How can we best understand a failed putsch? When thousands of rightists marched on and breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 as legislators debated the certification of the November election results, it was the most dramatic threat posed to the orderly transition of power since the United States became a multiracial democracy in the 1960s.
Judged by the lofty objectives of its most militant supporters, however, Jan. 6 was a disappointment. Although demonstrators rapidly overwhelmed the unprepared U.S. Capitol Police and the initial reinforcements from Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police, and ransacked much of the building, they were unable to kill or capture the vice president or legislators, hold the Capitol against the additional forces sent to clear it, or prevent Congress from certifying the election results in the early morning of Jan. 7.
