The Right Is Trying Really Hard to Blame Antifa for Storming the Capitol

[ZiprHead]

It took just a few hours for the baseless claim about the antifa bogeyman to spread throughout the entire right-wing media ecosystem.

Just after 2:30 on Wednesday afternoon, Trump supporters in DC for a mass “Stop the Steal” protest began smashing windows and trying to enter the northwest corner of the Capitol Building, outside the House chamber. Some of those observing, clearly uneasy with the violent turn their protest had taken, did the first thing that came to mind: They blamed antifa.

“Antifa, is that antifa? Get them out of there,” one Trump supporter shouted. Within seconds, that baseless allegation rippled out through the crowd as others repeated the accusation—a real-time, real-world example of disinformation traveling and spreading.

And in the hours since that moment of cognitive dissonance took place, the effort to blame antifa for Wednesday’s insurrection has grown louder. First it was boosted online by far-right extremists and QAnon supporters, and then by Republican lawmakers such as Rep. Paul Gosar and Rep. Matt Gaetz, high-profile conservative figures like Candace Owens and Sarah Palin, and finally by right-wing media outlets.

This effort took place despite images of the attack being broadcast across the globe, clearly showing those breaking into the Capitol were wearing Trump hats and shirts, waving Trump flags, and telling any reporter who would listen about their support for the president.

A standout example that the people involved in the attack on Capitol Hill yesterday were pro-Trump was Jake Angeli, the bare-chested Arizona man who posed for selfies inside the House chamber dressed in a buffalo horn helmet.

Angeli is a well-known figure within the QAnon community who goes by the nickname “Q Shaman,” but within hours of his picture being broadcast around the globe as the face of the attack, far-right extremists began throwing him under the bus, claiming he was in fact an antifa operative.

This was based on a picture claiming to show Angeli at a Black Lives Matter protest, but the image has been flagged by Twitter for being manipulated.

 

[Shadowy Man]

If it was antifa at the Capitol, why did Trump say he loves them?

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[Jarhyn]

View attachment 31253

Yeah, like, the only situation pointing out a "plant" works are when it's clearly a plant (out of place in the situation), and when the rest of the crowd is not likely to do the things you need the plant to do.

When the whole crowd is already covered with shitty tattoos and neck beards, brings their own pipe bombs, and carries their own firearms illegally, who needs plants?

 

[Deepak]

If it was antifa at the Capitol, why did Trump say he loves them?

 

[TomC]

If it was antifa at the Capitol, why did Trump say he loves them?

I try to be a decent person.

So I'll apologize for laughing at this, before even knowing if it's true.

Tom

 

[Derec]

If it was antifa at the Capitol, why did Trump say he loves them?

He loves the poorly educated.

 

[Derec]

It took just a few hours for the baseless claim about the antifa bogeyman to spread throughout the entire right-wing media ecosystem.

How is that different than people on here claiming "false flag" for every Antifa or #BLM act of violence, even those committed in Antfa strongholds like Portland and Seattle?

 

[marc]

Some of the people pushing the “it was antifa!!” conspiracy theory suggest one of the people in the capital had a hammer&sickle tattoo, an obvious communist. Actually looking at the picture shows it is a symbol from the video game Dishonored 2

 

[ideologyhunter]

The GOP is so deeply corrupt that it knows only to lie as a way of covering up all the past lies that led up to this sickening event. Mitt Romney is such an outlier as to make the mass of GOP senators and congressmen look like pygmies. I don't think there's much hope for the party, and in one generation they'll be gone from demographics alone. A lot of the crazy comes from the sunset mode they're stuck in. They've got a base that's radicalized as hell, boiling in conspiracy theories, and a donor class that will keep on demanding more protection of wealth. How they expect to grab the 15 or 20% of the 'independent' vote they need to win elections is the quandary. They better hope that gerrymandering and vote suppression tactics keep working for them. Expect them to shriek like stuck piggies if the John Lewis Voting Rights Act goes through.

 

[J842P]

It took just a few hours for the baseless claim about the antifa bogeyman to spread throughout the entire right-wing media ecosystem.

