Twitter Questions Lack of Security at Nation’s Capitol

It was obviously no laughing matter — but the internet quickly branded the security surrounding Capitol Hill a joke.

As the smoke cleared from Wednesday’s disgraceful scenes, Twitter was left wondering how the House was so easily breached.

Many compared the heavy-handed militarized preparations and response ahead of and during Black Lives Matter protests in the exact same spot last year to this storming of the Capitol.

Others pointed out that Target stores appeared to get a more immediate response — and indeed triggered more outrage from some quarters — when they were looted during the 2020 protests.

More still pointed to the cases of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Tamir Rice, shot dead while sleeping, jogging and playing, while armed aggressors appeared to go unchecked in Washington DC.

Further hypocrisy was highlighted as people recalled how kneeling for the National Anthem during football games was branded “disrespectful”, juxtaposed with a widely spread photo of one protestor cheerily stealing a Congress lectern from the chamber.

One particularly eyebrow-raising clip shot from inside the chaos, which has been viewed more than 7million times, appeared to show one police officer even posing for a selfie with one of the infiltrators:

Another appeared to show officers at the barricades outside offering little to no resistance, before stepping aside and simply letting the protesters parade through:

Perhaps the most jarring tweet of all was one calling for “Anarchists, Agitators or Protesters who vandalize or damage” Federal buildings to be prosecuted with minimum 10 years imprisonment… which was a retweet of President Trump’s own words during the Portland protests in July.