> Antifa firebombing federal buildings

Nobody firebombed the building. People shot consumer fireworks against a wall. The physical risk to either the building or the people inside was minimal.

"Antifa" had nothing to do with it. It is not clear that "Antifa" even exists, except as a weird right-wing fetish bogeyman (weird name to choose for it, implying their own support for fascism). "Antifa" has been found responsible for exactly 0 deaths across the USA; so a couple hours of MAGA militancy in one place has done vastly more damage than the entire history of "Antifa".

> I assume you "know" this based on tweets and comments on parler.

They were chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" at top volume. Once they got inside they were shouting "Where's Nancy?" among other things, and going door to door throughout the building looking for congresspeople. They literally built a gallows outside. A bunch of legislators' offices had the panic buttons removed (not clear yet by who). There were a bunch of ex-military goons carrying flexible handcuffs who broke into the chambers of Congress. etc.

Here is an FBI agent's affidavit which says that an informant who spoke with the MAGAs after the event says that they had planned to kill Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, or any other Congresspeople they could find, and are planning to try again on Jan 20: https://www.justice.gov/opa/page/file/1355186/download

> Were the Trump protestors deserving of "de-escalation"? It appears not.

Yes, in my opinion police should always be non-violent with non-violent protestors, and should avoid forcing direct confrontations.

A complete lack of force was in fact what the MAGAs got from the police. Police backing up, standing down, avoiding any use of physical violence except when the mob was literally hitting them, and largely letting the mob do what it wanted, including racking up hundreds of serious federal felonies with 20-year prison terms. The lady who was shot was literally climbing through a broken window into the House chamber while police with drawn guns shouted at her to stay back (I think some congresspeople were still in the chamber at that point?).

Thankfully all of the members of Congress were successfully removed to safe locations in the nick of time. If that one police officer hadn't tricked the crowd into following him the wrong direction, things might have gone much worse. Tragically a bunch of police officers and insurrectionists suffered serious injuries along the way, and even several deaths.

Eventually once the crowd realized its primary goal was thwarted and there was nothing to accomplish by sticking around, they went home.

The problem in this case was that the police did not have the numbers to block entry to the Capitol, and did not get any backup for hours, despite weeks of serious threats, the presence of dozens of people on the FBI's watchlist visiting town for the event, etc. This was a severe planning/mobilization failure, in my opinion substantially caused by Trump being on the side of the insurrectionists. A full investigation will hopefully uncover exactly what happened.

One of the biggest differences between Portland and the Capitol insurrection is that in Portland violent cops forced confrontations, whereas in DC violent MAGAs forced confrontations.

> If you judged each side the same way I'd have no problem

This is a completely disingenuous statement.