I think your confusion comes from the fact this wasn't a protest gone awry, it was an organized domestic terrorist attack. It was a small group of armed people in body armor who privately organized a domestic terrorist attack intending to cause damage and hurt/kill federal officers in an ambush. The only reason the officer lived was because Song's gun jammed before he could kill people and get away.

Certainly if this was a jihadist attack, a lifetime sentence would be appropriate. Why should it be different just because they're white?

This guy carried out an organized domestic terrorist attack with help from others, actually killed someone as well as badly injuring another, and got only 41 years. Why the disparity?

The Federal Building where he murdered the security guard is just an administrative building; at least the people in Texas were motivated by the somewhat reasonable belief that they were attacking guards at a concentration camp.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/steven-carrillo-sentenc...

> it was an organized domestic terrorist attack

A guy deliberately drove his car through a street full of scattering protesters in my neighbourhood a few years ago, and when people tried to pull him out of it, he shot one of them, and then ran off, waving his gun (with a jungle-taped pair of mags inserted into it).

Was he a (disorganized) political terrorist? If these guys got 70 years for being at the protest, how many hundreds of years in prison do you think were warranted for him?