Georgia, Trump’s Insurrectionists, and Lost Causes - In the name of preserving democracy, the G.O.P. and its febrile leader have actually subverted it—and, thanks to Trump’s unhinged behavior, the world now knows it. - link
What Should We Call the Sixth of January? - What began as a protest, rally, and march ended as something altogether different—a day of anarchy that challenges the terminology of history. - link
Trump Must Be Held Accountable - Impunity has been the defining feature of Trump’s Presidency. If he remains unpunished, his antidemocratic, violent movement will persist in mainstream American culture. - link
Sunday Reading: Waiting for the Vaccine - From The New Yorker’s archive: stories about the impact of vaccinations and the consequences of anti-vax propaganda. - link
Black America Has Reason to Question Authorities - From vaccines to public schools, a history of cruelty and neglect informs Black communities’ relation to the state. - link
Sen. Josh Hawley says he will “never apologize” for objecting to Biden electors.
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz are facing mounting criticism for their role in inciting Wednesday’s deadly riot at the US Capitol, with their Senate colleagues and major newspapers alike calling for their resignation — or expulsion.
Hawley, the junior senator from Missouri, has also been disavowed by a former mentor, and publisher Simon & Schuster has abandoned plans to publish Hawley’s upcoming book. On Thursday, a prominent Hawley donor called for him to be formally censured for his actions.
Both senators helped lead a Republican effort in the Senate to object to the certification of electors from key states President-elect Joe Biden won in the 2020 presidential election — arguing, despite all evidence proving otherwise, that there were irregularities in the vote count which required further investigation. And they continued their efforts Wednesday night, even after pro-Trump insurgents stormed the Capitol earlier the same day.
Ultimately, Biden’s victory — 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 — was certified over objections by Hawley and Cruz. But their decision to join six other senators in delaying the process with objections to electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania was sharply condemned, even by some Republican colleagues, for sustaining the baseless election fraud narrative that inspired Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol and left at least five people dead.
Hawley in particular has been excoriated for a Wednesday morning photo showing him raising his fist in solidarity with supporters of President Donald Trump, who later stormed the Capitol.
“Sen. Hawley was doing something that was really dumbass,” Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse told NPR in an interview Friday. “This was a stunt. It was a terrible, terrible idea. And you don’t lie to the American people. And that’s what’s been going on.”
Former Missouri Sen. John Danforth, an influential Hawley mentor prior to this week, went further, telling the Kansas City Star that Hawley was responsible for the riot and that supporting him was “the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life.”
“I don’t know if he was always like this and good at covering it up or if it happened,” Danforth said Thursday. “I just don’t know.”
Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, has also been under fire in his home state.
“Senator, those terrorists wouldn’t have been at the Capitol if you hadn’t staged this absurd challenge to the 2020 results in the first place,” the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle wrote Friday. “So, we call for another consequence, one with growing support across Texas: Resign.”
“We’re done with the drama. Done with the opportunism. Done with the cynical scheming that has now cost American lives,” the editorial concludes. “Resign, Mr. Cruz, and deliver Texas from the shame of calling you our senator.”
Three Senate Democrats — Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware, Patty Murray of Washington state, and Ron Wyden of Oregon, have also called for Hawley and Cruz to resign.
Unsurprisingly, Cruz rebuffed calls for his resignation in an interview Friday, and Hawley likewise has shown no inclination to offer his.
“I will never apologize for giving voice to the millions of Missourians and Americans who have concerns about the integrity of our elections,” Hawley said Thursday, though there is no evidence to support any of his voter fraud allegations.
The bipartisan furor over Hawley and Cruz’s decisions to stay the course with their objections, even though the same sentiment driving them helped incite the storming of the Capitol, has also sparked a discussion about their political futures.
Hawley and Cruz are both widely considered to be Republican presidential hopefuls in 2024, assuming Trump himself doesn’t shoulder the rest of the field out of the way in a bid to regain the White House.
Support for Trump was reaffirmed at the highest levels of the Republican Party this week with the unopposed reelection of Ronna McDaniel, a Trump loyalist, to continue serving at the head of the Republican National Committee.
And Trump, for his part, has signaled that he wants to run — but between the outside possibility of his being formally barred from holding elected office again and the extensive legal jeopardy he’ll face when he leaves office in just 11 days, there’s a real chance that the way will be clear for Hawley and Cruz, both of whom will likely be gunning to shore up as much support as possible with Trump’s base.
That part might not be difficult: For now, polling suggests that they both remain popular with the president’s most diehard supporters.
Specifically, according to a new tracking poll from Morning Consult that was taken January 6 and 7, 68 percent of those with a “very favorable” view of Trump also feel favorably toward Cruz, with 37 percent of strong Trump backers feeling favorably about Hawley.
Hawley suffers from substantially lower name recognition than Cruz — 32 percent of respondents who say they hold a “very favorable” view of Trump say they have never heard of Hawley, compared to just 6 percent for Cruz — but only 11 percent of respondents who view Trump very favorably have a negative opinion of Hawley. Slightly more of those respondents hold a negative opinion of Cruz, at 13 percent.
Current support, however, may prove ephemeral by the time 2024 rolls around. One Trump 2016 campaign aide told Politico this week that many Trump supporters “saw through [Hawley’s] blind ambitious act” and didn’t view it as genuine.