How is that different than people on here claiming "false flag" for every Antifa or #BLM act of violence, even those committed in Antfa strongholds like Portland and Seattle?

True. The amount of fingerpointing at bogeymen is pretty deranged. The mainstream media has done a really bad job of dismissing Antifa as "just an idea, not an organization". Or repeating the canard that they are simply "against fascists".

 

[GenesisNemesis]

It took just a few hours for the baseless claim about the antifa bogeyman to spread throughout the entire right-wing media ecosystem.

How is that different than people on here claiming "false flag" for every Antifa or #BLM act of violence, even those committed in Antfa strongholds like Portland and Seattle?

Whataboutism, whataboutism whataboutism.

 

[Jarhyn]

It took just a few hours for the baseless claim about the antifa bogeyman to spread throughout the entire right-wing media ecosystem.

How is that different than people on here claiming "false flag" for every Antifa or #BLM act of violence, even those committed in Antfa strongholds like Portland and Seattle?

Whataboutism, whataboutism whataboutism.

Not to mention that BLM was always primarily peaceful with behavioral outliers. The DC attack was anything but; in fact it was a premeditated assault, as evidenced by the fact that in building built to be a maze, with no doors marked, they managed to selectively trash the offices of democrats without touching the offices of republicans.

Imagine of you told me "one room in this house has a million dollars buried in the back wall, go find it!"

My search pattern would be very different if I knew vs if I didn't, which room had the money hidden: I would proceed systematically in a brute force methodology were I not to know. I would, on average, end up trashing fully half the rooms and potentially more than one wall in every failed search room.

Conversely, if I somehow had cheated and had planned it in advance with knowledge, I would expect one wall in exactly one room to be busted out.

Here we have the latter scenario: Terrorists didn't trash or even enter the Turtle's office. Terrorists didn't break in on Lindsey Graham's private sanctum. But they knew right where to go for Pelosi and Schumer's office.

It's almost like this was a coordinated attack.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Anyway, is Trump legally culpable for trashing the Senate chamber? It was a Trump property.

 

[Elixir]

How is that different than people on here claiming "false flag" for every Antifa or #BLM act of violence, even those committed in Antfa strongholds like Portland and Seattle?

Well, videos of right wing thugs dressed in tactical black, breaking windows and inciting violence at BLM protests give credence to those claims ... no such thing has emerged from the right wing violent extremist assault on the Nation's Capitol showing BLMers egging them on... nor did "antifa" ever (to my knowledge) ask their "members" (followers?) to riot, attack police and kill lawmakers, disrupt federal government functions .... what Jarhyn said.

Oh I know you're just trying to drag discussion away from what actually happened here Derec because it makes"your side" look bad.
If it's any consolation, your side ALWAYS looks bad.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

How is that different than people on here claiming "false flag" for every Antifa or #BLM act of violence, even those committed in Antfa strongholds like Portland and Seattle?

Well, often those "false flag" claims are accompanied by arrests of right-wing zealots.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Whataboutism, whataboutism whataboutism.

Not to mention that BLM was always primarily peaceful with behavioral outliers. The DC attack was anything but; in fact it was a premeditated assault, as evidenced by the fact that in building built to be a maze, with no doors marked, they managed to selectively trash the offices of democrats without touching the offices of republicans.

Imagine of you told me "one room in this house has a million dollars buried in the back wall, go find it!"

My search pattern would be very different if I knew vs if I didn't, which room had the money hidden: I would proceed systematically in a brute force methodology were I not to know. I would, on average, end up trashing fully half the rooms and potentially more than one wall in every failed search room.

Conversely, if I somehow had cheated and had planned it in advance with knowledge, I would expect one wall in exactly one room to be busted out.

Here we have the latter scenario: Terrorists didn't trash or even enter the Turtle's office. Terrorists didn't break in on Lindsey Graham's private sanctum. But they knew right where to go for Pelosi and Schumer's office.

It's almost like this was a coordinated attack.

Anyway, is Trump legally culpable for trashing the Senate chamber? It was a Trump property.

