, but it has everything to do with a corrupt political party hell bent on covering their tracks at any cost to America.