To be fair, she does not suggest those she calls seditionists should actually be charged with sedition. Sedition (actually "seditionist conspiracy") is a very serious offence under the US criminal code (by the way, not one of the Capitol accused has been charged with either sedition or insurrection).
No, Applebaum favours a kinder, gentler approach—you know, how "progressives" often talk about the need for a "conversation", by which they don't mean a two-way exchange but rather a monologue in which the ignorant rubes are set straight, stuff like "training and counseling to help them assimilate". A kinder, gentler approach. The idea that the rubes might have a legitimate viewpoint to be debated is not even worth consideration.
Of course, not all "progressives" are as kind and gentle as Applebaum. Has she stopped to consider what this kind of typecasting might suggest in the minds of some of her less kind ideological soul mates, especially those in the security state?
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As a group, it’s hard to know what to call them. They are too many to merit the term extremists. There are not enough of them to be secessionists. Some prominent historians and philosophers have been arguing for a revival of the word fascist; others think white supremacist is more appropriate, though there could also be a case for rebel. For want of a better term, I’m calling all of them seditionists—not just the people who took part in the riot, but the far larger number of Americans who are united by their belief that Donald Trump won the election, that Joe Biden lost, and that a long list of people and institutions are lying about it: Congress, the media, Mike Pence, the election officials in all 50 states, and the judges in dozens of courts.
But how? Clearly we need regulation of social media, but that’s years away. Of course we need better education, but that doesn’t help us deal with the armed men who were standing outside the Ohio statehouse this week.
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America’s situation is nowhere near as extreme (though it will be if the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys retreat into the Rocky Mountains for half a century), but some of the Colombian program’s principles have useful resonance. It focuses on the long term, offering former outcasts the hope of a positive future, and providing training and counseling designed to help them assimilate. Not everyone will like the idea, but America’s seditionists arguably pose a similarly long-term social problem. True believers—especially those who are unemployed, underemployed, or so far down the conspiracy-theory rabbit hole that they can no longer cope with ordinary life—are part of an intense, deeply connected, and, to them, profoundly satisfying community. In order to be pried away from it, they will have to be offered some appealing alternative, just as the ex–FARC members are offered the alternative of a legal life in society.