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Few if any leading Republicans allowed Trump’s hope to overturn the election to interfere with their own, much more cynical plans to debate and delay. Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and their allies had planned a self-aggrandizing media stunt, a springboard for future fundraising, an entry into the ever-escalating contest to prove oneself the least compromising person in politics. Neither of them felt even the slightest concern for Trump’s presidency. They were campaigning for their own.

At least since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the conservative world has become a place of ever more extreme language, ever more widely distanced from real-world events. Conservative talkers would say things like Obama “is literally at war with the American people,” and then be greatly shocked and offended that anyone would connect their words to the growth of extremist violence. The words did not mean anything to the cynics who spoke them, and so they found it difficult to imagine that the words might mean anything to those who heard them.

In the same spirit, Republican elected officials repeated Trump’s outlandish claims about the 2020 election while privately accepting the election outcome as valid and accurate. The lesson that Republican political professionals drew from 2020 was not that Biden’s 81 million votes were fake. The lesson they drew was that they must use their power over elections at the state and local level to prevent that many people from voting in the future.

They mouthed Trump’s complaints about voter fraud in 2020 while they devised their own, rational plans for voter suppression in 2022 and 2024. They counted on the rest of the political world being responsible enough to apply the brakes before Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election got too far out of hand. In the meantime, they had TV spots to book and funds to raise.

A lot of modern conservatism is a species of affinity fraud. If rank-and-file conservatives are dumb enough to be separated from their money by fantastic lies, well, there are conservative elites who feel they would be remiss not to do the separating. As for Trump himself, some figured, what harm could he possibly do at this point? The American system has been peaceably transitioning presidential power for a very long time; who could seriously imagine that system blowing up in 2021? They knew the road was closed, so they went along for the ride—thinking that the driver must stop when he reached the barrier. Except this time, Trump was not just whining as usual. He crashed right through the barrier. The ride led here: to the dumb-as-rocks fiasco that abruptly severed the long tradition of the peaceful transition of power in the United States.

David Frum, in The Atlantic

Those who made their way to the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday hail from at least 36 states, along with the District of Columbia and Canada, according to a Washington Post list of over 100 people identified as being on the scene of the Capitol. Their professions touch nearly every facet of American society: lawyers, local lawmakers, real estate agents, law enforcement officers, military veterans, construction workers, hair stylists and nurses. Among the crowd were devout Christians who highlighted Bible verses, adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory and members of documented hate groups, including white nationalist organizations and militant right-wing organizations, such as the Proud Boys.

The list is just a limited cross section of the thousands of people who descended upon the area, yet some striking commonalities are hard to ignore. Almost all on the list whose race could be readily identified are White. Most are men, yet about one in six were women — also almost all White.

Many left extensive social media documentation of their passions, ideologies and, in some cases, disillusionment and vendettas. [….]
Several who traveled to Washington to support the “Stop the Steal” rally told The Post they were driven by two primary grievances: their opposition to the election results and the restrictions in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts said this week he did not support the effort to challenge the Ohio results. On Thursday, Kerry was traveling in the Middle East.

But Boxer and other Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), insisted they were questioning the process, not the outcome.

And ultimately, Pelosi and most other Democratic lawmakers joined Republicans to vote to confirm the Ohio results.