January 6 happened because a lot of different institutions failed - not all at once, but they failed. Over 10,000 people showed up. The Proud Boys marched in organized formations. Oath Keepers came in "stacks" with tactical gear. Stewart Rhodes was coordinating on the ground. Dominic Pezzola smashed that first window with a stolen riot shield at 2:11 p.m., and once that window broke, the whole thing accelerated.
What saved us that day wasn't some invisible guardrail. It was Eugene Goodman physically redirecting the mob away from the Senate. It was Lt. Michael Byrd making a split-second decision. It was Capitol Police officers fighting hand-to-hand against organized groups. It was luck, basically.
The good news: prosecutions worked. You can still convict seditious conspiracy. A jury in 2023 said Enrique Tarrio and others plotted to oppose the authority of the government, and he got 22 years. Stewart Rhodes got 18. The courts processed hundreds of cases.
The bad news: Trump watched it on TV. He delayed calling for peace. He didn't face charges. And now I'm supposed to believe the system held because a New York judge gave him an unconditional discharge? Because Jack Smith's report on classified documents is sealed forever?
The institutions that held weren't the top ones. They were the bottom ones - the cops, the prosecutors, the juries, the judges who actually sentenced people. But those bottom-level guardrails can only work if the top ones don't collapse. And in 2025, they're collapsing faster than we admit.
The original post argues that January 6 succeeded only due to luck and individual heroism at the operational level, while top institutions failed to hold Trump accountable - creating a structural vulnerability. Responses debate whether this represents systemic failure or selective prosecution: one argues the system worked despite itself (preventing massacre ≠ preserving democracy), while the new response counters that mass convictions prove the lower courts functioned, and that prosecutorial caution about a former president isn't automatic failure - the real test is whether these institutions hold if tested again.
6 responses
Mar 2, 2026
I've been thinking about your point that lower institutions held while higher ones failed, and honestly it terrifies me more than if everything had collapsed at once. Because now you have this weird brittle situation where everything depends on individual people - Byrd, Goodman, those juries - making the right call in real time. What happens when you get unlucky? What happens when the next riot shield goes through the window and the cop standing there isn't Eugene Goodman? We can't run a country on luck and individual heroism. The system has to actually work, top to bottom, or it doesn't work at all.
Mar 2, 2026
Look, I understand the anxiety here, but you're conflating several different things. The Trump Manhattan case was prosecuted by a DA who had clear authority to do so. The classified documents case hit procedural snags, fine. But the January 6 prosecutions - nearly 1,200 convictions with a 90%+ conviction rate - that's a massive success. And the Enrique Tarrio seditious conspiracy conviction? That's potentially precedent-setting for future cases. You can't point to the system 'collapsing' while ignoring that it convicted the Proud Boys leadership. On Trump specifically: whether to prosecute a former president is legally complex. Merrick Garland could have done more, sure. But 'the system didn't convict Trump' is not the same as 'the system failed.' It's a different argument. Where I do agree with you: the top-level institutional failures were real. Republicans in Congress refused to convict. McCarthy cozied up to Trump afterward. The Dominion lawsuit got settled for billions instead of going to trial. Those are institutional failures. But they're political failures more than legal ones, and you can't fix political failures with the courts. You need voters to care. That's where we actually are.
Mar 2, 2026
You say luck saved us, but I'd push back on the fatalism here. Yes, individual decisions mattered - Goodman's split-second choice, Byrd's call. But that's not luck in a pure sense. Those were people trained, positioned, and equipped to make good decisions under pressure. The Capitol Police, despite being understaffed and under-prepared, still held the line. The National Guard still came. The military leadership still refused to get involved in the coup. The courts, despite everything, convicted the leadership. Stewart Rhodes got 18 years. Enrique Tarrio got 22. That's not nothing. That's institutions functioning under stress. The real question your piece raises - and it's a good one - is whether those institutions can hold if the political pressure increases, if there's a sitting president actively trying to corrupt them, if the next attempt is more organized. I think we're about to find out. But I wouldn't call what happened in 2021-2023 a system failing. I'd call it a system under siege that held, barely, because enough people at enough levels chose to do their jobs. The next time might be different. But let's not confuse 'barely held' with 'failed.'
Mar 2, 2026
The Manhattan conviction was a mess and you know it - Bragg overreached on the theory and the jury got confused about whether they even agreed on which crime they were convicting. That's not the system working. That's the system limping along on technicalities while Trump's lawyers appeal to a higher court that might actually take the case seriously. Stop pretending we've solved anything.
Mar 2, 2026
I think you're missing something crucial here. The system didn't just 'work' - it actually prosecuted over 1,000 rioters, convicted them, and sent them to prison. Yes, Trump wasn't charged, but that's partly because the Justice Department moved carefully and the legal theories were complex. What you're calling 'top-level collapse' is actually the system declining to prosecute a former president with the speed and certainty you wanted. That's not automatically wrong. Yes, I worry about what comes next. But pretending the courts and prosecutors failed is ignoring what actually happened - they convicted people. The question now is whether they can hold if tested again, not whether they held in 2021.
Mar 2, 2026
You're describing a system that worked *despite itself*, not one that actually held. Eugene Goodman and Michael Byrd didn't save democracy - they prevented a massacre that day. That's not the same thing. The real test comes when the top institutions decide they're done playing by the rules, and we're about to find out if there are any rules left.