Tighter Security Than The Capitol

About

Tighter Security Than The Capitol refers to jokes comparing the apparent ease with which Trump-supporting rioters infiltrated the US Capitol building during the January 6th, 2021 'Save America' Protest to places with tougher security. Comments about the inadequate security at the Capitol also led to a resurgence of Storm Area 51 jokes, as people pondered if the satirical stunt would have worked.

Origin

Following the January 6th, 2021 US Capitol raid, many Twitter users remarked on the apparent ease with which the rioters and protestors were able to break into the US Capitol building, with many noting the lack of strong response from Capitol police compared to their response during the George Floyd Protests from the previous summer. As the events unfolded, Twitter user @itsmerachie^[1] tweeted the prompt, "Name a place with tighter security than the Capitol. RIGHT answers only," gaining over 33,000 quote tweets and 65,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

The tweet generated a flood of responses joking about things that had tighter security than the Capitol showed. For example, user @SheaSerrano^[2] responded, "the tio who's sitting on the ice chest during the backyard barbecue," gaining over 80 retweets and 1,200 likes (shown below, left). User @MatthewACherry^[3] joked "Gmail," gaining over 130 retweets and 1,100 likes (shown below, right).

Storm Area 51 Resurgence

Following the storming of the Capitol, some Twitter users recalled the satirical Storm Area 51 event from 2019 that ultimately never happened, in part because of the security measures at the location. Users joked that if Area 51 had the same security as the Capitol, they could probably succeed in storming it. Actor Blake Anderson^[4] wrote, "Storming the Capital Building was like a million times easier than the Area 51 raid WTF," gaining over 7,200 retweets and 39,000 likes (shown below, left). User @ttayzerzz^[5] wrote, "this tells me we def could’ve stormed Area 51," gaining over 19,000 retweets and 163,000 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References