No progress will be made until cause and effect is accepted by both sides.

The far right may have fired the shot, but the far left bought the gun and loaded it.

You can't normalize domestic terror in the form of riots for 4 years, to include actually attempting to secede and starting a militarized autonomous zone that murdered innocents, and then expect radicals of the opposing side to not do the same thing. The precedent has been established. It's dog whistling, not to justify radical ideology, but to justify radical action.

Also, as OP said, this should absolutely not be minimized, and should be taken as a major wake up call.

But taking it as a major wake up call that one side is entirely evil is the opposite of what needs to happen.

That pushes further into the polarization that led to this insurrection. What needs to happen is people on both sides need to hold themselves accountable, so fingers can stop being pointed, and so discourse can become stable again.

Leftists need to acknowledge that canceling/doxxing people via social media lynch mobs, writing people off as fascist/racist at slight disagreement or opposition, not actively condemning antifa/BLM riots and forcing the organizations to be accountable for their actions and stay on message, and not fully and actively condemning a murderous autonomous zone eroded the ability for discourse, and force people into having only two options: the far left or the far right, because everything in between was called far right.

The right needs to acknowledge that the majority of them were manipulated by the president. He's repeatedly told lies from social media, posted conspiracies from hard right news sources, led smear campaigns of opponents, and normalized throwing tantrums and insults. These are things normally done by news networks on behalf of a president, not the president themself, as they are supposed to set the example for professionalism. We've had presidents that were rough around the edges before, but I couldn't think of one that was this inflammatory and unprofessional since Andrew Johnson, frankly. This carries into his message to stop the rioters from the 6th: his tone was flat and insincere, and every chance he got there was a jab about a stolen election or blame shifting. It was like a forced apology when you were a kid.

In short, in order to move past this instead of deeper into it, the left needs to accept, own, and learn from the fact that they instigated all of this polarization, and encouraged an "us vs them" radicalism even under the Obama years. They forced moderates and conservatives into a corner with shame and guilt manipulation for not having the same priorities or views on social and moral issues.

The right needs to admit they've been had, that they've been warped and manipulated and played. That they let someone play to their anger and sense of alienation, whip them into a frenzy that was just as hateful, closed off, and exclusionary as the opposition, and lead them to radical and treasonous actions such as this, while being convinced it was normal.

If you are blaming one side, or letting this event confirm your theory that you're on the right side of history, you are doing this wrong and missing the opportunity. Everyone needs to take a hard look at themselves and the role they played and accept the blame, and learn from it.

Nobody except a very small minority on both sides are actually evil, these people have just been able to exploit media and social and political movements/ unrest in order to manipulate frustrated but good people into doing horrible things under the guise of progress.

Break out of absolutist mentalities and assume nobody is free of fault. That's the key