Note: With this web site update, I am restarting an old practice of mine of highlighting at least one column per week by someone else that I consider really thoughtful or otherwise worth reading. Herewith, my former colleague Tim Carney takes the single most thoughtful, balanced look at the January 6 rioters and the pardons thereof that I have yet seen:
(January 25, 2025, by Tim Carney in the Washington Examiner) Jan. 6, 2021, was not a day of peaceful protest at the Capitol. It was a riot, in which mobs of hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the seat of our government, smashed windows, and assaulted police with the intention of overturning Trump’s loss in the 2020 elections.
Many rioters came armed, some with guns, others with zip-tie handcuffs, with the intention of harming lawmakers and the vice president of the United States.
It is also true that some Jan. 6 defendants were overcharged and oversentenced. Likewise, Jan. 6 participants received more scrutiny and less mercy than did the looters and rioters during the protests against police in the summer of 2020.
…
The discussion about Jan. 6 has been dominated by extreme views and simplistic characterizations by both Trump’s supporters and his denigrators. A more nuanced picture is needed to judge Trump’s blanket pardon.
A violent riot
At the north door of the Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6, one protester — I don’t know his name — turned to the men around him and began plotting how to breach the line of Capitol Police and gain entrance to the Capitol. “Someone pull down the little guy,” I heard the man say as he pointed at the shortest police officer in the doorway, “then sweep the big guy’s leg, then bam, a wedge right through.”
This plan got scuttled, but nevertheless, the crowd persisted in trying to breach the line of police and storm the Capitol through this door.
Soon, protesters in tactical gear and wielding pepper spray began to push against the line of officers while ringleaders with megaphones yelled, “Push! Push!” encouraging the crowd to join in this effort physically to overwhelm the Capitol Police with violence.
Their aim was to break into the Capitol and disrupt the joint session of Congress convened to ratify Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. Based on conspiracy theories peddled by Trump, these people believed Biden had stolen the election.
At one point, a few of the rioters got tired of pushing and decided to pull — grabbing a U.S. Capitol Police officer and dragging him down the steps from the Senate door. Among the cheering protesters, one wielded a pitchfork.
This was the scene I took in for a couple of hours that afternoon, and this was one of the calmest, safest parts of the Capitol.
Elsewhere on the grounds, the protesters carried guns and smashed windows to break the building. One swiped a police billy club, which he used to beat officers. Others hunted down lawmakers and stole property.
Rioter Peter Stager wielded an American flag as a weapon and used it to beat a police officer who was lying prone on the ground. …
(Again, the full column is at this link.]