^ I had seen these things in another footage: I was amazed at how the mob crushing things and looting places mixed in with the respectful citizen, not wanting to hurt anyone or destroy anything.
They were so convinced that the election was a fraud that they wanted to -save- the US, not to attempt a coup. They believed they were right. This bizarre mix of patriotism and disrupting their own democratic processes is extremely interesting to investigate.
And extremely important.
I was expecting it from people staying at home and sometimes waking up to the violent groups, and be puzzled and amazed by what they couldn't see, but I couldn't fathom this sentiment being present in the same people who were breaking in. But there it was. How many of you had foreseen this? I bet none.
Also, this unexpected glimpse into how many of those minds work should make everyone else stop. As deranged and misguided as they are, -they are not-, for the most part, the fascist scum that has been depicted.
You have seen it with LeV here: he was not antidemocratic, he was deeply convinced that he was right and defending freedom, to the point of cognitive dissonance.
Let's not make the same mistake in the opposite direction. Because as long as people will make that mistake, many normal, fundamentally good-willed, people will be equated, and thus encouraged to ally, with the non-democratic, violent, fascist groups. This was true in June, this is true now.
I'll quote from the article:
"The radical fringe is a cause for concern. The thousands of regular people whipped into a murderous rage is the real nightmare"
The situation is dire, but this is not the manifestation of a nightmare. It's the exact opposite, it's the way out, the proof itself that the nightmare can be averted. Most of those people have deeply-rooted ideas of peace and liberty that are probably stronger than "the end justify the means". We (and I say "we" because this mentality does exist elsewhere too) don't need to change their minds (which is an herculean, often impossible task), we just have to generate a distance between them and the violent groups, to show them there are other possibilities.
Of course this means being able to see them as brothers and not as enemies.
But let's work on that!