One of the reasons I think some parts of the left have managed to botch their political response to 1/6 is because a key part of left-wing radicalization is cynicism about American civic religion.

I think there's a couple of reasons for this.

One, strict materialist interpretations in general really don't have much to say about religion. It's just not really part of the analysis.

I read a *lot* of commentary and analysis from the left. Most of it is very good and I agree with it! But even the good stuff... just doesn't really bring religion into its frame of analysis.

Two, part of the process of radicalization is... basically seeing the stories that America tells about itself as lies.

Even the more intellectual version of this -- nations as "imagined communities," to use Benedict Anderson's framework -- tends to downplay the importance of collective myths as a form of political belonging.

Three, because part of left-wing radicalization is seeing through the bullshit, so to speak, it can descend very quickly into aesthetics.

And by aesthetics, I mean bullshit hipsterism above all else.

This is why the dirtbag left, in both its East Coast and West Coast variants, is so goddamn toxic.

You combine all of those factors -- along with deep-rooted insecurities about the future of the left post-Trump -- and that's why a lot of left-wing commentary has landed flat post-1/6.

Because, in civic religious terms, it matters a LOT that it was the U.S. Capitol Building that was sacked, by the specific people who sacked it, for the specific reasons they sacked it, and that it happened live on TV.

The left ELECTEDS get all of this, incidentally. It's a big part of the reason they hold elected office in the first place! (Also a big part of the reason the congressional left electeds were almost certainly high up on the assassination lists.)

So, what is to be done?

It's going to be a hard needle to thread, but here's one potential way forward.

There seems to be genuine shock among many in the DC establishment -- and I'm using that term as broadly as possible to include electeds, staffers, think tankers, media figures, etc. -- that this happened.

Now, the cynical interpretation -- that this is f*cking ridiculous, it was evident to anyone who was paying attention that something like this was going to happen, and that this is critical blindness of a smug, self-satisfied worldview -- is correct here.

However, there's a potentially more politically effective way to frame this -- something along the lines of "we knew this was coming, welcome to the front lines, comrades!"

It may not be emotionally satisfying or even, strictly speaking, analytically correct, but it's a potential path forward to reframe the conversation.

I welcome other suggestions!

Because it seems to me that since 1/6 was a direct continuation of the police violence over the past year, and because hundreds of thousands of people were *FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE COPS* over the past year, there's room to maneuver here.