The attack on the Capitol was visceral, but the behind-the-scenes efforts to undermine the election were just as important. In the popular imagination, a democracy dies when a group of angry plotters seizes control of a government building and announces that they are now in charge. That’s why images of the mob defiling the Capitol building on Jan. 6 still have such a visceral power in our memories even four years later. But the attackers were not there that day to install themselves as senators