John DeVore, writing on his site on Medium, echoes a lot of what I think about the event at the Capitol.

It wasn’t a coup. It was more like a “fuck you.” A half-ass uprising fueled by revenge and hysteria. A theatrical production of Les Miserables KKK. There are photos of armed men dressed for battle. These men are not anchored in reality. They are fools. Dangerous, volatile fools.

Right. They were hooligans. They were not some sort of organized coup attempt. It wasn’t even a protest because they didn’t even have a position other than keep Trump in office, I guess?

They were loyal Trump supporters doing what they were told to do, which was to cause a ruckus and maybe scare a liberal. Look at the faces of these people. They’re having a good time. It’s a vacation. Burning down democracy is fun. Their king gave them permission to live a consequence-free life and they ran with it.

DeVore has a hard time trying to describe the mob.

No. This wasn’t a coup. Nor was it a protest. I’m reluctant to call it a riot. A riot is a bit more spontaneous than this shitshow. But I still don’t think these mobs breaking into the Capitol were organized. It was pure emotion. A stampede. A herd of beasts electrified by privilege and power and rage. Maybe it was a half-riot. A half-riot, half-melee.

I also don’t think this was terrorism, either. Terrorists usually have goals. Even Bin Laden or McVeigh had messages. This malignant mass panic attack was abuse. The only goal here was to maybe bully a few people into thinking “maybe if I had voted for Trump this wouldn’t be happening!” The only message a muddled demand to speak to the manager or else.

Trump, obviously did not think any of this through.

He didn’t plot a coup. He told a bunch of suck-ups and laidback turncoats to defend his honor and fight a hopeless battle. They answered his weak call. He blushed and thanked them. But nothing changed except, I suspect, turning more weary Americans against the MAGA cause.

Aside from the fact that there were several people there who actually wanted to kill members of Congress and the Vice President, it mostly was a fine example of white privilege.

We are lucky it was not worse.