Watching President Trump’s mob smashing its way into the U.S. Congress on Jan. 6 triggered emotional and intellectual horror similar to that of seeing Notre Dame Cathedral engulfed in flames in April 2019. Because what was being destroyed in each case was not merely a beloved building but a cherished symbol of ideas central to our civilization.

The towering flames of 2019, however, were accidental and in another quarter of the globe. The destructive violence of the president’s 2021 insurgents was, by contrast, here at home and deliberately incited by the political leader who swore to protect and defend those very ideas, codified in the Constitution, that were being assaulted.