Ashli Babbitt, the woman shot by Capitol Police as she and other pro-Trump rioters tried to force their way deeper into the building Wednesday, appeared to consume a steady diet of heavily conspiratorial beliefs from all corners of the MAGA-verse.
Her Twitter account in particular shows her to be a major proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory. She eagerly amplified tweets about a November election replete with “fraud,” and appeared, in particular, to be a disciple of Lin Wood, a lawyer in President Donald Trump’s orbit who was permanently banned from Twitter Wednesday after encouraging the rioters to “fight for our freedom.”
Babbitt, a 35-year-old Californian and Air Force veteran, stood out in the largely male crowd that besieged the Capitol on Wednesday. But online, she fit right into these conspiracy theory tidepools.
Extremism journalists and observers have been
marking the gender shift in QAnon adherence particularly this summer and fall, when COVID-19 lockdowns drove people inside and online, and stoked a general anxiety about the state of the world. QAnon, at its most extreme, asserts that prominent Democrats are pedophiles and Satanists, and that they will be executed during a last judgement-type event called “the storm.”
There are varying theories about why women have flocked to QAnon: Travis View, host of the podcast “QAnon Anonymous” has pointed out that the “soft front” of QAnon in the “save the children” campaign may be more attractive to women. Annie Kelly, an expert on digital culture,
theorizes that QAnon may be more welcoming to women than conspiracy theories that have purity — often white, often male — at their center.
While Babbitt expressed belief in QAnon dozens of times on her Twitter account, she also appeared to ascribe to a constellation of conspiracy theories that tend to churn in the same communities. Babbitt’s final tweet captures some of that crossover: “Nothing will stop us….they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours….dark to light!” The explicit reference to the “storm” is textbook QAnon. But she and the rest of the pro-Trump mob was coming to D.C. in the first place to overturn an election they were convinced was stolen and illegitimate.
She recently retweeted calls for “rebellion” referring to not wearing a mask during the pandemic and “proof” from former National Security Adviser-turned-QAnon darling Michael Flynn that the November voting machines were connected to the internet and, thus, riggable.
She amplified many adoring tweets about Wood, including one theorizing that Wood was using his Twitter account to leak coded intelligence via tweets about Vice President Mike Pence deserving to be executed. Many of her recent retweets concern Pence being a traitor, including one that suggests Jeffrey Epstein was murdered because he had dirt on the Vice President. That theme follows Trump’s own behavior, as he has become increasingly infuriated with the Vice President for not exercising his power — power Pence does not actually have — to name him President for another term.
In late December, Babbitt responded angrily to a tweet from Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris about the incoming administration’s plans to distribute 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in their first 100 days.
“No the **** you will not!” Babbit
responded. “No masks, no you, no Biden the kid raper, no vaccines…sit your fraudulent *** down…we the ppl *****!”
