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Remember how significant the response was by certain arms of the United States government when more than two million people said they were going to Storm Area 51, but only only around 75 people actually ended up at the base’s gate back in 2019?
The FBI showed up at the event creator’s door to make sure he wasn’t some sort of terrorist, the United States Air Force issued a very stern warning slash threat, and the United States Department of Defense threatened to bomb any event attendees if they came too close to the base. (The DoD later apologized.)
These government agencies were made aware of the potential for thousands of people showing up at Area 51 and were taking preparatory measures basically because it was so widely discussed on social media.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” President Trump tweeted on Dec. 19. “Be there, will be wild!”
“If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism,” a member of the Red-State Secession Facebook group posted the day before the riot.
Guess what other event was widely discussed on social media before it happened? Wednesday’s riot at the United States Capitol.
Where were the warnings this time? What are they hiding?
It wasn’t so long ago that President Donald Trump proclaimed “when the looting starts the shooting starts” and that anyone who vandalizes any Federal building in America would be prosecuted and face a “MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON,” as he tweeted in late July 2020.
Sadly, the events of January 6, 2021 at the Capitol seemed to not have been taken nearly as seriously by law enforcement and government agencies as the rather obvious tongue-in-cheek threats to Storm Area 51 back in 2019.
This dichotomy was not lost on many folks on social media following the violent insurrection in D.C. on Tuesday.
i just realized something…
why does it feel like they protected Area 51 better than our own US Capitol???WHAT EXACTLY ARE THEY HIDING pic.twitter.com/QO1B5jV3vY
— 🧈𝒷𝔢•∞ღ𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐚ღ∞⁷𐂂🐋 (@KittyKotekzyx) January 6, 2021
so apparently this is all was organized through a facebook event called “occupy the capital” and i can’t help but think about when people jokingly made a “storm area 51 event” and the literal FBI showed up.
— Danya (@dxxnya) January 6, 2021
Storming the Capital Building was like a million times easier than the Area 51 raid WTF
— Blake Anderson (@UncleBlazer) January 6, 2021
Me n the boys walking into Area 51 after seeing how well they defended the capital building. pic.twitter.com/6yLQpeZjQ5
— Josh Laflamme 📸 (@rollingwithjosh) January 6, 2021
Me and the boys going to Area 51 after seeing how easy it was to get in the capitol building pic.twitter.com/RX9TyhfW4E
— J.T. (@____j619) January 6, 2021
this tells me we def could’ve stormed Area 51
— tay (@ttayzerzz) January 6, 2021
the US the US
defending defending its
Area 51 own capitol pic.twitter.com/szCTIaYc3h— kt (@radiantroki) January 6, 2021
If this ain't true…#BlackLivesMatter Area 51 #CapitolRiots pic.twitter.com/rmkcManh97
— aughful (@lxzyhustle) January 7, 2021
Society if everyone stormed Area 51 instead of the Capitol building pic.twitter.com/ZPrYiMO7Wd
— Tavis (@Tavismorris1) January 6, 2021
https://twitter.com/AirUzii/status/1346949494450102272