Somewhere between rebellion and protest

This year has seen its share of violent protest. But the one that will cement Trump's legacy as the worst president the US has had was the storming of the Capitol on January 6th, "Insurrection Day". 

Much hand-wringing is going on about the security failure that allowed a violent mob to infiltrate the House and Senate chambers and ransack Congressional offices.  Those who see the event as an organized attack think the Capitol police and the Sergeants at Arms were to blame. Others see the event rather as a group of fervent Trump supporters, whipped into a frenzy by the Trumps, Giuliani, Guilfoyle and others, who collectively and spontaneously decided to turn a rally into a violent protest.  

The reality probably lies between those two points of view. On the one hand there was clearly no clear over-arching organization; once inside the Capitol many were simply wandering around like tourists; some were acting out their rage; and others, like the twist-tie guy, had clearly come with some sort of plan, although not well thought through.  Had they been better organised the rioters might well have assassinated a large number of Democratic members of the House and the Senate, and perhaps some GOP members they thought had betrayed the cause besides. As terrible as the events were, we can at least be thankful that this was a hodgepodge of grievance filled groups that coordinated internally, but not externally. 

That being said these groups are not going to fade away with the change in administrations and they will  surely see the benefit of forming a broader coalition of insurrectionists. That being the case, the country's law enforcement and security apparatus needs to take domestic terrorism much more seriously than it has.  

I suspect they have not, in part, because of "American Exceptionalism"; while Washington today looks like the Green Zones in Kabul or Baghdad, few in law enforcement were willing to admit that the gravest threat to American democracy was from Americans at home rather than from abroad. Yet what we are now confronting is a domestic jihad; groups that are indoctrinating like minded, disaffected and angry people to join their violent cause. 

Until the country finds a way of defusing the righteous anger that so many see as crucial to motivating their supporters and close the gap between the two parallel informational universes in which we now live, the problem will not dissipate. Without common cause to focus our attention on a single unifying objective unrest and violence will rise in intensity and sophistication.  

 "American Exceptionalism" contributed to the country's failure to understand the tribal and religious jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a consequence, struggled to contain it. As The Troubles show all to well, resentment and grievance persists across generations. Lessons for dealing with terrorism have been learned the hard way by the US Army and the Marines in the country's two ongoing foreign wars. It's time to bring those lessons to bear at home.