So, back to the main topic, a bipartisan report (yes they exist) came out on the response to the riot. Basically, the faults for the fuckups come from USCP leadership being completely absent from communications, the DoD and DC Guard being in a position of “stay the fuck away” after the fiasco involving the riots the previous summer and how they dispersed them, the FBI and DHS ignoring possible threat warnings, and a general lack of preparation for any possible incidents at both the local and federal levels.
Basically, whatever one thinks of Trump and the rally, the fact that nobody 1) considered what to do in case a crowd showed up (related or not) and then 2) when the shit hit the fan, nobody was communicating between command level and front line, it’s an epic clusterfuck.
And the same thing happened on 9/11, actually: Any “communication” with leadership taking over was them talking to each other, not to their own people at the lower levels on the front lines. Shit the only reason we even had fighters in the air that day is because a line controller at Boston Center threw the rule book out and called the air defense sector HQ in the Northeast directly.
Forget about whether Trump had any responsibility or not, I’m pissed off that the root problem of “The people who are supposed to respond and deal with this shit” STILL CAN’T after 20 fucking years of knowing that the worst can still happen and they aren’t prepared to deal with it.