Well, keep in mind how much footage there was of the capitol police letting “rioters” in and escorting them throughout the building as if they were on tour. I remember reading that there were opportunities to shore up the area out of concern there would be riots, since it was fairly obvious that there was going to be discontent, but the democrats declined.
I will make the standard disavowal that the riots shouldn’t have happened, and those involved should be charged and prosecuted accordingly. But Trump very specifically said to protest peacefully during his speech that day.
My take on all of this has always been that the establishment hates Trump, sees him as a legitimate threat to their way of doing business, and have always exaggerated and highlighted anything they could to make him look like the most evil and incompetent person possible. I don’t think you could neutrally look at all the evidence and think otherwise. I was a Democrat supporter before Trump came along. When I saw how united and unfair the portrayal of the man was by democrats and mass media, I realized the extent of corruption in the system, and more was slowly revealed over the next decade.
They want you to hate anyone who would upset the status quo. It’s the same thing they did to Tulsi Gabbard. Anyone who is anti-war, pro-America, and is for populism and against globalism. Just watch for yourself. These people get fat off of selling Americans out to foreign interests and by feeding the war machine. They can’t do that if we stop playing world police and start focusing on initiatives that improve the value of local labor. It requires us to rip up free trade deals and to stop funding military and PMCs, where a lot of elites make big money. That’s why populists get shut out.
Jan 6 was a handful of people doing something stupid. They’ve turned it into a giant cross to lay on the entire moderate and conservative voter base. If you think that’s reasonable, you’re being tribal, not rational.
Keep in mind this works both ways. The progressive outrage machine is arguably even more active than the conservative machine. Look at the reaction to Sound of Freedom. An extremely neutral movie when you consider the politics of its content. But the main actor is a conspiracy theorist, so I guess that means the movie is a far right propaganda vehicle? By that logic most movies are far left propaganda vehicles.
A similar phenomenon has always followed Trump around. Media gets insane hits for anti-Trump content. Some people built entire careers off of reporting on his tweets. The more shocking and exaggerated they could make the content, the more money came flooding in. That’s why so much of the coverage of Trump was sensationalized and uncharitable. It’s also why moderates couldn’t help but root for him. There’s only so much the established powers that be can lie about someone before you want to support him regardless of his character flaws. It helped that his policies were generally great, focusing on anti-war and populist market adjustments.
This is why you should always take the news with a grain of salt. They’re all out to make money, and they all have agendas.