Disinformation is tearing America apart

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) speaks during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on January 5, 2024 in Washington, DC. Democrats held a news conference to mark the 3rd anniversary of the Jan 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Alex Wong—Getty Images

Time
ON JANUARY 5, 2021, Rosanne Boyland left her home in Kennesaw, Georgia, for the ten-hour drive to Washington, DC. Boyland had fallen under the spell of the election-denier movement, bound by a belief that the incumbent president, Donald J. Trump, had won the presidential election but had been robbed of his victory through fraud.1 In fact, sixty-one courts and Trump’s own Justice Department had already rejected every claim of fraud, and federal cybersecurity and election officials had declared the 2020 election “the most secure in U.S. history.”

The next day, Boyland joined a mob egged on by Trump and stormed the U.S. Capitol to “Stop the Steal,” as the movement slogan went. Of course, as we all know by now, the crowd breached police lines, smashed windows, and broke into the building where Congress was meeting to certify the count of electoral votes from each state, the final procedure that would seal the presidential victory for Joe Biden. Boyland found herself on the west side of the Capitol, in a tunnel near a door guarded by police. As described by the New York Times, the crowd “massed together in a dangerous crush” and used “the weight of their combined bodies to push the officers back, trapping many people in the process.” At some point, Boyland fell to the ground, but the crowd did not relent.

In all of the chaos, no medical professional could render timely aid and, within a few hours, Boyland would be pronounced dead. Witnesses say Boyland was trampled to death. Her official cause of death was an amphetamine overdose, but a medical examiner said a contributing factor to her death was the “raucous scene.” Her sister later said Boyland would not have been at the Capitol at all that day “if it weren’t for all the misinformation.”

Like the rest of America, Boyland had been bombarded with false claims that Biden had used fraud to steal the election—a fabrication that would become known as “the Big Lie.” Eight others would also lose their lives as a result of the Capitol attack that was sparked by the deluge of disinformation. Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter and U.S. Air Force veteran, was shot to death by Capitol Police when she tried to climb through a broken window and breach the Speaker’s Lobby. MORE