'The storm is here': Ashli Babbitt's journey from capital 'guardian' to invader
Source: Washington Post
‘The storm is here’: Ashli Babbitt’s journey from capital ‘guardian’ to invader
By Peter Jamison, Hannah Natanson, John Woodrow Cox and Alex Horton
1/9/2021, 7:00:00 a.m.
The politician she revered above all others had lost an election. She’d struggled with crippling amounts of debt. Her home state of California was locking down again because of a virus she believed was fiction.
As she walked west along the Mall on Wednesday, wearing a backpack emblazoned with the American flag, Ashli Babbitt was elated.
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Babbitt’s journey — illuminated through her extensive social media activity, court and military records, and interviews with some who knew her — was one of paranoid devotion and enthusiasm that only increased as Trump’s fortunes waned.
She avidly followed the QAnon conspiracy theory, convinced that Trump was destined to vanquish a cabal of child abusers and Satan-worshiping Democrats. She believed Wednesday would be “the storm,” when QAnon mythology holds that Trump would capture and execute his opponents.
Long before she embraced those ideas, Babbitt was on a rocky path. She was loyal but rebellious, devoted to her country but often unable to get along with those who shared it. A believer in American pluck and free enterprise, she struggled in her attempts to run a small pool-service company outside San Diego.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/09/ashli-babbitt-capitol-shooting-trump-qanon/