Their stated aim was to forcibly overturn the results of a free and fair election, so that their leader, who lost, could remain in power.
In what universe is that not an insurrection?
It's not like they just protested outside and maybe broke a few windows with rocks or something. They actually broke through the police defense, broke into the building, and went looking for legislators, who had to be evacuated.
I'm sure one or two idiots out of thousands of people had (or at least expressed) bad intentions. What we're talking about here is the goals of the group.
What other intention did they have in pushing up the steps of the capitol and then inside? It’s not like two idiots did that. They were all attending a “Stop the Steal” rally and were told that their country was being stolen from them. They were told Pence must comply.
Their goal was to stop the counting of the electoral college votes and cause havoc. They were trying to literally subvert the federal government and our collective voting system.
> What other intention did they have in pushing up the steps of the capitol and then inside?
They very obviously didn't have a plan and were just seeing how far they could get. You are imputing too much direction and intelligence to these people.
> They were trying to literally subvert the federal government and our collective voting system.
The capitol doesn't work like a round of Capture the Flag in Halo; just standing there for a few minutes doesn't give you political power. Even the protestors were smart enough to comprehend this.
So you're supposing they were just trying to see how far they could get into the Capitol for what purpose? Fun? Lore? A game?
Nobody else is contending that the Capital is a "round" of capture the flag. You just brought that up for some bizarre reason. The timing of this directly lines up with when they were working to count the electoral college votes. More than a few people were violent toward the cops, and nobody has any reason to believe that they wouldn't have killed some Democratic congresspeople or Pence if they had been able to find them. At least one person did kill a cop and a dozen other cops were injured.
> There's zero evidence that they intended to do anything to legislators.
You mean other than:
(1) Many of them stating their imminent or thwarted intent to do so, either by chants, in interviews, in electronic messages, or otherwise;
(2) Them bringing weapons and restraints with which to do things to legislators;
(3) Them becoming increasingly agitated and violent at the prospects of targets of violence escaping, as occurred when people were evacuated from the Speakers Lobby shortly before the breakthrough where Ashli Babbitt was shot.
> This is the only actual violence that happened and it was an overreaction by the police.
Not true. The mob physically attacked the Capitol police, repeatedly, with a variety of weapons. One of the policemen, who was struck in the head by a rioter wielding a fire extinguisher, later died from his injuries.
> The mob physically attacked the Capitol police, repeatedly, with a variety of weapons.
Can you be more specific than "a variety of weapons"? Almost all interactions with the police seemed peaceful, bordering on friendly, barring the one who was hit on the head.
