![]() ![]() “This is the most extreme I’ve ever seen them go.”Īlthough allegations of voter fraud have repeatedly been disproven, those at the Capitol cited unsubstantiated rumors of dead Americans casting ballots, rigged voting machines, and election night tampering as incontrovertible evidence that Biden had stolen the race. “The Democratic party will do anything to get their power back,” Carl Ming, a protester from Rockdale, about an hour northeast of Austin, who brought a vintage Soviet semiautomatic rifle to the rally, told me. Others seemed to pay their counterparts in Washington no mind, focusing their attention squarely on Joe Biden. As Texas Department of Public Safety troopers closed off the Texas Capitol grounds, a man with a “Trump 2020” flag told those around him that “the fighting has begun.” Another protester assured those nearby that “we have boots on the ground in D.C.” Related: These Texas Congressmen Fought off the Mob. The House floor had been evacuated and members of Congress were escorted to safe rooms one woman had been shot and killed. Pro-Trump protesters there had just breached the Capitol building. (Rittenhouse says the shootings were in self-defense.)Īround 1:30 p.m., news from Washington spread through the rally. “Bohemian Rhapsody” started playing on a nearby boombox: “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”Ī group of armed men milled around nearby, inside the Capitol gate, holding signs reading “Kill a commie for mommy,” “Hang traitors,” and “Exterminate communists.” A car honked repeatedly as it sped down Eleventh Street, eliciting cheers it was festooned with a “We Are All Kyle Rittenhouse” sign, a reference to the eighteen-year-old who shot three men at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, this summer. (Notably, Texas, too, had expanded voting by executive order, a fact that Ortiz said should be evaluated by “constitutional lawyers.”) She said she would not stop fighting until the Constitution was upheld and Trump was sworn in, even if that took until April. Amber explained she was there to “fight for the Constitution,” which she alleged various swing states had violated in changing their election laws to allow expanded mail-in voting without the approval of their legislatures. Congress was set to convene to certify Joe Biden’s electoral college victory. ![]() The couple had traveled nearly a hundred miles to Austin from their home in Robinson, a Waco suburb, to participate in what she described as a “great awakening.” The crowd around them had gathered to protest in favor of Donald Trump as the U.S. Half an hour later I caught up with Ortiz and his wife, Amber Moses. He worked through a procession of photo ops with protesters, assuring one man that he was smiling beneath the mask. Everyone was eager to snap selfies with Ortiz. Right behind him, an elderly man in an N95 mask distributed pamphlets alleging that Joe Biden was conspiring with “the British financial oligarchy” to take over the United States.Ī handful in the scattered crowd moved toward Ortiz as soon as he put on his mask, adorned with a blown-up photo of Donald Trump with a lopsided smile. Just outside the south gate of the Texas Capitol, a man with a megaphone repeated a sort of daily affirmation for those intent on overturning the results of the presidential election: “Remember, whatever happens today, Donald Trump is still our president.” Nearby, a goateed man in a khaki jacket banged on an empty WindFresh detergent tub and accosted those few wearing face coverings with a “maskism is Naziism” chant. ![]() About three hundred demonstrators were there, a much smaller crowd than the one simultaneously gathering in Washington, D.C., outside the U.S. When Mike Ortiz arrived at the Texas Capitol shortly after noon on Wednesday, a cardboard mask resting atop his head like a flat-brim baseball cap, the attention of the protesters at the “Occupy the Capitol for Trump” rally was torn. ![]()
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