How is that different than people on here claiming "false flag" for every Antifa or #BLM act of violence, even those committed in Antfa strongholds like Portland and Seattle?

Well, videos of right wing thugs dressed in tactical black, breaking windows and inciting violence at BLM protests give credence to those claims ... no such thing has emerged from the right wing violent extremist assault on the Nation's Capitol showing BLMers egging them on... nor did "antifa" ever (to my knowledge) ask their "members" (followers?) to riot, attack police and kill lawmakers, disrupt federal government functions .... what Jarhyn said.

Oh I know you're just trying to drag discussion away from what actually happened here Derec because it makes"your side" look bad.
If it's any consolation, your side ALWAYS looks bad.

How is that different than people on here claiming "false flag" for every Antifa or #BLM act of violence, even those committed in Antfa strongholds like Portland and Seattle?

Well, often those "false flag" claims are accompanied by arrests of right-wing zealots.

So, now that we've thoroughly answered the 'how is that different', will it make a difference?

Enquiring minds and all that.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How is that different than people on here claiming "false flag" for every Antifa or #BLM act of violence, even those committed in Antfa strongholds like Portland and Seattle?

Well, often those "false flag" claims are accompanied by arrests of right-wing zealots.

Yup. When it's the other side getting arrested it's likely false flag. The other indicator to look for is the people involved at the time pointing out the bad guys and saying they're not with us.

 

[Jarhyn]

How is that different than people on here claiming "false flag" for every Antifa or #BLM act of violence, even those committed in Antfa strongholds like Portland and Seattle?

Well, often those "false flag" claims are accompanied by arrests of right-wing zealots.

Yup. When it's the other side getting arrested it's likely false flag. The other indicator to look for is the people involved at the time pointing out the bad guys and saying they're not with us.

Yeah, like, that shit was realtime. People were confronting the false flags amid the protests, pointing them out. Pointing out their social media saying they were going. Pointing them out to the FBI and police where their unmarked, plateless cars sat in hotel parking lots.

The fact is, it happened.

I might note that the same people who usually blame every conservative action on leftists under absurd false flag claims were the ones planning a false flag attack.

Funny how that works.

 

[Angry Floof]

It took just a few hours for the baseless claim about the antifa bogeyman to spread throughout the entire right-wing media ecosystem.

Just after 2:30 on Wednesday afternoon, Trump supporters in DC for a mass “Stop the Steal” protest began smashing windows and trying to enter the northwest corner of the Capitol Building, outside the House chamber. Some of those observing, clearly uneasy with the violent turn their protest had taken, did the first thing that came to mind: They blamed antifa.

“Antifa, is that antifa? Get them out of there,” one Trump supporter shouted. Within seconds, that baseless allegation rippled out through the crowd as others repeated the accusation—a real-time, real-world example of disinformation traveling and spreading.

And in the hours since that moment of cognitive dissonance took place, the effort to blame antifa for Wednesday’s insurrection has grown louder. First it was boosted online by far-right extremists and QAnon supporters, and then by Republican lawmakers such as Rep. Paul Gosar and Rep. Matt Gaetz, high-profile conservative figures like Candace Owens and Sarah Palin, and finally by right-wing media outlets.

This effort took place despite images of the attack being broadcast across the globe, clearly showing those breaking into the Capitol were wearing Trump hats and shirts, waving Trump flags, and telling any reporter who would listen about their support for the president.

A standout example that the people involved in the attack on Capitol Hill yesterday were pro-Trump was Jake Angeli, the bare-chested Arizona man who posed for selfies inside the House chamber dressed in a buffalo horn helmet.

Angeli is a well-known figure within the QAnon community who goes by the nickname “Q Shaman,” but within hours of his picture being broadcast around the globe as the face of the attack, far-right extremists began throwing him under the bus, claiming he was in fact an antifa operative.

This was based on a picture claiming to show Angeli at a Black Lives Matter protest, but the image has been flagged by Twitter for being manipulated.

Well, to be fair, he is now sitting in jail not eating because they won't bring him organic food. That alone is pretty anti-Trump. So probably he's antifa and he infiltrated the Qanon movement and secretly drinks soy milk every day.