the language and framing is heightened because of the object of the attack - its effectively a holy site and ritual being attacked for those that 'worship' democracy
and i think the fact they were let in through the barriers probably gets lost to some degree - the imagery is of barbarians storming the gates - but they were let in
its quite possible they may never have summoned the courage to force those barriers - one couldnt know
but much of this is about the psychic violence as much as the physical
thats why it projects so strongly
and if this entire sorry episode amply demonstrates anything - its that words and symbols matter - perhaps more than anything else does
all those magats apologists in GOP who were saying forever that you should ignore trump's actual words and just take a sense of general sentiment - how truly false that proved to be
