A popular meme format at the moment is to juxtapose two pictures with the caption ‘How it started / How it’s going’. The first image shows the pride, and the second shows the fall. It’s a modern format for an extremely ancient narrative arc: hubris and nemesis. On the night of 6 January 2021, a version of this meme circulated online with two images of the west front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The first showed it in sunshine, decked with red, white and blue banners for a presidential inauguration, and looking spruce. The second showed it as it appeared that evening, in the twilight, wreathed in smoke, its terraces overrun with belligerent crowds, its balustrades ragged with partisan flags. Against the gloaming, an orange glow can be seen within the Capitol dome – just the building’s normal lighting, normally one of its more appealing features, suggestive of a lantern or beacon for democracy; but in the smoke, amid the obvious anger and chaos, it took on the complexion of arson.