The Atlantic
Why the Rioters Thought They Could Get Away With It
Trump told supporters that loyalty to his cause is more important than fidelity to the law, and they took his message to heart.
January 12, 2021
Scott Olson / Getty
Delivering accountability for all of those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 will be challenging—but catching some of them will be very easy, because they made it so.
One of the things about last week’s attempted coup that continues to boggle the mind is the almost naive impunity many rioters showed. They stormed into the seat of the American government unashamed, unabashed, and many of them undisguised (though perhaps costumed). There may have been, at that moment, no place in America with a higher concentration of photojournalists and reporters who could and would record what happened. Despite their disdain for the press, that was a feature and not a bug for some of the rioters.