‘Our best face’: How Trump-backing Jan. 6 ‘marshals’ ditched their pink vests and staged an insurrection
Former President Donald Trump’s tweet on Dec. 19, 2020 — it summoned his supporters to “be there” for Congress’ Jan. 6 certification of the electoral vote and promised that it would be “wild” — electrified far-right militants.
One person who answered the call was Joseph Pavlik, a 65-year-old retired firefighter from Chicago.
Pavlik’s social media posts in November and December 2020 reflected a mounting sense of desperation about what America would look like with Trump forced to leave the White House. His Facebook posts manifested a logical response to the existential choice — Donald Trump or dystopian collapse — that the United States’ 45th president first defined during his 2016 campaign....
Mar 22, 2023