The Capitol Storm comes at the beginning of January. For Donald Trump, a participating activist who loses her life in the process is a heroine. Right-wing extremists celebrate the cult of martyrs.
Washington DC – Ashli Babbitt, one of the insurgents who forcibly entered the U.S. Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021, is considered a martyr. When the 35-year-old tried to break through a door in the building that day, a police officer shot her. She succumbs to her injuries on site. Video recordings document how the officer Michael Byrd warns them several times. “I tried to wait as long as possible,” Byrd told NBC that same evening.
Since then, the policeman has been seen as the enemy of right-wing extremist circles, the heroine Ashli Babbitt on the conscience. Donald Trump, former President of the USA, has now also taken up this martyr cult for his political purposes. At an election rally in Iowa, Trump spoke of numerous injustices. Innocent Capitol Storm activists currently in US prisons are “political prisoners.” On Sunday (10.10.2021), a video message from Trump was also broadcast on the occasion of Babbitt’s birthday. Among other things, it ran at an election campaign event in Texas, such as, for example, the news portal Axios but also other US media reports unanimously.
Donald Trump’s video message fuels right-wing extremist martyrs
In it, the 75-year-old praises the victim as a “truly incredible person”. He justifies his assessment with the fact that Babitt served in the US Army for 14 years. Her death was “tragic”: “There was no reason that Ashli had to give up her life on that day,” said Trump, fueling the cult of martyrs.
Trump also called on the Justice Department to reopen a “fair and impartial investigation into the death of Ashli Babitt”. With this he repeated an invitation from August. The police officer Michael Byrd had been exonerated after investigations by the authorities, among other things because he had protected the lives of MPs.
Donald Trump: Right-wing extremists use his video message
According to matching media reports, right-wing extremists used Trump’s video message for their own propaganda shortly after it was published. Among other things, a manipulated version of his statement was distributed en masse on Telegram. For example, the word “innocent” was added to Trump’s aforementioned sentence about Babbitt. The reactions were not long in coming – and mainly concerned Trump’s favorite story: the fraud in the US election in 2020. “Fuck Joe Biden” was read several times.
All important news about US politics straight to your inbox
Donald Trump himself asserted that he had nothing to do with the storming of the Capitol or the radicalization of right-wing extremist circles. Instead, he shouted to his fans at the weekend: “We’re bringing America back!” Trump has been preparing the US election in 2024 for a long time. (do)
