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Collected Item: “The Overton Window Shift”

Give your story a title.

The Overton Window Shift

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

Internet Meme, Instagram

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

This meme is in reference to President Ronald Reagan’s gun control measures, which are a callback to the sentiments of a large number of gun-owning former Trump supporters that have been left in the dust by the President’s increasingly authoritarian and draconian attitude towards the Second Amendment. Once he started saying things such as “I prefer to take the guns first and go through due process second” and advocating for expanded red flag laws, many libertarian-leaning conservatives realized that the Republican Party was not going to preserve or prevent infringement on their Second Amendment rights. The final nail in the coffin came with the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, when riot police across the country began abusing protestors and onlookers. When right-wing libertarian militias grabbed their kits and began protecting BLM protesters from police and protecting businesses from rioters, they were targeted by counterterrorism elements of the federal government. This meme represents the complete and total lack of faith that most gun owners now have in the Republican Party.

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

ASU, HST485, humor, guns, blacklivesmatter, tyranny, georgefloyd, protests, militia, trump, authoritarianism, libertarian

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

Now-defunct Instagram page @guerrilla_instructor2.0

Give this story a date.

2020-06
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