I think the harder job isn't just explaining the pretense - it's explaining how a third of the country saw the same video evidence and decided it meant something different.

Because that's what gets lost in the accountability angle: the incitement alone is almost beside the point now. We know what happened. The question that will haunt historians isn't whether Trump incited it. It's how institutionally viable it became to just... not care.

The worst part? We're still doing it. People aren't pretending because they're confused about what happened on January 6. They're pretending because admitting it would require them to grapple with the fact that it didn't actually matter. The system absorbed it. The pardon undid what little accountability existed. And here we are.

Historians won't need to explain pretense. They'll need to explain capitulation.