As ridiculous and absurd as this riot was — and it was, 100%, and we should mock them until the end of time for it, the Viking hat guy was just the tip of the iceberg — let’s also not forget how deadly serious it was and how much worse it could have been.
This is a comment I made after doing some research into just how heavily armed this crowd was, in response to a know-nothing politics troll who was trying to downplay its severity.
And is this list of weaponry exhaustive? Almost certainly not. There was simply not enough police manpower on the ground that day to detain and pat down everyone involved.
The temptation will be for this event to be memory-holed. Already has been on the Right. It was simply too vast and egregious to be explained away. Instead it’s on to the next bright shiny object about what AOC tweeted and where exactly she was that day (she was on the Capitol grounds, but not in the building itself — thankfully — because yes, these rioters were on a manhunt for her too, absolutely).
This was the most egregious assault on the idea of democratic self-rule in our nation’s history.
And there are no signs of a reckoning anywhere on the Right. Instead it’s full speed ahead with a shameless nationwide assault on voting rights.
It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
