Dumb people who actually had an intent to destroy the government; most of the assholes rioting around the capitol did not. Stupid, reprehensible, and threatening, but not on par with a real insurrectionary force.

The former weren't even riots, as you said. Characterizing the latter as

>a terrorist attack against their own nation in an attempt to destroy said nation so that they can install as dictator

is pretty hard to justify unless you're referring specifically to groups like the Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, etc. They're absolutely interested in acting as you describe given the opportunity. The majority of the people there, though, were gullible idiots following along with the mob--malicious and deserving of punishment, but not on par with actual terrorists.

When the primary consequence of the event was significant vandalism, calling it an insurrection seems like a pretty big stretch. Aside from the obvious implications for the intelligence of the American electorate the fact that people believed something Donald Trump said has, I'm honestly more concerned that capitol security was pathetic enough that the building was breached in the first place. A single "insurrectionist" was killed by security; if that's how the government handles an insurrection, we might have problems beyond the insurrection itself.

Trump is one of the worst politicians America has seen in a long time. Organizations like the Proud Boys are a real and growing threat and would surely be making legitimate moves to attack the government given the opportunity and needed support, and similar groups have done so before. The remaining bulk of the mob were malicious assholes with a handful of braincells between them, and the fact that that they vote is enough to make me gag. But when the overwhelming majority of them simply wandered around, mindlessly vandalizing the capitol building before leaving, I have an incredibly hard time seeing them as an inssurectionary force hell bent on the destruction of the United States of America.

I'm not saying January 6th wasn't a horrifying display of the effects of propaganda and the influence a populist strongman can generate. I'm not saying it was remotely acceptable, let alone positive. I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished as harshly as the law permits. And if I'm being entirely, brutally honest, I think the response from capitol security should have been much, much more forceful--if the capitol was under siege by a mob of a thousand or more terrorists, all committed to slaughtering congress and installing a dictator, then there should be far more than one person from that mob with "gunshot wound" written on their autopsy report. But that's not the case. The security response was milquetoast, the capitol was stormed, and the grand result was...significant property damage. If you can point me to another major insurrectionary force that accomplished its goals through terroristic acts of vandalism, then I'd be more inclined to see the label as fitting. Without that, though, calling these idiots inssurectionists gives them far more credit and legitimacy than they deserve.