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We need to stop imagining the Jan 6 fascists are purely "brainwashed," misguided, etc. Neither are they guided by white supremacy *only*.
They are largely a vanguard of principled petty bourgeois reactionaries who oppose democracy whether in its mass/working-class or liberal bourgeois form. They have allies in the most conservative and reactionary corners of the "big" bourgeoisie.
They see through a funhouse mirror the hypocrisy of liberal bourgeois democracy (no, the electoral college is not "sacred" 
). They also vehemently abhor the capacity of true democracy—socialism—to liberate oppressed, exploited workers upon whom their precarious fortunes depend.
). They also vehemently abhor the capacity of true democracy—socialism—to liberate oppressed, exploited workers upon whom their precarious fortunes depend.
To the extent liberal bourgeois democracy engages mass politics and gives even a highly attenuated and mostly suppressed voice to the working masses, that section of the petty bourgeoisie which turns to fascism regards liberal democracy as a betrayal. Only capital should speak.
The woman who died attacking the Capitol Building was a small business owner from San Diego. Yes, her head was full of conspiracist nonsense but she didn't just invent that lockdowns and worker protections might save lives but hurt her bottom line.
These people made calculated, self-serving, and terrifyingly clear-eyed decisions to destroy liberal bourgeois democracy on the basis that they deem it incapable of reliably serving *its* function of subduing the masses and putting capital before human life.
For them, the lockdowns, the rise of BLM protest, and the electoral repudiation of Trump which occured in large part due to Black voters all demonstrate clearly that America isn't working like it's "supposed" to.
We tend to think of the wacky nonsense in fascists' heads as a cause for their behavior but it's frequently a consequence of their aims. To value living human beings so cheaply requires a flight from reason. A whole ecosystem of conspiracy and superstition swells up to enable it.
Few people are cold enough to admit openly to others or themselves that they'll happily sacrifice humanity to Mammon. Dress it up in antivaxx mythology, QAnon conspiracy, or even true-believer white supremacy, and that's a whole other ballgame.
The deadly Jan 6 fiasco at the Capitol reveals the U.S. state's self-inflicted wounds when it comes to defending liberal democracy against the fascist threat. Although elected officials draw their legitimacy from the masses, they mostly fear us as much as the ragtag fascists do.
Hence: police forces riddled with fascist and white supremacist sympathies. Great for attacking Black Lives Matter protests, an incredible liability in terms of protecting Congress from fascist, white supremacist marauders.
Also: the Democratic Party's insistence that no counterprotests be organized against the fascists even though it is only masses of working people—not highly compromised police forces—that can reliably outnumber them and stop them in their tracks.
Cult conspiracy theory & white supremacy are rightly a *huge* part of the explanatory story but these fascists aren't *just* confused, brainwashed, racist, and in Trump's thrall. (Although they are all of those things.)
They've calculated that they stand to gain from shutting down whatever tiny influence that working people—especially working POC—have in liberal democracy and are desperate to prevent that voice from getting any bigger.
Working people can't expect the "big" bourgeoisie to defend us. They are also fearful of us and loathe to see us empowered. Yet, they cannot protect their own institutions from fascists without enlisting the masses in ways that would undermine bourgeois leadership over society.
The danger is that as the situation is pushed further and further to a point of crisis, the choice becomes one between fascism and profits, or socialism and human freedom. And from the point of view of capitalism, fascism will always emerge as the lesser evil of those two.
Such a point of crisis is increasingly unavoidable in the United States.
