In the wake of President-elect Joe Biden’s projected victory in the 2020 election, some people on both sides of the political spectrum have exhorted one another to reach across the aisle and set aside their disagreements for the sake of unity and progress. But not everybody is on board.
A viral video uploaded to the r/PublicFreakout subreddit on Sunday shows a gaggle of pro-Trump “Karens” harassing a young couple, calling a girl a “whore,” and telling her to “shake it.”
“Touch me! Touch me, motherfucker! Touch me!” one of the Karens yells as she presses in on the couple, both of whom are the only people in the video who can be seen wearing masks.
“Shake it like a little whore!” yells another Karen, holding a “Trump 2020” sign and wearing a red, Rosie the Riveter-themed Trump shirt. “Keep going. Do it, you little fucking whore.”
The girl obliges, briefly shaking her butt in jest at the Karens and sending them into an even greater rage. She pulls out her phone to record the altercation as the red-shirted Karen says, “Put it out there, shake it for everyone, you little skank.”
The grown women continue to harass the couple as the girl films them. The red-shirted Karen points menacingly at her phone and says, “You’ll know what America’s about, you little fucking whore.”
The couple continues to mock the cavalcade of Karens, with the girl again shaking her butt at them and her boyfriend clapping in a mocking fashion. Then, another Trump supporter—a grown man with a megaphone—enters the scene.
“We love America, and we love our freedom,” the male Karen tells the couple through his megaphone. “What you gonna do about it? Are you assaulting me? Because if you want, I’ll mace both of you. I’ll mace you both.”
The Karens once again close in on the couple, with one of them jeering, “Oh, you’re gonna call 911? Did I touch you?”
“Put your ass on the street, they continue. “Put your ass on the street like you were doing.”
Redditors expressed a mixture of bemusement and horror in the comments.
“‘I’ll mace both of you.’ says the guy with the bullhorn to 2 kids being harassed by 4 of his friends,” u/bloody_terrible wrote.
“For people that talk a lot about enjoying their freedom, trump supporters sure do hate it when other people go about enjoying their own freedom,” u/jazzpixie commented.
u/lostsoul2016 issued a graver warning: “Ok. In all seriousness, I am cautiously optimistic for next 74 days. We need to be very vigilant. We have already seen ISIS like truck caravans block highways, anti-maskers, armed folks with tactical gear assault others, QAnon’d crazies, fire arm brandishers. Things can become really ugly right quick. Stay frosty.”