There's probably an urgent piece to be written on this as insurrection vs terrorism, and especially the legal implications of both, but the terminology debate obscures the greater problem: police forces in DC had the tools, information, and power to stop this, and chose not to.

One of the more immediate remedies is statehood: if DC were a state (the federal district shrunk to the White House & the Capitol), it's Governor-Mayor could have called in its own national guard.

But also: Mayor Bowser downplayed the risk, & didn't deploy against it beforehand.

There's ample video evidence of Capitol Police not only falling back, but opening barricades and taking selfies with the insurrectionists inside. The slight number of arrests, combined with some deployment of teargas & a shooting, muddles it, but this was an acquiesced-to breach.

If police as currently constituted are unwilling to hold the line against an armed takeover, then they have failed in their most justified reason for existence. That these same police forces kill with impunity against far lesser intrusions highlights that today was a choice.

The temptation, ever-prominent in the last 20 years, is to give security forces greater budgets, power, authority, and prominence. Yet they had all they needed today, except a willingness to use it against a clear threat to democracy and to the people they were charged to protect

As it stands, what the anti-democracy right has learned over the last few months is that it could likely force a change in a closer election, that it can get away with mass armed demonstrations if the police don't object, and that it can continue to use violence to political ends

Prosecutions of people who assaulted the capitol today may mitigate those lessons somewhat. But the failure to meet a mass threat with massive state force today means that there will be next times, ones that draw from the experience of today and push further. It's bleak.

This is a hard political problem to solve, though there are steps. "Only looking forward" or "healing the nation" won't do shit. Increasing the power of police will only increase harm against regular people, without meaningfully changing police priorities or ability to stop this.

@threadreaderapp unroll

longer piece coming

here's the longer piece! My bit is towards the end https://luke.substack.com/p/since-the-election-extremism-has?unlock=true