A popular right wing talking point is that the insurrection that occurred at the US Capitol on January 6 wasn’t an insurrection. One Republican Congressman recently compared it to a “normal tourist visit”, despite knowing better. Also pushing this line has been far left journalist Glenn Greenwald (and guy who blocked me on Twitter). Here was a tweet he put out on Wednesday:
Jan. 6 was overwhelmingly Trump boomers who hadn’t moved from their couch in ages. Two of them literally dropped dead of a heart attack. One died of a speed overdose. The other got shot in the neck. None brandished weapons inside the Capitol. Where is The Insurrection™ now?
Citing someone overdosing on speed as proof there wasn’t an insurrection is a bit odd. Not to Godwin’s law myself, but part of the success of German Blitzkrieg in World War 2 is attributed to Pervitin, a methamphetamine brand (aka speed).
The bigger issue with the claim is citing the person “shot in the neck”. Here is how the Justice Department described the situation that was occurring when that happened:
The investigation further determined that Ms. Babbitt was among a mob of people that entered the Capitol building and gained access to a hallway outside “Speaker’s Lobby,” which leads to the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives. At the time, the USCP was evacuating Members from the Chamber, which the mob was trying to enter from multiple doorways. USCP officers used furniture to barricade a set of glass doors separating the hallway and Speaker’s Lobby to try and stop the mob from entering the Speaker’s Lobby and the Chamber, and three officers positioned themselves between the doors and the mob. Members of the mob attempted to break through the doors by striking them and breaking the glass with their hands, flagpoles, helmets, and other objects. Eventually, the three USCP officers positioned outside the doors were forced to evacuate. As members of the mob continued to strike the glass doors, Ms. Babbitt attempted to climb through one of the doors where glass was broken out. An officer inside the Speaker’s Lobby fired one round from his service pistol, striking Ms. Babbitt in the left shoulder, causing her to fall back from the doorway and onto the floor. A USCP emergency response team, which had begun making its way into the hallway to try and subdue the mob, administered aid to Ms. Babbitt, who was transported to Washington Hospital Center, where she succumbed to her injuries.
You don’t have to take their word on that, you can watch the video of it occurring. If you watch the video, the people shown don’t look like “boomers”, but much younger. Either Glenn Greenwald has almost entirely ignored what happened that day, but is still sounding off on it, or he knows he is lying.