I made this thread a while back to describe what you are talking about.
The politician she revered above all others had lost an election. She’d struggled with crippling amounts of debt. Her home state of California was locking down again because of a virus she believed was fiction.
As she walked east along the Mall on Wednesday, wearing a backpack emblazoned with the American flag, Ashli Babbitt was elated.
“It was amazing to get to see the president talk,” Babbitt said, beaming in a video she streamed on Facebook early Wednesday afternoon that was later published by TMZ. “We are now walking down the inaugural path to the Capitol building. Three million-plus people.”
There was no crowd of three million: just a mob, lawless and maskless, that numbered in the thousands. Babbitt’s mission, which she had repeatedly avowed on social media, was to restore American democracy. But she was about to take part in a riot that would go down in history as one of that democracy’s most grievous attacks.
After a long but undistinguished military career and years of personal travails, Babbitt — a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from Southern California who once supported Barack Obama — believed she had found a cause that gave her life purpose. Within hours, that cause would bring her life to a violent end.
Trump supporters storm U.S. Capitol, with one woman killed and tear gas fired
Hers was the first death reported Jan. 6, when rioters incited by President Trump overran the seat of the U.S. government. In the coming days there would be others. Brian D. Sicknick, a 42-year-old Capitol police officer who died after being injured while trying to push back the mob. Rosanne Boyland, Kevin D. Greeson and Benjamin Phillips, who died of medical emergencies during the chaos.
But it was Babbitt, fatally shot by police as she attempted to leap through the broken window of a door inside the Capitol, whose name would almost instantly become synonymous with the feverish movement that had propelled thousands of Americans to desecrate a pillar of their government.
Long before she embraced those ideas, Babbitt was on a rocky path. She was loyal but rebellious, devoted to her country but often unable to get along with those who shared it. A believer in American pluck and free enterprise, she struggled in her attempts to run a small pool-service company outside San Diego.
She served more than a decade in the armed forces but chafed under the military hierarchy. Six of those years were spent in an Air National Guard unit whose mandate is to defend the Washington region and respond to civil unrest. Its nickname: the Capital Guardians.
Inside the Capitol siege: How barricaded lawmakers and aides sounded urgent pleas for help as police lost control
Like so many others, she believed Jan. 6 would be not a day of infamy, but an end to her troubles.
“Nothing will stop us,” she tweeted Jan. 5. “They can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours....dark to light!”
But online, she argued that the country’s problems were bigger than they had ever been.
Her anger appeared to intensify amid the pandemic, which she insisted was overblown, calling it the “controla virus” and “a F---ING JOKE.”
“We are being hoodwinked,” she wrote in July. “The sheep need to wake up.”
On Dec. 29, eight days before her death, she discovered a tweet from Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris promising to distribute more vaccines, promote mask-wearing and get students back to school.
“No the f--- you will not!” Babbitt retorted.
In the week leading up to her trip to Washington for the Trump demonstration, however, her online fury receded, replaced with glee and a new sense of mission. She retweeted dozens of figures promoting Trump’s demands that his supporters gather to overturn the election, including Trump supporter Jack Posobiec, QAnon activists, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump Jr.
“I will be there tomorrow!” she wrote Jan. 4 in response to another supporter heading to the nation’s capital. “Gods speed!”
She boarded a plane in San Diego the next morning and sat beside Will Carless, a journalist from USA Today who would later film the moment just before the pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. He called her “gregarious and chatty” and said they talked about a California beach town each of them loved.
The next day, it was overcast and cold in the District. Babbitt dressed in a hooded jacket and put an American flag backpack on her shoulders. She listened to the president tell her and many others that the country could only be taken back with strength, not weakness. Then she marched to the Capitol, surrounded, she said in her final Facebook video, by fellow “patriots.”
“She loved her country, and she was doing what she thought was right to support her country, joining up with like-minded people that also love their president and their country,” her husband told Fox-5 San Diego.
Not long after 2 p.m., he said, he sent her a message to ask how she was doing. She never wrote back.
Rioters breached the Capitol as they waved pro-police flags. Police support on the right may be eroding, experts warn.
