It's tempting to make comparisons between what happened at the Capitol and the various summer protests that turned violent in cities across the country. I've seen arguments from both left and right measuring police response or political justification. This gets us nowhere.

What happened this summer and what happened yesterday were fundamentally different kinds of events, with very different political and cultural contexts, security stakes, personal and property risks, and national implications. They are both "unrest" but that's it.

Security planners in DC should certainly have anticipated the possibility of more violence than prior years based on what happened this summer. But for those making cultural or political judgments, there is not much to conclude by comparing the two.

What made yesterday so outrageous was the context. Congress was deliberating over Electoral Votes for President of the United States. Attacking it was fruitless in the end. But the intent was to disrupt a central Constitutional process - the transfer of executive power.

The only time this summer that could have come close to this would have been if the unrest at Lafayette Square had so caught the Secret Service off guard that intruders ran en masse into the White House and threatened the President. That never came close to happening.

The violence this summer was more physically destructive but what happened yesterday was far more politically damaging.

The unrest this summer was the result of protests against police brutality that devolved in many cases to arson and rioting. That sort of thing has happened before - Cincy 2001, LA 1992, 1965-68, etc. Other than maybe Seattle/CHAZ, they were not trying to seize the government.