Axios: “Wednesday’s assault on the U.S. Capitol was an appalling shock to most Americans, but to far-right true believers it was the culmination of a long-unfolding epic. A growing segment of the American far right, radicalized via social media and private online groups, views anyone who bucks President Trump’s will as evil. That includes Democrats, the media, celebrities, judges and officeholders – even conservatives, should they cross the president.”

“A great many Trump supporters spent recent weeks on heavily pro-Trump platforms like TheDonald.win and Parler openly discussing coming to Washington on Jan. 6 to launch an attack on the government. Often the idea was discussed in vague or winking terms; other times, users explicitly called for elected officials to be abducted and executed. Users on more mainstream platforms talked up plans to come to Washington on Jan. 6 to simply protest the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Trump egged them on, repeatedly calling on supporters to swarm Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. Adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, who imagine a vast deep-state cabal of pedophiles arrayed against Trump, have for years insisted that a moment of reckoning for their enemies is imminent. QAnon believers have largely accepted that Trump is waiting for the right time to bring a hammer down on his enemies (or already has, in secret). But time is running out. Because Congress was slated to officially certify Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, the day became the focal point of a new conspiracy theory – that Trump would reveal mountains of evidence of electoral fraud, somehow invalidate Biden’s win, and secure a second term.”