Originally Posted by JLarson

I agree with just about all of your conclusions, but regarding your first point, this are not just agent provacateurs. Some of the persons visible in the riot videos have long and public histories of being radicals and QAnon followers. If they're provacateurs we're talking deep undercover and planning for an unknown event months in advance, and an extraordinarily large group of people willing to do it.

The problem with conspiracy theories is they rely upon an often unsustainable level of complexity to support them, and it's not needed. Let's be blunt - a lot of people (on every side - it's not just 2) have a lot of reasons to be unhappy with our both our current government and with the government incoming. If I were a Trump supporter who believed my leader had been denied the election due to corruption, and my leader called upon me to march to take things back, I would probably do it. These people did.