History repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.
- Friedrich Engels
The airwaves are filled with huffing and puffing about an "insurrection" a year ago. Ignore that literally none of the hundreds of those arrested and held without bail have been charged with actual insurrection - this is political theater. It's political theater that the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) think will help them win a great political victory. As political theater, the facts are entirely beside the point - what's important is the drama that can be stirred up.
Alas for them, it's a wet firecracker. In our divided Republic, nobody remains unconvinced (either pro or con), and this will not move that needle. And in any case, the "drama" (such as it is) is underwhelming. You want drama? Look at the Catiline Conspiracy in the death throes of the Roman Republic. That comes down to us via Cicero, so it's top shelf drama.
Catiline was a Roman Senator, bitter that he lost his bid to be elected Consul (kind of sort of President). He was said to have organized a band of ne'er-do-wells to overthrow the Senate and take power for himself. Cicero gave a famous address to the Senate laying out his plan, and as he spoke the Senators one by one got up and moved away from Catiline, who came to a bad end.
Now that's drama. Unfortunately, the drama of the story has overpowered the actual facts of the matter. We only have Cicero and Sallust as sources and both of them are highly biased against Catiline. There's a very good chance indeed that Catiline was railroaded by the finest orator of his day, and smeared for the last 2000 years by a biased media.
Does that remind you of anything?
And so today is rather a bore. The story is certainly hyped, very likely manufactured (hello, FBI!), and the "drama" pales in comparison to not just what we've seen before, but what we've seen 2000 years ago. I hate to break it to the media, but they're no Ciceros. Or even Sallusts.