Capitol Riot
“These are things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & peace. Remember this day forever!!”
This was a tweet sent out from Donald Trump while the attack on the Capitol building was happening. That tweet would soon be deleted by Twitter for violating its guidelines. I want to talk about the riots that happened at the U.S. Capitol, what caused them, and who is to blame for these attacks.
On January 6th, 2020, a huge mob of Trump supporters raided the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC. The event was originally supposed to be one of Trump’s huge rallies, but it escalated quickly. Trump encouraged his supporters to “walk down to the Capitol” and to “cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.” Of course, his supporters would listen to his words, and they did exactly what he told them. They all marched right down to that Capitol, which was the beginning of a Domestic Terrorist attack.
Trump’s speech that day was not the only thing that initiated the violence. It was the constant Tweeting and misinformation being spread daily before and after the election. Trump has stated many times that if he lost the election to Joe Biden, it was because of voter fraud. Trump and others have been feeding people misinformation about what is going on in our country, and they just take it.
What Made People Believe the Election was Rigged?
It’s simple to say people thought the election was rigged because Donald Trump told them it was, but it goes further than that. Many government officials would not come out and say that Joe Biden won the election. In fact, many of them either said to wait until votes were certified, or that Trump did win the election. Of course, many people believed them because it was their own party saying this. This was a dangerous move played by republicans, all to keep their status, but many soon learned their lesson.
The acts at the Capitol showed a lot of Republican officials how wrong they were. Senators like Kelly Loeffler decided that she wasn’t going to object to the results after she realized what she had done. Many U.S. citizens don’t know how the elections work, and they don’t know the process of counting ballots. They’ll see any random video of something looking “suspicious” and call it fraud. Republican officials used how gullible these people were to their advantage. They continued to radicalize them more by saying there was widespread voter fraud and that the media was lying to them.
Things like Facebook and Parler also radicalize these people into believing the media is wrong. Facebook will target people into what they want to hear and will end up leading them to join certain Facebook groups. These groups allow them to talk about whatever they want and they just end up believing it because the media is “fake news.” Parler is a “free speech” app that also allows people to discuss whatever they want. Fake articles will float around and people will just believe them. Apps like these are dangerous and will allow people to plan things like the Capitol attack.
QAnon
I wanted to give QAnon its own section in this small piece I’m writing because it plays a huge role in the Capitol riot. As we all know QAnon is this big conspiracy theory that involves a lot of smaller conspiracy theories. The big one that many people have heard of is the Democratic party and billionaires are taking control of the world and are part of this child sex trafficking ring. They also believe that Donald Trump is the only one that can “save them” (Disclaimer this is not true). Many right-wing extremists believe this because they have been radicalized by misinformation on things like Facebook and Parler. But what does this have to do with the Capitol riot?
The motive for the attack on the Capitol was to keep Trump in office. Why? Since many QAnon supporters believe that all democrats are bad and that everything they’re being told is a lie, they want to keep Trump in the office so they can save themselves. Now I am well aware this sounds crazy, but it’s something that seriously has to be discussed.
Whether we like it or not, people actually believe in this type of stuff. We need to make sure that people can trust our news again without fear that they’re being directly attacked. As stupid as QAnon sounds, people trust it more than they trust actual people who are trying to help them. People need to certify actual trustworthy sources, and republicans need to stop using these people to their advantage.
Breaking down what I wrote
Who is to blame for the Capitol attack? Most republicans that hold public office. They allow these people to radicalize themselves on apps like Facebook and Parler and then they end up feeding into the lies. At the end of the day, it’s for the Republican’s personal benefit so they can get re-elected again.
Could this attack be predicted? Yes. Many government officials and social media apps have known about the radicalization on the far right. In fact, things like QAnon are not new. We’ve known how dangerous the far right is, and how violent they can get. There have been plenty of warnings, for example, the plan to kidnap the governor of Michigan. Those same people who wanted to capture her are also the same people who stormed the Capitol.
Can the Republican Party recover from this? Right now the Republican Party is basically split into two. The Trump Party, and the Republicans. The divide between our country has been happening ever since Trump took office, but the divide between his own party is almost worse. I don’t think the republican party will be able to bounce back from this unless we have some restrictions on what people read online.
Photo is from the New York Times Instagram page!
Very gud. Was very swell. 👍