It's incredibly easy to imagine a scenario, maybe as early as 2024, when a GOP-controlled Congress can and does try to abrogate an election result in earnest, and people embark on mass action to oppose it, including taking their protests to the Capitol & legislative chambers.

The kind of rhetoric being thrown around right now - "insurrection," "terrorism" - not to mention the measures that are being pushed in response all but guarantee those protesters will be treated as invading "seditionists" and be put down with overwhelming violence.

This is why we have to be careful not to lump the *cause* of rioters/protesters (in this case, heinous & anti-democratic) with the act of protest itself, nor take the most dangerous, violent participants as a blanket stand-in for the entire crowd.

In a time of panic, fear, we don't tend to think about things like outcomes or long-term ramifications. and we're sorry for it later. And so you also get left-wing lawmakers now trying to set the precedent of expelling Congresspeople for objecting to election results....

...which will very obviously be used against them at a later date, as well as the Democrats more broadly.