On Tuesday afternoon, exactly five years since January 6, 2021, a few hundred Proud Boys, insurrectionists, and their supporters stood outside the very building they stormed that day, and bowed their heads in prayer.

“We know what you saw us through, Lord. We know that in the darkest hours—as we stood on street corners, as we stood rotting in cells, we know you did not leave us, you did not abandon us,” proclaimed Suzanne Monk, founder of the J6 Pardon Project. “We thank you for the miracle that you put through our hands. We are but vessels to your work, heavenly Father, and we ask that you hear us and you see us, Lord. And you see our cry for this country.… We have lived in faith for five years. We ask you to bless that faith, and bless our nation.”

This moment defined the tenor of the afternoon. The Ashli Babbitt 5 Year Memorial March started at the Ellipse, the park south of the White House, and ended with the placing of flowers and wreaths on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to honor the late insurrectionist, who was shot by Capitol Police as she tried to barge into the Speaker’s Lobby.

The event—organized by Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was tried, charged, and pardoned for seditious conspiracy on January 6—wasn’t just a victory lap. It was a spiritual homecoming reunion, a celebration of new life and vindication for J6ers.

“It’s like living a biblical story,” said Jake Lang, a J6er who was pardoned for attacking police officers. “God opened up the lions’ den for Daniel, and he opened up the prison for me.” Lang is running to fill Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s vacated seat in the U.S. Senate, and railed against “Black on white crime” during his speech.

As delusional as it may seem, why shouldn’t the J6ers feel this way? So many of them believed that the 2020........

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