Charlie SavageWashington Correspondent
I wrote this a few hours ago when things were just starting to look a little hairy, and it bears repeating now that we see what followed. Before they stormed the Capitol, the rioters had stood on the Washington Mall and listened to Trump gave a speech. At its end, Trump told them that Republicans have been too nice, like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back, and now needed to “fight much harder” against “bad people.” He told them to walk to the Capitol and “demand” that Congress “confront this egregious assault on our democracy” (that is, his loss to Biden), and kept exhorting them that “you have to show strength and you have to be strong” and “you will never take back our country with weakness.” (Amid all that inflammatory rhetoric, he also used the adverb “peacefully” once.)
If you don't think those remarks are seditious, you're not paying close enough attention.