Ashli Babbitt Killed by MAGA in the Jan 6 Assault on Democracy
Lakeside resident Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed on January 6 as she attempted to climb through broken glass on a door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby of the Capitol. In the days following her death she was portrayed as an Air Force vet and struggling small business owner who’d fallen into a dark place.
The New York Times described her social media feed as a “torrent of messages celebrating President Trump; QAnon conspiracy theories; and tirades against immigration, drugs and Democratic leaders in California.”
Her identity became public after KUSI spoke with her husband, who said Babbitt was a strong supporter of President Trump, and was a great patriot to all who knew her. The newscast went on to say: “KUSI sends our condolences to her family and all who knew her.”
I’m pretty sure the TV station doesn't say that about other people who are killed in violent confrontations with law enforcement.
Make no mistake here, whatever her motivations, Babbitt’s actions led to her death. Her actions were based on the Big Lie about the results of the 2020 election. And the Big Lie is being pushed by the Big Guy, leader of the MAGA cult.
Now, her death is being used as a call to arms by former President Donald Trump, who’s made finding out the name of the officer who shot her as a centerpiece of his newly revived political rallies.
The insinuation being made is that discovering this information will lead to the Real Truth about what happened on January 6th. And, “wink,wink,” perhaps the individual who pulled the trigger will be brought to (mob) justice.
Some social media users are suggesting that Babbitt didn’t die, with the likely explanation being the “crisis actor” excuse common to any situation that’s politically uncomfortable. These folks haven’t gotten the “martyr” memo currently circulating among the faithful.
Let’s face the fact, threatening the lives of people who the former president dislikes has become a central tenet for true cult followers. On Tuesday, Capitol Police announced they were opening field offices in California and Florida in response to increased threats to members of Congress since the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Nearly two thirds of Republicans believe that President Joe Biden didn’t win the election.
This is the Big Lie at the heart of Trump’s messaging, and it follows that some people among the 40% of Republicans who believe violence may be necessary in the US are going to take this to heart.
From Michael Gerson at the Washington Post:
If Trump has a political philosophy, one of its main tenets is toxic masculinity — the use of menace and swagger to cover his mental and moral impotence. And the mini-Trumps have taken their master’s lead. When Trump operative Stephen K. Bannon proposed that Anthony S. Fauci should be beheaded, when Trump ally Joseph diGenova said a federal cybersecurity official should be “taken out at dawn and shot,” when Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani urged Trump supporters to engage in “trial by combat,” all of this was more than paunchy, pathetic, aging White men talking smack they could never back up. It exemplified a type of politics where cruelty is the evidence of commitment, brutality is the measure of loyalty and violence is equated with power.
The Big Lie about the election is also now the basis for an effort to whitewash history.
Representative Mo Brooks, who took the stage at the Stop the Steal rally that morning to prod the crowd with direct calls for violence, is being sued over those statements by Congressman Eric Swalwell.
According to the filing from Brooks’ attorneys: "Brooks only gave the Ellipse Speech because the White House asked him to, in his capacity as a United States Congressman. But for the White House request, Brooks would not have appeared at the Ellipse Rally." The filing also claims that Brooks coordinated his statements with the White House.
But if this sounds like either Brooks or his attorneys are about to be reasonable … nope. This is the prelude to claims that calls for violence against Congress were completely justified. "The evidence is overwhelming that the Nov. 3, 2020, elections were the subject of voter fraud and election theft on a scale never seen before in America,” reads the filing, “and that, if only lawful votes cast by eligible American citizens were counted, Donald Trump should be serving his second term as President of the United States.”
“Whitewash” is the appropriate word here, since the fear of the “great replacement” has been repeatedly identified as the thing that those arrested have in common.
Here’s Mychal Denzel Smith at New York Magazine:
When we decline to fold the January 6 insurrection into the predominant narrative of white supremacy in this country — whether it is conservatives’ denying the riot’s significance outright or liberals’ maintaining that these eruptions of mass rage are “not who we are” — we are in danger of forgetting its significance. Aside from a very brief window in which the attack on the Capitol was nearly universally condemned by lawmakers, Republicans have downplayed it, while the 24-hour news cycle has been more than content to move on to battles over critical race theory (a subject that, were it taken seriously, would help us to understand what led to the riot). “There were people who went from being brave defenders of the House door to revisionists, asserting that the whole thing was a ‘tourist group,’” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland recently told Politico. “And that did happen in record time.”
If we let the mob participants and sympathizers claim their own version of the narrative, it will be told through a righteous lens, one in which they were defenders of a democracy under threat from radical forces within their country. They will tell stories of their martyrs and someday build statues in their honor. They will cast themselves as patriots who did all they could to preserve the American way of life. They will pass these stories down for generations, and their great-great-grandchildren will take up the fight of their ancestors once again.
https://twitter.com/RepStephMurphy/status/1412427838502887430?s=20
How the upcoming House hearings play out is likely to be less than satisfying. Minority leader Kevin McCarthy won’t take it seriously. It’s possible that he’ll refuse to appoint any Republican members. If he does put people on the committee, they’re likely to include the usual grandstanding clowns like Rep. Jim Jordan, who will use the tactics of deflection and obstruction from the impeachment hearings as their guide.
UPDATE: 7/7 @4pm Bingo!
https://twitter.com/VABVOX/status/1412912971802726403?s=20
Republican Congresscritters are also reportedly planning on using the Democratic-led investigation as a forum to question the efforts made by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to secure the Capitol.
That’s right, folks, not only did the January 6th insurrection not really happen, if it did, it was Pelosi’s fault… Or it was the FBI’s fault, if you believe Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, who apparently has never read a charging document.
Meanwhile, the wheels of justice grind on. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia says more than 535 people have been charged in relation to the January 6th attack.
Around 300 suspects are as yet unidentified, and the FBI’s website seeking information about those involved in the Capitol violence includes more than 900 pictures including those persons.
Evidence of coordination and pre-planning continues to pile up as footage released yesterday as part of an ongoing federal criminal case shows insurrectionists using strobe lights to try to disorient federal officers as they assaulted them en masse.
Several arrestees involved with militia type organizations have agreed to plea bargains. While those prosecutorial deals may lead to additional charges, it’s important to remember that less than 10% of those arrested had ties to any of these groups.
What’s missing so far are the higher ups on the insurrectionist food chain, like the Republican Attorneys General Association, which used robocalls to recruit people to come to DC. Or Women for America First, the organization responsible for the initial rally. Or Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander, who’s claimed Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.) and Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.), had a hand in planning the rally.
Here’s the Washington Post on Alexander:
If Democrats got in the way of an objection from congressional Republicans, “everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building,” he wrote on Twitter in December, according to the Daily Beast. “1776 is *always* an option.”
At a rally the night before the vote, Alexander led the crowd in chanting, “Victory or death!” The following morning, Gosar tagged the activist in several tweets.
***
One thing is for certain. The events of January 6th left a stain on our democracy. Letting any individual or group downplay or ignore that reality is something we can not do.
Every candidate, everywhere, should have to proclaim their allegiance to the democratic process, and if they don’t, they need to be identified as somebody who would allow bad people who do bad things to run amok.
***
If for some reason you remain unpersuaded about the seriousness of the January 6th attack on the Capitol, this compilation of videos by the New York Times will be worth the 40+ minutes you spend watching it.
https://youtu.be/jWJVMoe7OY0
Hey folks! Be sure to like/follow Words & Deeds on Facebook. If you’d like to have each post emailed to you check out the simple subscription form on the right side of the front page.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com
Lead graphic via Business Insider