The Atlantic

It Was Supposed to Be So Much Worse

And the threat to the U.S. government hasn’t passed.
Source: Shay Horse / NurPhoto / Getty

Updated at 8:45 a.m. ET on April 21, 2021.

On the West Lawn of the Capitol Wednesday, a man in a pom-pom beanie clamored for blood. “Execute the traitors!” he shouted into a megaphone. “I wanna see executions!”

The man got the deaths he wanted, if not the executions. Four rioters died as a result of Wednesday’s insurrection at the Capitol.* Some of them had bigger plans too: Before the protest, pro-Trump radicals had posted online about their intentions to kill Vice President Mike Pence. They brought zip ties and wore Kevlar vests. Rioters erected a wooden gallows next to the Capitol Reflecting Pool, and police discovered two pipe bombs on Capitol Hill.

The violence could have been even worse. Some of the rioters clearly wanted it to be. And Wednesday’s attack may to Washington around Inauguration Day.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic3 min read
They Rode the Rails, Made Friends, and Fell Out of Love With America
The open road is the great American literary device. Whether the example is Jack Kerouac or Tracy Chapman, the national canon is full of travel tales that observe America’s idiosyncrasies and inequalities, its dark corners and lost wanderers, but ult
The Atlantic6 min read
There’s Just One Problem With Gun Buybacks
One warm North Carolina fall morning, a platoon of Durham County Sheriff’s Office employees was enjoying an exhibit of historical firearms in a church parking lot. They were on duty, tasked with running a gun buyback, an event at which citizens can t
The Atlantic8 min readAmerican Government
The Return of the John Birch Society
Michael Smart chuckled as he thought back to their banishment. Truthfully he couldn’t say for sure what the problem had been, why it was that in 2012, the John Birch Society—the far-right organization historically steeped in conspiracism and oppositi

Related Books & Audiobooks