The coup was pathetic, but what would have happened if the riot had delayed the presidential election being certified?
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry helped cause the American civil war two years later. He and most of his raiders were quickly caught and executed. But the trial turned Brown into a martyr in the north and motivated the South to form the Confederacy.
I think Brown's raid was a moral action, and the Jan 6th coup was an attack on American democracy. I'm not very confident that the justice system will hold the planners accountable, or that it just did short term damage to our democracy.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/09/15/poll-...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/24/republicans-...
https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-republicans-lose-trus...