General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: My wife and I attended the "Stop the Steal" Trump Insurrection on Wednesday (worth the read) [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)I wish all the thousands were going to be tracked to their homes and prosecuted for something, since I don't believe any are innocent of very bad intentions, whether they admit that to themselves or not.
It would have helped any of these shocked "patriots" enormously to take time out from their favorite social media babble to connect to the real world. It's just not realistic to expect to break into the Capitol with a violent mob intent on overthrowing our election without legal repercussions, even if all they do inside is shit on the floor and track it around while taking selfies.
They are talking at this point of ultimately prosecuting hundreds there to do real, violent harm, but not all the thousands of idiot "patriots" come at the call of their president to join in the violence and insurrection the serious terrorists in the militant groups were promising.
If some knew their behaviors were motivated above all by fear and racism and went to take the government to impose white supremacy, those could perhaps be prosecuted for hate crimes, but that's not the case for the vast majority.
Authoritarians are specifically severely lacking in insight into themselves, which is how they got into this mess. They really do believe they're patriots answering their leader's call to save their nation from evil conspiracies, and most would sincerely deny racism has anything to do with it, though of course it's a huge factor.
Hopefully at least most will be forced to realize most around them see them very differently.