I don't think anyone can honestly say they know what's going on anymore. Between social media providing positive feedback for any crack-brained idiocy anyone cares to float, trolling sites like QAnon ("Let's see if we can come up with something so stupid that NO-ONE will believe it!), deliberate mis-information campaigns by foreign adversaries, and broadcast media news just re-packaging whatever's been trending online for the last 24 hours and sensationalizing it to provoke fear and outrage, reliable information is getting hard to come by.
As bad as things are, I cling to a glimmer of hope that things aren't as bad as we've been led to think. I would not deny for a second that there are some seriously bad actors out there, heavily armed and bent on violent insurrection. I begin to think, though, that they are a TINY minority, relatively easy to track and neutralize, given the resources of the U.S. surveillance and law enforcement apparatus.
The crowd at the Capitol on 1/6 in many instances struck me as feckless at best. Almost all of the crowd remained outside the Capitol. Of those who got inside, there were shots of some of them walking single-file through the Rotunda, staying on the designated walkways. Once in, most of them seemed to have no idea what to do next. Next day, they were all gone. Over the last weekend, many state Capitols were locked down and barricaded, expecting violent demonstrations by armed rioters. At a few Capitols maybe a dozen of them showed up, ludicrously outnumbered by National Guardsmen and police on duty. Of course, they were quiet and polite as could be. I'm convinced that nearly all of these "revolutionaries" would, at the first sign of serious push-back by the authorities, vanish like snowflakes on a hot griddle and be content to sit and grumble at home.
I've been wrong before. I hope I'm right on this one.