Saying that the rioters did what they did because they were lied to by people they trusted strikes me as wrong. Storming the Capitol in support of Trump isn't something you do because of a mistaken assessment of factual data.

I quote this a lot, but Justice Charles Evans Hughes once told William O. Douglas that on the Supreme Court level of jurisprudence, "ninety percent of any decision is emotional," and that rationality serves merely a supporting role.

Ninety percent is an exaggeration, but not a huge one, and it applies far beyond SCOTUS.

When random lefties or liberals get mad at me because of something I tweet here, it's rarely because of a factual disagreement—far more often it's because the emotional register of my tweet contradicts what they expected from someone on their side.

People went to the Capitol not because of a rational analysis of fact, but because doing so satisfied them emotionally. If you want to understand who they are, how they were influenced, and why they did what they did, start there.

Someone in replies said that the emotional stuff is hung on a scaffolding of facts, and though quibbling about metaphors is rarely productive, I'd flip that—the supposed facts are hung on a scaffolding constructed out of emotion and emotional resonance.

And yes, of course, the right wing media and Trump and Qanon and all that contribute powerfully to, and help to shape, these folks' emotional state.

But peeling them away isn't a matter of factual rebuttal, as anyone who has a family member on the other side of one of these divides knows.

I remember back in student government after a meeting one of the other members was talking to the student newspaper about a vote we'd just taken, and he made a factual claim about the underlying issue that I'd completely dismantled during our debate.

I overheard, and interrupted. I told him I'd corrected that error, and said "didn't you hear me?" He said, with a smile, "Angus, if I listened to you, I'd never vote against you."

We all do that—listen with rapt attention to the arguments that support what we already believe, and tune out when someone we think is full of it starts making a good point. (All of us. Not all of us all the time, but all of us.)