January 26, 2021

By Bill Berkowitz

On right-wing social media platforms Ashli Babbitt, who prior to January 6 was not a public figure nor did she have a history of violence, is now being called “the first victim of the second Civil War” and a “freedom fighter.” She is being mythologized and canonized. With her death, America’s conspiratorial right-wing has found another martyr. 

On January 6, thirty-five-year-old Ashli Babbitt was shot by a law enforcement officer as she attempted to scramble through a broken window leading to the Speaker’s Lobby inside the Capitol building. Her death was as tragic as it was unnecessary. 

According to The New York Times, “Her last moments, captured from multiple angles on video, show Ms. Babbitt, a Trump flag knotted around her neck, being hoisted to the window as others in the mob shout. Moments later, a shot rings out and Ms. Babbitt falls back, blood pouring from her mouth.“

Now, her death has become a cause célèbre for former President Donald Trump and his supporters. For white nationalist groups around the country, Babbitt has not only become a martyr and a tool for recruitment, she has become a source of merchandising. 

As the July 17 QAnon Anonymous podcast noted, While white nationalists and neo-Nazis were first to the Babbitt martyrdom narrative, “there is no evidence at all that Babbitt was ever affiliated with neo-Nazi groups.” The podcast reported, “One popular image of Babbitt portrays her in a two-tone image of a woman that … [has] the face of the mermaid in a Starbucks logo. In that portrayal, there is an image of a single drop of blood positioned in front of the woman’s neck. She is pictured in front of a red Capitol Dome, which is surrounded by four stars. The Dome is said to represent the blood that was spilled, according to online messages, [by] the death of four insurrectionists.”  

The image was posted on several sites as a flag and referred to as The Ashli Babbitt Martyr Flag. Babbitt became the subject of the pro-Trump rapper, Forgiato Blow, who issued a song and video titled “Ashli Babbitt.” 

Some that stormed the Capitol building on January 6 were dressed in QAnon t-shirts splattered with Q symbols and messages. Creating Ashli Babbitt t-shirts was bound to come. However, in early July, Yahoo News reported that a T-shirt that called Babbitt an “American Patriot,” had been pulled from the websites of Sears and Kmart.  

WCNC Charlotte’s Jordan Fischer, Eric Flack, and Stephanie Wilson recently reported that “Before they even knew her name, members of the extremist groups who helped fuel the Capitol riot recognized that Ashli Babbitt’s death could become a rallying cry.”

“Trying to find the name of a woman that was gunned down by Capitol Police today,” Larry Brock, who the Justice Department says is a self-identified Texas Oath Keeper and Three Percenter, wrote on Facebook. “She was unarmed and is the first Patriot Martyr in the Second American Revolution.”

While Brock may have been the first to bestow martyrdom on Babbitt, the Air Force veteran and a fervent supporter of President Trump, he has not been the last. 

“Within days of her death, Babbitt’s name and image had been co-opted by extremist groups across the spectrum,” WCNC reported. “Users on the social media sites Parler and Telegram began circulating an image of the so-called ‘Babbitt Flag’  that, according to the Anti-Defamation League, features a woman in front of the Capitol dome with a single drop of blood on her neck, where it was initially believed Babbitt was shot.“

Every movement looks to its ranks for martyrs. Babbitt’s name is now being listed along with “other right-wing martyrs like Vicki Weaver – who was killed by federal agents in a 1992 shootout at Ruby Ridge – and LaVoy Finicum, a cattle rancher who was shot and killed by police after joining in the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge led by Ammon Bundy in 2016,” WCNC reported. 

Interestingly, as New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait noted, “Rosanne Boyland [who] also died, but the manner of her death — trampling by the mob — does not serve the same propagandistic purpose. The whole point of Babbitt’s centrality is that she was leading the mob violently forward toward its goal of threatening or killing officials who refused to cooperate with their objective of overturning the election result.”

“What’s important to highlight here is the glorification of Ashli Babbitt and her death is not actually about her. It’s about the narrative,” Alex Friedfeld, an investigative researcher at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said. “There were other people who died that day. But we have not seen their stories used in the same way as Ashli Babbitt’s because it did not fit the us-vs-them narrative that hers so clearly does. And so they have largely been forgotten or ignored, while Babbitt has been turned into a symbol in order to advance the cause.”

On July 6, the six-month anniversary of the Capitol building invasion, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) issued a statement titled, “Who Killed Ashli Babbitt?” In it, he claimed there was a ‘cover-up‘ surrounding her death and called her shooting ‘street justice.’” 

In April, the police officer that fatally shot Babbitt was cleared of criminal wrongdoing. His identity has not been released due to death threats that inevitably increased after Trump released a one-line statement asking “Who Shot Ashli Babbitt?”  

In a recent interview with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, Trump said: "Who was the person who shot an innocent, wonderful, incredible woman? I will tell you, they know who shot Ashli Babbitt. They're protecting that person. I've heard also that it was the head of security for a certain high official — a Democrat."

“By turning her into a hero, it helps to justify what was an unjustifiable action,” Brian Hughes, a professor of law and criminology and the associate director of the Polarization and Extremist Research Lab (PERIL) at American University, said. “The assault on the Capitol was a very serious crime. It was a crime against our democratic process that has to be restated again and again, and it was inexcusable. However, if Ashli Babbitt is turned into a sort of self-sacrificing figure, if she can be turned into a king of patriot martyr by these individuals in these groups, then that serves to justify what was unjustifiable.”

 As The Daily Beast’s Wajahat Ali pointed out, Babbitt “is an ideal character to glorify in death for a conservative movement that has turned into a racket and cult, a ‘victim’ who can no longer speak for herself and can thus embody whatever fiction and grievance they want to promote.”

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