Thought Experiment

So, on this anniversary, here's a simple thought experiment: What if the other side had done it?  What if in early January 2017, Democrats similarly attired and armed had stormed the Capitol and attempted to keep Congress from receiving the Electoral College results for the 2016 presidential election?

What if Democrats claimed that Donald Trump's razor-thin victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin resulted from extensive voter fraud and should be rejected, despite having failed to establish in a single court that extensive fraud had actually occurred?

What if some of these Democrats breached the Capitol defenses and threatened violence against the Republican speaker, Paul Ryan, and Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell ?

What if they insisted that in his role as Senate president then-Vice President Joe Biden had sole authority to seat Hillary Clinton's electors from any contested states and thereby hand her the presidency?

If this happened, would some of my fellow Republicans have accepted it as merely a protest?  Would they have called patriots those charged with violent acts against our country, its laws and Constitution?  Would they have accepted such extralegal means to change the outcome of a presidential election?

No they would not.  I'm certain of that.

-- Karl Rove, Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush, Republicans' Jan. 6 Responsibility - The GOP has a duty to condemn the riot and those who refuse to acknowledge it, Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2022