There are at least 1800 sworn officers in the United States Capitol Police force.

So here’s a question. Where were they today?

Look at the videos from the insurgent takeover of the Capitol. How many cops can there actually be on duty? A few dozen? Maybe 100? That doesn’t even look like enough Capitol Hill police for a typical Wednesday, much less a day in which 30,000 Trump lunatics would be coming to town.

There is no possible way authorities did not know this was coming. Trump had been talking about this great day for a week and had personally told the tens of thousands at his morning rally to head to the Capitol building. The Mayor, for her part, had gotten approval to bring in 340 DC National Guard troops to help, though they were assigned mostly to traffic and crowd control, not security. She knew what was coming.

Plus, I feel pretty sure that Homeland Security and the FBI might have at least idly thumbed through social media and noticed that a lot of Trumpistas were headed to DC for a bit of a walkabout.

I think the lack of police response goes beyond racism, though racism it was, as the far harsher, militarized response to the George Floyd protests makes very clear.

But something more is going on. Even the mainstream press hinted at it:

Ed Davis, former commissioner for the Boston Police Department, said law enforcement should’ve been better prepared.

“There has to be political will to put resources in place to stop what clearly should’ve been seen. … This is the result of a lack of political will to control an attempted insurrection.

“What happened here is a colossal failure, and I believe it’s a colossal political failure, not on the part of the police,” Davis said. “They were outnumbered and overrun.”

It’s unclear whether the Justice Department or the Department of Homeland Security were involved in coordinating a robust law enforcement response with the U.S. Capitol Police, which has jurisdiction of the area, before the protests. The federal agencies (the Justice Department and Homeland Security) deployed a large number of agents during protests last summer in Washington and several other cities after the death of George Floyd. (my emphasis)

USA Today online edition 1/7/2021

I see a lot of signs that this action was a tactical mistake on the part of the fascist movement. Republican elected officials are being forced to renounce the violence and to approve the certification of electors they vowed to oppose. Trump officials are resigning in the wake of the debacle and there is, according to CBS news, serious talk among high level Trump officials of invoking the 25th amendment to remove the President from office.

But I temper my optimism knowing that the Justice Department or Homeland Security or both made decisions that left the Capitol building basically undefended. On purpose. They wanted the insurgents to succeed.

In other words, it was not a lack of political will, but a demonstration of political will. It was a message, a question really.

Do Americans have the will to oppose the kind of chaos and terror we can unleash? Or will you continue to capitulate to our agenda in order to keep the peace?

They think they know the answer.

Do you?