The timing for the thugs that stormed the capitol could not have been worse for them. On the day that the progressive nation was revelling in the historic election of Georgia’s first ever Black senator as the Democratic party reclaimed control of the U.S. Senate, rioters waved Confederate flags as others shouted “white power” at a Black photographer documenting the mayhem. The treasonous rioters stole the spotlight from the celebration of American progress with a horror show—Nightmare on Capitol Hill. America saw a portrait of Trumpism that forced some of the president’s devout loyalists like Lindsay Graham and Kelly Loeffler to run for cover and retreat from their insane objections to the Electoral College vote.

By Thursday, Wayne Ridge, a Republican county commissioner in Michigan’s Eaton County, started watching a show on pirates. “I have stopped watching the news,” he said. “From my point of view, you know, we lost the election and then we lost the senate as well. It’s depressing. I have gotten some information by phone about some Antifa people at the capitol building."

“Do you really believe that?” I asked him.