> Remind me what the Secret Service exists for again,

Protecting the president. The secret service does not protect senators

> and who got the lawmakers out of there before the rioters came.

Capitol Hill police I believe.

> Maybe Democracy would have been closer to dying

I’m pretty sure I explicitly said that wasn’t on the table.

My point was that the rioters got very close. That is, one door away, then lured to other areas by a clever guard. I think it is fully plausible that they would have assassinated democratic political leaders if given the chance. Not ALL of the rioters, but certainly some.

Well, then, it would have been a massacre, but democracy still wouldn't have died. We have a chain of command that has been clearly defined - President, then Vice President, then Speaker of the House, then all of the Secretaries in a specific order, and so on.

Unless they managed to get the Army, or the Nuclear Codes, or something greater than just controlling a building, they would have needed to kill the President, the Vice President, and every single House and Senate member (including those not in the building) and then get control of the Army or Popular Support or something massive to have a shot. I don't think they were anywhere close with that.

You keep framing this as either democracy dies or it’s a nonissue.

Personally I think a mob massacre of political leaders is bad on its own. Ymmv.

This is begging the question, textbook. The whole point would be to install the President by non-democratic means.

Realistically what would have happened is many rioters en masse would have been killed by security forces which would have become a big political issue.

I think if rioters were killed trying to breach the senator room it would be a lot less of a political issue, with them clearly being portrayed as villains even by republicans.

Given the martyr treatment Ashli Babbitt has gotten, I would not be so sure.