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I had never heard of Ray Epps before, but it's the ultimate leopards ate my face situation. Dude bought into the Fox News propaganda so much that he attempted to overthrow the government. Then Fox News accused him of being an FBI plant, and now all his fellow right wing nuts jobs have turned on him accusing him of working for the FBI. Meanwhile, he's still being prosecuted for his attempts to overthrow the government.
Fucking hilarious. I'd love to buy this idiot a beer just to hear how much he fucked up his life.
In their minds did they think that by physically occupying a building they therefore thought the country belonged to them or something? Still trying to piece together how they thought storming the capital would result in successfully over throwing the gov. Just another thing to define how absolutely ass backwards this timeline is.
A few of them were fully prepared to murder senators, don't forget.
Nancy Pelosi would absolutely have been killed if they got their hands on her. AOC too, probably.
Fuck, the wanted to hang Mike Pence.
So... they occupy the building. Trump moves in with the military to "protect the capital" and says "we're postponing the results of the election until we can resolve the election irregularities". He then weeds out the generals in the military that show resistance to going along with things. Then he basically just extends the deadline for when he'll hand power back indefinitely. Then he finds a way to blame the democrats for the Jan 6th stuff and locks them up, and voilà, coup complete.
The republicans would have gone along with this is a heart beat.
There was also the throw the electoral college vote back to the state legislatures move.
I think most people just got swept up in the moment, but there was certainly an organized group there ready to act upon something. Lest we forget they brought a guillotine so who knows what that intent was.
The president and commander-on-chief of the United States had just heavily implied it would be a good idea. Those of them not just caught up in the enthusiasm probably thought they would have military support. Trump always appealed to people that can't really separate reality from movies and they thought they were living the climax. Reality is, however, much more pragmatic than that and they were lucky they were of the privileged class so they were merely arrested rather than gunned down the way anyone else storming a federal building would be.
One of the more interesting facts that came out as they were arrested was that the bulk of attendees there that day were wealthy white men, usually business owners, lawyers, that sort, who all came from Blue cities where the demographics had been getting a LOT browner in the last ten years.
So when they chant about "Take OUR country back," guess who they're taking it back from? Hm?
Let me re-iterate, most of the group were from Blue states, not Red. There were quite a few Californians.
Of course, being quite literally the idle wealthy, they were able to fly to DC, no big deal, and then hang out there for a while, no big deal, because they didn't have to hold down jobs, other people were stuck back home making their money for them. They had plenty of cash for the excursion and all their toys. I'm sure they were staying in nice hotel rooms.
Here's a source for all that
A number also took private flights. Unless you happen to live where its taking place you have to possess the means to afford travel, a place to stay, and potentially legal fees to attend a protest. You also, as you said, need to be able to afford the time off work. This restricts most protests to college students and PMCs with a few locals thrown in.
Weirder, a number of them didn't vote for Trump... or anyone else.
They were trying to stop the certification of the votes. Even if they had stopped it, it's just a ceremonial thing iirc.
It's the same logic that alows them to think that JFK Jr will ascend from his watery grave and teleport to Dealy Plaza and annoint Trump as POTUS for life. They believe in fairy tales.