U.S. Capitol siege is one of the rare live-TV atrocities to grow more sickening, more terrifying and more infuriating with each passing day

The New York Times

"The live video of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was largely images from a distance: a sea of attackers seeping up the steps and through the entryways," says James Poniewozik. "It was like watching a malevolent tide slowly threaten to drown democracy. It could not possibly get worse than this. But it could. And it did, as more close-up and graphic videos of the American carnage that Trumpists unleashed in the Capitol emerged on social media and TV through the weekend. Wednesday’s insurrection was one of the rare live-TV atrocities that grew only more sickening, more terrifying, more infuriating as more days passed. What we remember of the 9/11 attacks, for instance, is largely what we saw in the first few hours: the planes hitting, the towers collapsing, the pedestrians fleeing. Terror attacks, mass shootings — the shock hits us up front, and then we process it. But last Wednesday seemed to last for days. New smartphone videos of violence came out one by one. The horror came in waves, the attack revealed with every image as more bloodthirsty and deplorable." He adds: "This steady drip of videos and reports, each bit seemingly more disturbing than the last, has created a feeling of delayed-onset trauma. Many viewers likely saw them for the first time Monday morning, when the broadcast morning shows ran video packages and chronologies, with graphics illustrating how physically close the rampage came to being a potential mass slaughter."