Stupidity Will Always Be With Us.

Five years after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, thousands of pardoned participants marched through Washington, D.C., on the anniversary date in 2026. They carried signs thanking President Trump for their blanket pardons but also demanding more: financial reparations for time served, lost wages, and legal fees; the arrest and prosecution of the judges, prosecutors, and FBI agents who held them accountable; even government-funded restitution modeled after the 9/11 victims’ compensation fund. Leaders like Enrique Tarrio openly declared that Trump still “owes” them, while lawyers for the former defendants floated plans for a special panel—preferably overseen by Trump loyalists—to award damages for what they call wrongful prosecution.

It is a spectacle of entitlement so detached from reality that it almost defies belief. Yet it shouldn’t surprise anyone. Stupidity, after all, is a renewable resource.

These people are not misunderstood patriots. They are lost sheep who followed a charismatic shepherd straight off a cliff, then bleated for someone else to pay their medical bills. Donald Trump spent years cultivating a personality cult, casting himself as the sole savior of a stolen election. His supporters internalized the message: show up, fight, stop the steal. When the moment arrived on January 6, most had no concrete plan beyond rage and slogans. Security barriers fell, doors were breached, and thousands poured inside—only to mill about in confusion, taking selfies in the Rotunda, wandering the halls in awe, as if they had stumbled into a museum after hours rather than committed a federal crime.

There were violent exceptions, of course—officers assaulted, windows smashed, bear spray deployed—but the majority were not seasoned revolutionaries executing a coup. They were ordinary Americans swept up in a fantasy, convinced that marching orders from a president constituted a higher calling. Trump never issued explicit promises of indemnity, never outlined a legal safety net, never assured them that breaking into the Capitol would come without consequence. He simply rallied them with vague exhortations—“fight like hell” or “you’ll never take back our country with weakness”—and let the crowd fill in the blanks with their own delusions.

Now, freed by a sweeping pardon issued on Trump’s first day of his second term, many still feel shortchanged. They want the government to repay restitution they were ordered to pay for damaging the Capitol. They want prosecutors investigated and charged. They want compensation for the jobs they lost, the relationships that fractured, the mental health struggles that followed. Some have even urged the Department of Justice—now under Trump appointees sympathetic to their cause—to pursue criminal cases against the very officials who built the cases against them.

The irony is thick enough to choke on. These self-proclaimed patriots stormed the seat of government to overturn a democratic election, disrupted the peaceful transfer of power, and contributed to a day that left five people dead and scores of officers injured. They were caught on video, identified, charged, and in many cases convicted or pleaded guilty. Then, through an act of extraordinary executive clemency, they walked free. And still they complain.

I have no sympathy. None.

Patriotism, if that is what they believe they were practicing, has always come at a cost. The founders risked their lives and fortunes. Soldiers in every American war paid with blood and years away from home. Civil rights marchers faced dogs, fire hoses, and prison. True conviction demands sacrifice; it does not come with a guarantee of comfort or a government rebate when things go wrong.

The January 6 rioters gambled everything on a conspiracy theory and a leader who never committed to protecting them from the consequences of their own actions. Many are still paying personal prices—divorces, bankruptcies, ongoing mental health issues, difficulty finding work. Some have even been rearrested for unrelated crimes. They should count themselves fortunate that the ultimate price—death or decades in prison—was not exacted. Ashli Babbitt paid with her life; others came close. The rest received a second chance most defendants in American history could only dream of.

Yet here they are, five years later, marching again, demanding not just forgiveness but reward. They want history rewritten so that they are cast as victims rather than perpetrators. They want taxpayers—many of whom watched in horror as the Capitol was overrun—to foot the bill for their choices.

This is not courage. It is not principle. It is the tantrum of people who discovered, too late, that actions have consequences and that the man they worshipped as infallible was, in the end, only looking out for himself.

Stupidity will always be with us. It manifests in different forms across generations—whether it’s chasing get-rich-quick schemes, falling for obvious scams, or storming the Capitol because a losing candidate told you the election was rigged. The specifics change; the pattern endures. Some people will always follow the loudest voice promising the easiest salvation, even when the path leads straight into disaster.

The January 6 pardoned rioters are simply the latest exhibit. Freed from prison, they remain imprisoned by delusion. And no amount of reparations—financial, legal, or rhetorical—will ever set them free from that.