While the former president, Giuliani and the various assortment of Republicans who spoke at the rally on January 6th should be held accountable for their slanderous and dishonest words, the rioters should individually be held accountable for their crimes.

In order to believe that the election was stolen, they had to ignore the reports of Reuters and the Associated Press and CNN and MSNBC and the New York Times and the National Review and NPR and even Fox News when they all reported that Joseph R. Biden won the election. They had to ignore the results of the recounts and lawsuits. They had to click past the fact-checkers on Facebook and Twitter dig into the depths of YouTube and find a pillow salesman to show them the way. They had to choose to take their cues from an anonymous source called Q.

The rioters then bought body armor and traveled to DC on their own dime. No one forced them or compelled them. While there they broke law as they had prepared to. Now, they don’t want to be held accountable for the chaos, death and destruction they made with their own hands.

If you are a grown adult, you know that attacking the Capitol is not a legitimate form of democracy or protest. If you cared about Blue Lives you wouldn’t intentionally harm a police officer.

Look, I am often not excited about who is voted in most of the time, but I doesn’t mean I get to construct an alternate reality where all of my wishes come true and none of my actions have consequences.