My thoughts on the Radical Right.
Do not pity them
a woman was shot and killed for breaking in to the Capitol.
The first thing I thought when I heard that was
“well isn’t that funny.”
but I didn’t really find it that funny. It was more of a kneejerk reaction.
So I looked into who she was.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/09/ashli-babbitt-capitol-shooting-trump-qanon/
Ashli Babbit.
She was a Veteran who served two wars. She was unhappy with the state of the government. She was proud of her country and she loved her country.
But she believed in radical conspiracies. She believed in Trump.
She was unhappy with her life and what her country had become and wanted to make a stand for it.
Now I don’t know the details. I don’t know if she was racist. I don’t know if she was homophobic. I don’t know the woman at all. But the fact that she would blindly go forth and storm the capitol along side her fellow trump supporters and die thinking she was standing for what was right.
Dying thinking she was making a difference.
I don’t know what to think of that.
I’m sure if I had known her in person I wouldn’t have liked her very much. She was a typical anti masker, and that in itself tells me loads about a person.
I don’t know if she even considered she would die that day.
But the fact that countless people in this country are people like her. People that think they are doing what is right. People that think they are fighting for freedom, and justice. For the American Dream.
People just repeating the same things we’ve been programed to believe since kindergarten. That we deserve this country.
that this country is great. was great. should be great.
A country built on the death of millions.
A country stolen from those we labeled savages.
that we deemed beneath us.
And then have the audacity to claim that this land is ours. That it belongs to us. That God. God gave us this land.
Repeat a lie enough times and it becomes the truth.
The lie that is this country.
I implore those of you who look down on the trump supporters for being mindless drones. Machines. They are not machines. They are people. They have the capablity to feel. to think. to care.
They just have their care misplaced towards the wrong thing.
Towards hatred. Towards fear and empowerment.
Don’t look down on them. But also don’t pity them.
I just feel so sad. Sad for this hateful woman. This woman I’ve never met. These people that I often avoid.
if only we could save them.