Deception

By: Antony Huynh

On January 6, 2021, a siege on the Capitol commenced, with supporters of Donald Trump breaching the building, and breaking through any openings they could find. But, why did it reach such an extreme level? Why did the people believe what Trump said, despite his claims being false?

There isn’t a perfect answer for these questions, as denial happens in many ways. Through history, and the distribution of false information, it seems to just be in our nature to believe in what we consider true.

Many spectators of the riot, such as those who saw on TV, had different emotions about it, such as teenage students responding with anger, disappointment, and even disgust in our country. What sickens most of them is how the people wanted to push their denial to the point of violence. But why did they take their beliefs to such an extent?

A question like this can have a wide variety of answers. Dr.O’wren, an English Teacher from Yerba Buena High School stated, “Outrageous, hard to believe that people can act in such a way,....A lot of people get their information from biased sources like fox news or social media.” Knowing this, it seems people are easily blinded by false info spread across the internet.

That raises another question, who is to blame for this? The culprits are also just as variable and baffling.

We live in an age where most of us are born with the internet, leading us to pretty much taking whatever it spits out till we grow tongues with taste. Unfortunately, it takes us quite awhile to realize what’s true or not, which sets up a grim future, especially after what happened a few weeks ago. But the people aren’t the ones we should point fingers at, rather, it’s what they trust.

Many of us tend to rely on questionable sources such as Fox News, without even verifying if they are reliable and instead just accepting it just because that’s what we see first, stirring up some debate between people, which is something our country’s suffered for a long time.

Despite having no evidence to prove that Trump’s claim about the election being rigged was right, his supporters refused to accept it and went with what they trusted most, leading to them taking Trump’s motivation to fight quite literally. That’s some serious dedication and belief alright.

However, not every protest starts for the same reason. Comparing the Capitol Riot to the BLM Protests, both are on different ends of the spectrum. Unlike the riot, the BLM protests had the death of George Floyd, an African American who was killed by police brutality, as evidence that justifies their cause to fight. The people were clearly fighting for something that can be proven true, whereas the participants of the riot were just using raw force for a reason that had no evidence to back it up. Unfortunately, people of high positions such as Trump, tend to exploit the ignorance of their followers, and use it as a stepping stone.

Overall, our world has reached a point of becoming more and more divided because of our beliefs in what is true and false. Personally, I find it sad and disappointing that we’ve pushed our denial this far. Knowing this, I am deeply concerned about the influence this country would have on future generations and also how long this will continue in important moments like another presidential election. However, our history isn’t something we can’t change. As long as we still have hope, and try any method possible to at least mitigate this, maybe our future will become more bright.