This article is making the lockdown seem more central to the protest than the idea that Trump won the election.

This is why I read Ann Althouse.  From If the "Capitol mob" was "a raging collection of grievances and disillusionment" as The Washington Post says....  She is a retired academic specializing in constitutional law.   She seems a moderate to left leaning person.  But she is also a child of the Enlightenment, wishing for precise language, logic and reason to lead towards answers applicable to all.  Her party and voting pattern matter little given those fundamentals.

Her hunger for clear thinking and clear writing is in the title and first paragraph of her post.

If the "Capitol mob" was "a raging collection of grievances and disillusionment" as The Washington Post says in its headline, here, then doesn't that mean it wasn't an "insurrection" or much of a plan at all, just a coming together of disparate elements? Let's look at the long article. I'm reading it for the first time and making excerpts and comments as I go. I'm doing this without an agenda, just wanting to figure out what the hell happened and what it means.

She excerpts from the WP article and then comments.

Those who made their way to the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday hail from at least 36 states, along with the District of Columbia and Canada, according to a Washington Post list of over 100 people identified as being on the scene of the Capitol. Their professions touch nearly every facet of American society: lawyers, local lawmakers, real estate agents, law enforcement officers, military veterans, construction workers, hair stylists and nurses. Among the crowd were devout Christians who highlighted Bible verses, adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory and members of documented hate groups, including white nationalist organizations and militant right-wing organizations, such as the Proud Boys. 

The list is just a limited cross section of the thousands of people who descended upon the area, yet some striking commonalities are hard to ignore. Almost all on the list whose race could be readily identified are White.

Not sure how that is done. But okay. The Washington Post seems to have compiled a list of 100 people — a hundred out of what? "thousands"? — and it's making assertions about these people, somehow "readily identifying" their race and capitalizing "White." How many of the 100 were in the category whose race was "readily identified"? 10? 80? I have no idea.

This is the Achilles heal of Critical Race Theory.  In order to arrive at the conclusions they wish to reach, they have to practice overt racism - focusing on racial identity and then ascribing to them group stereotype attributes.  As opposed to the standard non-racist approach which is to acknowledge all people as individuals with varying  interests, goals, behaviors, capabilities.  It is cheap and easy to deal in racial stereotypes as advocated by Critical Race Theory but it is morally and empirically wrong. 

And this is the core of the error.  For the Washington Post, if they are mostly white, they must inherently and automatically be racist.  The real question is why do they say they are there.  It is not factual reporting for the WP to say why the Washington Post thinks the protesters are there.  It is only factual reporting if the reporter asks the individuals why they are there.  Althouse is pointing out the very large chasm between why people say they were there and the unsupported assumptions made by the Post.  

Their paths to the nation’s capital were largely fueled by long-standing grievances and distrust, and yet planned in spontaneous and ad-hoc fashion.

Was there a plan?  If it was "spontaneous and ad-hoc" then maybe it was not a plan, just diverse individuals whose paths flowed together at that place and time?

Several reported pulling together their travel funds and schedules in just a handful of days. Some took a solitary journey, including flying from coast to coast alone, only to find a shared community upon their final destination in Washington. Others traveled in buses that departed Wednesday at dawn, filled to the brim with other Trump supporters.... 

Don't mix up the plan to go to a big rally and street protest with a plan to break into the Capitol (and don't mix up a plan to break into the Capitol with a plan to take Mike Pence or members of Congress hostage).

Several who traveled to Washington to support the “Stop the Steal” rally told The Post they were driven by two primary grievances: their opposition to the election results and the restrictions in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Lindsey Graham... 

Interesting name. 

... a 39-year-old entrepreneur from Salem, Ore., said her eventual path to the Capitol began last spring, when the six small businesses she and her husband own, including tanning salons, a gym and hair salon, were suddenly shuttered because of coronavirus restrictions...  Graham said she was “peacefully protesting” with thousands of people. She said she did not enter the building and does not condone violence. “I’m glad I was there because I am one of the people that can vouch for the crowd,” she said. 

Althouse then goes on to notate again and again the divergence between what the Washington Post claims versus what the actual interviewees report.  

This article is making the lockdown seem more central to the protest than the idea that Trump won the election. 

She concludes with:

Now, I've read the whole thing. There's nothing here about a plan to break into the Capitol! That doesn't mean there weren't people with such a plan, and I can see why such people wouldn't want to talk to the Washington Post, but this article supports the idea that the crowd consisted of individuals who were acting independently. 

And I suspect that that is largely true.  Opposition to high handed centrally imposed lockdown policies, exasperation with narrative imposition even when there is highly suggestive evidence of voting fraud,  conversion of the mainstream media into partisan activists rather than journalists are probably going to end up being the story of the Wednesday contretemps in the Capitol building.  Probably in that order.  

I also suspect that we will end up finding out that the whole incident was substantially or completely spur of the moment.  My next suspicion is that the role of false flag Antifa or BLM violent protestors will be greater than the MSM is willing to acknowledge and less than conservatives imagine.  

But that is not what the Washington Post and the mainstream media are pushing.  They are trying to squeeze the last drama out of a presidency which has been enormously profitable to their bottom line as partisan opponents.

The problem being that the more they function as a propaganda outlet, the less useful they are in fulfilling an epistemic role.  I think it will be nigh impossible for them to transition back to an independent trusted role.