One of the most aggravating back-and-forths I’ve seen on Twitter, Facebook, cable television, and even in op-eds has been over just who was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and what they were doing.
The most common false claim is by Trump defenders who say that what happened was a peaceful but silly protest.
It’s silly to select a photo of a moment on January 6 during which people were just standing around, and then suggest that the Capitol riot was not a riot. It was a riot.https://t.co/ZZbKVsrvQP
— Byron York (@ByronYork) December 24, 2021
There was a riot. People smashed windows and assaulted police for hours in order to break into the Capitol. I was there, and I saw it. Countless videos have documented it.
What’s more, some people were armed and stated their intentions to kidnap, kill, or harm members of Congress or Vice President Mike Pence. There were many people there on Jan. 6, 2021, committing very serious crimes, which can fairly be called anything from rioting to terrorism.
Would they have actually done it? Did they really have the means and the intent? I know a lot of perceptions about the riots are colored by how silly it all looked, and how many of the folks there were clearly just doing live-action role-playing. But as a rule, we don’t give the benefit of the doubt to people who say they intend to kill the Speaker of the House while breaking into the Capitol.
But then, was the event an “insurrection” as the liberal media relentlessly call it?
At the time, I called it an insurrection because I personally saw many rioters and trespassers stating that they were breaking into the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. I hesitate now to use that word, however, because I don’t think the attempt had any chance of succeeding. It was more like a violent spasm of idiocy and malice.
But it all gets more complicated. Thousands of Trump supporters marched from the White House to the Capitol and remained peaceful throughout the entire event. This is part of the equation that people forget. I talked to dozens of those peaceful protesters on the Capitol lawn. They had passed the security perimeter the same way I did: by walking through openings in barriers that no one from law enforcement was trying to guard.
Even some of the people inside the Capitol never pushed past any officers, broke anything, stole anything, or even threatened violence. Plenty of video shows that some protesters just walked right on in, looked around, and eventually left.
So we should be careful not to assume that everyone at or even in the Capitol that day was a rioter or a peaceful protester. Some didn’t even really trespass, assuming they didn’t know any better about where they were and were not supposed to be.
But without falsely claiming everyone there was a rioter, we still should still call it a riot, the same way we use that word for the hundreds of protests from 2020 that turned violent. That’s because the riot is the most notable and extraordinary thing that occurred in Washington that day.