A truth affirmed
While her husband was waiting, Babbitt was with the mob that swarmed the lightly staffed barricades surrounding their national legislature. In a scene unlike any in American history, they bashed in the windows of the U.S. Capitol. They fought with the police, screaming and waving Trump campaign flags and Confederate battle flags. They wandered through the halls and chambers of the Capitol as panicked lawmakers sheltered in place or were evacuated. Tear gas canisters were discharged in the Rotunda.
And a gun was fired.
It is unclear exactly how and when Babbitt entered the Capitol. She undoubtedly understood law enforcement could use deadly force in response to the breach. Airmen in the role Babbitt once occupied in the D.C. Air National Guard’s 113th Air Wing receive riot-control training, and her former unit was mobilized to protect the Capitol on Wednesday.
But it has since become clear what happened inside: The raging crowd that bashed in the windows of a barricaded door to the Speaker’s Lobby, with a short tanned woman in an American backpack at the front of its ranks. Her attempt to climb through one of those windows, leading the way, despite a Capitol Police officer pointing a handgun in her direction. The abrupt way she toppled backward after a single shot resounded.
Im sorry you and your family have to go through that. It sucks.
You shouldn’t thank god in the name of a pandemic that’s killed a million people just so you don’t have to be around your family. That sounds crazier than anything I’ve seen in this thread, and anything I’ve seen in the media.
Sorry, but both sides are not the same.
Trump is responsible for the covid crises and 74 million moral failures supported this mass murder because racism jerked their chains so hard their fucking heads popped clean off.
You’ve fallen for the trap then. Both sides are indeed the same, hence the saying two wings on the same bird. I’ve seen the blank eyes, trembling chins, spittle on the chin, and red face of political zealots on both sides. One side does it if you don’t wear a mask or you Trump, the other side does it if you support Biden or you wear the mask. It’s intellectually and emotionally dishonest to act like your side is better just because you’re on it.
Do you watch Maddow enough to draw that conclusion about your dad?
What do you mean by 'media'?
Welcome to the forum, remember you always have a ignore button if people are trolling you and it makes it hard to have a actual conversation without those other voices seeping in.
Every Asian family goes through this constantly now. Wife won’t even leave the house by herself anymore, too scared about what could happen.
Unfortunately, I’ve already had to use the ignore button a few times. I’m not saying Maddow in specific is a problem, just that it’s the only source of information on in his house. My old man was never inside during the day, his wife has him chained to the tv, inside all day, and msnbc is the only thing on. He no longer questions anything he sees on msnbc, even when debunked by left leaning sources. He’s afraid of his granddaughters, won’t come to their birthdays, won’t hug them. That’s not who my dad is, it’s who he was manipulated into being. I love the shit out of my dad, and refuse to let anything get in the way of that. Regards to you and yours, may y’all remain safe in this river of shite we’ve had as of late.
I don’t disagree that Trump made it much much worse, but many many Americans were vaccine disbelievers and anti-maskers long before him. How many Americans wore masks before covid when they were sick with the flu or cold? I don’t believe I ever saw an American in a mask. I used to get shit all the time for wearing a mask when I was sick. People would be like, “what are you afraid of,” and I would literally have to explain the mask was for them because I was already sick.
That sucks, I guess I’m somewhat insulated from certain things due to living in a rural township. It hadn’t crossed my mind how people of Asian lineage may be mistreated due to irrational fear. It’s not something I’ve seen in my area. Being a white guy of irish descent, I still find it weird that people still can’t tell the difference between asian nationalities. Granted, even rural California has a pretty large and diverse asian population.
Right on, if I am ever out of line and get tired and troll you just let me know and I will make sure to try (lol sorry hard to guarantee I will see it before I post again) to slow down and consider what you are saying.
I agree, I try to keep it on as background noise too mostly (unless a hearing is on) and do catch them overstepping on what has actually been reported. And too many of their talking heads (not the actual shows hosts because they have to pay fines/get sued if they are wrong) get to trolling and say things that are not true or are misleading/propagandized.
Do you mean now during the pandemic or a year ago?
If I was you I would check out what websites he is browsing/commenting on.
That sucks I am sorry and hope you and your wife/kids stay safe.
I do know I always thought it was super weird seeing people in masks. I think back on it and cringe now. I would always see people wearing the mask while driving, but now I get it.
