The Justice Department’s take, of course, fits the narrative favored by Democrats who reflexively describe the Capitol riot as an “insurrection.” But that term implies a level of planning and organization that does not fit the chaotic reality of what happened that day.

This brings us back to Aftergut, who thinks the seditious conspiracy convictions conclusively prove that the riot “was not spontaneous.” But even if you think the Proud Boys deliberately acted as agitators as part of an “implicit” plan to violently subvert democracy, most of the people who entered the Capitol grounds and the building itself that day seemed to be acting in the heat of the moment, driven by Trump’s stolen election fantasy. …

In other words, roughly two-thirds of the protesters who had been arrested were charged with nonviolent misdemeanors such as “entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds,” “disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds,” “disorderly conduct in a Capitol building,” and “parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.” And since the FBI prioritized the most serious and readily provable cases, the nonviolent portion of the entire group probably was larger.