The Mindbogglingly Dumb Charade Comparing Every Protest at the Capitol to the Jan. 6 Riot

We live in profoundly stupid times.

The Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol was not just a singularly tragic moment in American history, it was also broadcast live by international television channels and online — not to mention the plethora of photo and video evidence promulgated by federal prosecutors and the Jan. 6 House Select Committee. Much of this evidence came from the protesters’ own social media posts and cell phones, as they proudly documented themselves assaulting police officers, breaking windows and doors, trespassing in congressional offices, and forcing the House and Senate members to hastily evacuate to safety for hours before they could return to certify Joe Biden’s Electoral College vote victory over former President Donald Trump.

It’s not an exaggeration to say it might be one of the most well-documented crime scenes ever.

So one might think anyone trying to make comparisons between any other event and January 6 would remember the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of photos and videos that showed the world in full-color, time-stamped horror what that day looked like.

For example, it was understandable that many news reports mentioned Jan. 6 when supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, spurred on by his baseless claims of election fraud that echoed similar conspiratorial nonsense spouted by Trump, stormed congressional buildings in the Brazilian capital and violently clashed with police. Many of the Brazilian rioters were also busted by their own social media posts similar to the Jan. 6 rioters.

But blanket declarations that any protest at the Capitol is anything at all like Jan. 6 are almost always completely detached from factual reality — an issue that unfortunately seems to have little deterrent effect.

On Wednesday, radical group called “Jewish Voices for Peace” protested at the Cannon House Office building, part of the Capitol complex where some of the congressional members’ and committee offices are located. The protesters wore shirts demanding a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, chanted, unfurled a banner, and sat on the floor in the building’s rotunda.

Capitol Police swiftly moved in and arrested the protesters, citing rules that prohibit demonstrations inside buildings in the Capitol complex.

Thus far, news reports and content shared on social media show the protesters yelling but not assaulting any police officers or otherwise committing any acts of vandalism or violence.

That didn’t stop multiple prominent voices on the right from waving around Jan. 6 as a cudgel to demand that these protesters be charged as “insurrectionists” and harshly punished with long prison sentences.

On The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter, Citizen Free Press called the protest “a well-organized insurrection,” a label also used by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). In another tweet, Citizen Free Press claimed the protest “makes J6 look like a walk in the park” and that the police were “overwhelmed.”

Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller questioned “how many thousands of years of jail sentences will DOJ be handing out?”

Conservative influencer Collin Rugg shed some crocodile tears for what he called a “[s]ad day for democracy” and suggested that the protesters should be viewed as insurrectionists. (“Are we only allowed to call people like this insurrections [sic] when they are Donald Trump supporters?”)

Rugg posted another video of the protest and quoted Greene calling the protesters “insurrectionists” and demanding they be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The patent, craven dishonesty in these comments is even more egregious when viewed in light of these same voices complaining that the actual Jan. 6 rioters were being unfairly treated, were “peaceful,” merely “tourists,” and other such nonsense that is easily contradicted by the photo and video evidence.

This specific accusation of “insurrectionist” deserves to be called out and mocked for the utter nonsense it is.

For the sake of argument, reasonable people might disagree whether or not that label was fair to apply to the broad group of Jan. 6 rioters.

It’s a clearer case to argue that the members of the Proud Boys and other groups (who actively plotted beforehand how to breach the Capitol building, gathered weapons and body armor, communicated with Trump advisers to discuss strategy, and did in fact assault police and break down physical barriers to breach the building) were “insurrectionists” — they were trying to disrupt the Electoral College count and overthrow the election to support Trump illegally remaining in power.

In contrast, Trump supporters who had been told by conservative media that the election was stolen and showed up on Jan. 6 to protest but didn’t actually assault any police officers or commit any acts of violence aren’t necessarily insurrectionists, especially those who never even entered the building.

Wednesday’s protesters who entered the Cannon building were not attempting to disrupt any official federal government proceeding (the basis for many of the charges against Jan. 6 rioters), overturn any election, or otherwise interrupt any congressional vote or action.

They were just…protesting.

That’s not an “insurrection.” (It’s a more minor issue but it should be emphasized that the Cannon building is the offices, not the Capitol itself where the House and Senate meet and vote, moving this even further away from being an insurrection.)

Moreover, the public is normally allowed into the Cannon building; I’ve visited many times myself. The protesters did not break any laws by merely entering the building and they didn’t have to assault any police officers or knock down police barricades to enter. It was the activity of protesting and blocking the ability of others to move through the area that is not allowed inside the building that triggered the police to arrest them.

In contrast, due to the security threats at the time, the presence of Vice President Mike Pence and all of the members of Congress, and the important official business of the Electoral College certification, the Capitol was closed to the public on Jan. 6, 2021.

And the accusation that the police were “overwhelmed” does not match what video actually showed: Capitol Police moving in quickly and arresting protesters by the dozens with zip ties, without violent resistance. Some of the video clips, like in one of Rugg’s tweets above, show a protester yelling and physically struggling as he was arrested, but he wasn’t physically assaulting the cops and the other protesters are not coming to his aid to attack the cops and thwart his arrest.

Calling this protest Jan. 6 or an “insurrection” was stupid, and it’s not even a new kind of stupid.

For the past few years, conservatives have been comparing all sorts of protests to Jan. 6 any time the protesters are on the left, while deliberately ignoring the missing elements of 1) widespread violence, including assaults on police officers, and 2) a currently ongoing official government proceeding that the protesters are attempting to disrupt. In April 2022, Florida State Rep. Randy Fine (R) claimed that a peaceful protest by Democratic legislators regarding a redistricting bill was “far worse than what happened in Washington on January 6.”

The reality, as shown in the photo and video evidence, was that those Florida Democrats sat on the floor, chanted, and participated in other activities that never included assaulting any cops, breaking any windows, or anything else that was non-peaceful.

Anyone with at least one functioning eye and a dozen or so brain cells can look at video from these incidents and understand they are just not in the same category as Jan. 6 at all. The question is, are the commentators making these mindbogglingly stupid claims stupid themselves, or do they think you are?

UPDATE 10/20/2023: Several users on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter are quite incensed over news reports that apparently three people were arrested Thursday for assaulting police officers at this protest. That does not change what I wrote above.

The reality is that any sort of physical resistance to being arrested is often initially charged as “assaulting police officers,” even if those charges are later dropped. But the broader point is that none of the video from Thursday’s protest comes anywhere close to the sheer scale, mayhem, danger, and widespread violence of Jan. 6, 2021.

Not even close.

An individual protester yelling and struggling as cops slap restraints on his wrists is just not the same as a mob knocking down metal barricades, breaking windows and doors, shoving cops down stairs, spraying cops with bear spray and other toxins, bludgeoning cops with flagpoles, crushing cops in doorways, and all the other bloody violence well-documented on Jan. 6 from multiple angles that resulted in multiple deaths, traumatic brain injuries, fractured bones, and other career-ending injuries.

It’s painfully stupid to even have to point that out, but that’s our current political atmosphere (it should be noted that many of the people angrily tweeting about this article have paid “verified” blue check accounts).

Moreover, as repeatedly emphasized above, Thursday’s protest was not disrupting any official federal government action in an attempt to overturn an election. It was not an insurrection, period.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.