Four people were stabbed and thirty-three arrested in the December protest, most in the several-hour melee that took place after sundown. Three weeks before January 6, the end of the Trump administration was already being greeted with riots and violence.

“Seems like quite a few crazies,” said Trump to aides the next day.

This was, in hindsight—or might have been recognized as such in hindsight—a run-through for the groups who would be gathering in Washington on January 6. But it was also a pretty good insight into Trump’s view. The fan base was always peculiar. Stars needed fans, but this did not mean that a fan was not a strange thing to be. The more devoted the fan, the odder the fan. Like any megastar, Trump saw his fans from a far distance out. Certainly, there was no personal connection. A star could not assume responsibility for his fans, could he? Indeed, the fans were not the star; the star was the star. Never forget.

But it wasn’t just the crazies. There was method here, too. The January 6 march on Washington, in the subtle variations among the organizing groups, was, for many, an effort not so much to keep Trump in power as to find the best position for when he was no longer in power.

Here was the math: He was going to lose the White House; that was certainly sure. But he was going to be left with enormous reach and sway and influence. Every member of Congress now supporting his electoral challenge was thinking forward to Trump’s future usefulness to them.

Likewise, for the organizers of the Washington march.

It was the singular difference between Trump and former presidents that his power and standing might not largely depend on the White House, that he could go on being Donald Trump, with the awe and devotion this involved, without being president.

And the money that flowed through him, that flowed because of him, wasn’t going to run dry simply because he was not in office.

As the great unwashed were gathering, on the evening of January 5 there was another gathering, at the Trump Hotel, of ranking Republicans, all primarily there to plan and to fundraise for 2022. This included a circle of top-draw Trump celebrities, Don Jr., Michael Flynn, and Corey Lewandowski among them, and presentations by groups, like the Republican Attorneys General Association, looking for 2022 funding.

The primary organizer was Caroline Wren, the most prodigious fundraiser in the Republican Party. On the eve of a protest over the 2020 election, Wren had assembled thirty to forty major Republican donors to hear about political investment needs for 2022.