(Considered not replying, but then looked again at the link title...)

The view of law enforcement as going easy on the far-right may have been true in 1970s America, but it does not appear so 2021. Far-right militia movements have been subject to intense scrutiny and violence (and some allege, entrapment) since their growth in the 1990s [0][1]. In the case of the Capitol riot, 525 people have now been federally charged [2]. Arrested rioters have been "savagely beaten" in jail by prison guards, to the point of skull fractures and permanent blindness [3].

It's true that fringe Congressional Republicans such as Josh Hawley or Marjorie Taylor Greene have tried to blame antifa for the Capitol insurrection. They hold no powerful Senate or House positions, and appear "prominent" mainly due to the attention the the press gives them. The actual Republican Congressional leadership swiftly denounced the insurrection, and placed blame for the attack on President Trump [4][5].

In contrast, President Biden and prominent Senators such as Jerry Nadler have repeatedly denied the existence of organized far-left violence at all [6][7], describing events such as the month-long nightly siege of the federal courthouse in Portland "a myth" and "imaginary." Speaker Nancy Pelosi has acknowledged antifa gangs' existence in the past, after they vandalized her house and sprayed it with pig blood.

As rioters threw Molotov cocktails and firebombs at the federal courthouse in Portland, attacked federal agents with hammers, lasers, and bricks, beat and stabbed journalists, set fire to the Mayor's condo building, and were arrested carrying illegal firearms, the Washington Post gave them a glowing photo shoot [8]. They were praised as morally virtuous freedom-fighters. In Seattle, anarchists occupied several city blocks for weeks with assault rifles, and shot dead an unarmed black child [9] before destroying the evidence and concealing the killer's identity. These stories disappeared from the Washington Post, NPR, and even Fox News within days, yet we still get frequent updates on the Capitol insurrection.

Finally, it makes no difference whether cops arrest more left-wing rioters if the local DA and US Attorney decide to release them and dismiss all charges [10][11]. There's been little such leniency applied to violent actors in the Capitol insurrection. This has not gone unnoticed by either the far-right or far-left.

The exasperation I feel watching this unfold as someone on the center-left is a shadow of what I sense from the actual right wing. I think anger at the leniency given to far-left violence last summer is what propelled a lot of people to attack the Capitol, in a "if they can get away with it, why can't we?" sort of tantrum. This emotional potential still remains. The risk of an eventual organized right-wing backlash, which so far has not reached the level of burning down buildings, executing people in the street, or occupying city blocks with armed militants, is what worries me most about the chance of more far-left violence. The extreme right is watching the extreme left get away with it, and they are taking notes.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25839889

[1] https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/06/07/w...

[2] https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-ar...

[3] https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/06/capitol-riot-defend...

[4] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell-blam...

[5] https://www.newsweek.com/kevin-mccarthy-tells-gop-stop-claim...

[6] https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/07/27/nadle...

[7] https://news.yahoo.com/biden-says-antifa-idea-not-025049929....

[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/08/trump-sent-...

[9] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25671284

[10] https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2020/08/11/district-attorn...

[11] https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/portland-pro...