There’s a point, I think, where it can be easy to become numb to breaking news.

When wire alerts come out it can certainly force a moment of pause, but I think it’s almost reflexive to immediately carry on with your life.

When a friend messaged me Wednesday about what was happening at the Capitol, my instinct wasn’t necessarily one of concern — my assumption was that it was likely just a ruckus that would largely be confined to the steps of the Capitol building. Little did I know that the next couple of hours I would be glued to the C-SPAN livestream as the rioters pierced all the way into the Senate chambers, forced the evacuation of Congress, and entered into an armed standoff with police.

It was surreal, to say the least. But as I told some friends discussing it, I can’t think of any better way to represent the lid being completely off now.

By that I mean a return to any sense of normalcy within the political mainstream. Not that I really had much faith that was even in the cards — Trumpism will endure because the sense of disaffection towards the political mainstream, and all its professional-class hubris, persists. The ability of Trumpism to at least posture itself as breaking with that standard, despite still shoring up an oligarchical status quo, has long been one of that tendency’s assets.

So it shouldn’t have been surprising to me the extent to which Trump supporters would push back against what they see as an unjust usurpation of their movement despite, as has been said ad nauseum, no evidence showing any election fraud. What better way to push back than to seek retribution against the very decorum of that political-normalcy mainstream?

The reaction against the event itself seems to have taken the position of shoring up that decorum. President-elect Biden charted that course out the gate by parroting the old “this is not who we are” slogan that has become a handy companion for the #Resistance all throughout the Trump era. There’s a lot that can be read into that phrase, but one thing I’ve always taken away is its insistence on foregrounding the image of an idealized America.

The mythology of American Exceptionalism hangs over every event, every narrative, like a phantom. While it certainly can’t be boiled down solely to simple terms, the struggle for political dominance, at least in the realm of the popular imagination, can be seen as a struggle over this mythology. What is the true American tradition, and who is carrying that out?

This has manifested itself in recent years often in reaction to events that pierce the preconceived notions of what is possible. In the last four years alone we’ve had several moments like this which often leads to that “this is not who we are” refrain — beckoning to an idealized U.S. where altruism and noble causes define the spirit of the nation.

Casting aside these notions that stem more from patriotism than a critical reading of history, there is also a tendency to seek refuge in the halls of institutions to shore up one’s opposition. The struggle becomes less for hegemony over the new possibilities that have been erected in the popular imagination and more about who can seize upon the remnants of the old order and trajectories of the past — who can best position themselves as the “adult in the room” to steer the course of history back towards an imagined normalcy.

The powers that be are, of course, all the more happy to capitalize on the fervent surge in sentiment for preserving the mythologized America. This is something that deserves more scrutiny than it will get.

The desires for retributive justice that are foundational to the popular imagination spur the knee-jerk reaction to applaud the state apparatus in meting out punishment to those who dare challenge it. It wouldn’t surprise me that, should the Biden Administration champion a new “domestic terrorism” bill — a second Patriot Act —liberals will be all the more willing to go along, thinking such a law will only be used against their political enemies and not whomever future administrations (or, honestly, even the incoming one) wish to ascribe the “domestic terrorist” label to.

I do understand the tendency to mock those who participated in Wednesdays events. My hands aren’t clean from sharing my fair share of memes among friends (I do love a good meme). When considering the absurdity of the rioter’s perceived demands — not necessarily a revolutionary program but a reactionary one coalesced around keeping a celebrity demagogue in power — it’s frankly easy to laugh off the absurdity of it all. But I’m not so concerned about their reaction so much as I’m concerned around the wider reaction and, especially, the reaction from the Left.

Part of that reaction is also informed by the dominance of the whole “gotcha” culture within online political discourse. With few avenues to stem the right-wing surge within the political mainstream, detractors are all the more ready to settle on pouncing upon the absurdities and character of conservatives. This is entwined, of course, with the nature of social media — the ease with which one can make even the most mundane observations and find virality make this tactic all the more desirable, whether it be fundamentally effective or not. Social media is dominated, after all, by images and phrases so those who can employ the “gotcha” most effectively reap the most interactions.

The residual impact of this tendency for “gotcha” one-ups also feeds into the process of seeking refuge within the institutions of power. The “gotcha” becomes the cheering on of the machinations of the police state, with the connection to Big Tech, in doling out punishment upon those engaged in Wednesday’s riot.

Did the rioters have it coming? Well, of course it should go without saying that their actions would have forced a reaction from the state. But I’m not certain how tightly those who wish to level their own critiques to that state, and especially to the carceral apparatus, ought to hitch their wagons to that train.