“They don’t think he’s a real MAGA supporter,” the aide, Bryan Lanza, said. “He just comes across as insincere.”
Meanwhile, at least one editorial board — that of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch — has already deemed Hawley’s presidential hopes dead on arrival.
“Hawley’s presidential aspirations have been flushed down the toilet because of his role in instigating Wednesday’s assault on democracy,” the Post-Dispatch editorial board wrote Thursday. “He should do Missourians and the rest of the country a big favor and resign now.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) also disavowed Hawley, Cruz, and their Republican allies in objecting to the electoral vote certification in a floor speech Wednesday night.
“Those who choose to continue to support [Trump’s] dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate, democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy,” Romney said.
Mitt Romney: “What happened today was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States. Those who continue to support his dangerous gambit... will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy." https://t.co/hxrZh9PRvt pic.twitter.com/V3hDAz57Xf
— Bloomberg (@business) January 7, 2021
In most scenarios, that complicity in an outright attack on US democracy might prove to be a political deal-breaker. But if it remains Trump’s GOP — and Trump himself takes a pass, voluntarily or involuntarily, on the 2024 race — Hawley and Cruz might still find a future in the Republican Party.
Correction, January 10, 2021: An earlier version of this article misstated which Texas editorial board called for Sen. Ted Cruz’s resignation; it was the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle.
How law enforcement and internet detectives are identifying the Capitol rioters.
Capitol Police may have allowed nearly every member of a mob of pro-Trump rioters to enter, vandalize, and leave the Capitol building scot-free, but internet sleuths and official investigators are determined to hold them accountable. The reckoning has already begun: Several people have now been charged with riot-related crimes, and law enforcement officials promise more charges are to come.
After insurrectionists crashed through barriers surrounding Capitol Hill, overwhelmed police, rampaged through the Capitol, and left dozens injured and five dead, there were relatively few arrests, and many people were allowed to simply walk out. There were few consequences then — only about a dozen of the hundreds of invaders were arrested at the scene — but that’s changing now. Law enforcement and civilians alike are attempting to identify those who participated. Due to the brazenness of many members of the mob, there’s plenty of evidence, and it’s being used to charge them with related crimes.
Many participants willingly — and quite happily — posed for photos and videos at the scene, or boasted of their exploits on social media and verified livestream accounts during or shortly after the melee, even though many of their actions may well constitute serious crimes. Apparently believing they weren’t doing anything wrong, or that law enforcement wouldn’t go after them for their actions, the Trump supporters paraded in front of cameras wearing distinct (and thus easily recognizable) costumes and, in some cases, even ID badges.
One notably befurred pro-Trump rioter was identified as the son of a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge. Aaron Mostofsky, who was photographed wearing multiple fur pelts and a vest that said “police” on it, and carrying a police riot shield as well as a large stick, was hard to miss.
Tim Gionet, better known as the alt-right white supremacist provocateur “Baked Alaska,” even livestreamed his stroll through the Capitol building (and his attempt to use a desk phone to call Trump) to thousands of followers on DLive, where he is a verified partner.
In short, those who stormed the Capitol didn’t leave social media breadcrumbs for law enforcement to follow to their front doors — they left entire loaves of bread.
Several alleged rioters have been arrested in the days following the insurrection, and the arrests of many more are likely imminent. The FBI is calling for “tips and digital media depicting rioting and violence in the U.S. Capitol Building and surrounding area in Washington, D.C.”
“Make no mistake: With our partners, we will hold accountable those who participated in yesterday’s siege of the Capitol,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement Thursday.
DC’s Metropolitan Police Department has also requested “assistance in identifying persons of interest responsible for unlawful entry offenses,” posting on its website a series of photos showing rioters inside and around the Capitol building. One person who brazenly held pieces of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s door aloft is suspected of “receiving stolen property,” while another who was photographed vaping while seated behind a desk and using a phone is suspected of “unlawful entry.”
And social media detectives — who deservedly don’t have the best reputation for tracking down potential criminals — are also on the case. An Instagram account dedicated to identifying and naming members of the mob accumulated more than 230,000 followers before it went private. A cybersecurity and disinformation researcher gained tens of thousands of followers during his crowdsourced quest to identify two people wearing military-style gear in the Senate chamber.
<img alt="A protester yells inside the Senate Chamber on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/m_Kb3HUYakgZ4OTP-E9CmGHnh5c=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22220974/GettyImages_1294933285.jpg" />
<cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>One of the most instantly infamous rioters was Jacob Chansley, also known as Jake Angeli, who wears a distinctive outfit to pro-Trump rallies.</figcaption>Two of the most prominently featured members of the mob — the shirtless man wearing face paint and a furry horned hat, and the man who put his feet up on a desk in Pelosi’s office — were identified within hours of the riot by press in their hometowns, and arrested in the days that followed.
The horned man is Jacob Chansley, also known as Jake Angeli, of Arizona, a QAnon supporter and right-wing rally fixture whose costume made him easily recognizable. By Saturday, he had been arrested and charged with knowingly entering or remaining on restricted grounds as well as violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. According to the complaint, a Capitol Police agent used tweeted photos of a man who appeared to be Chansley in the Capitol building and matched them with photos of Chansley wearing the same “distinctive attire and tattoos” on his own Facebook page and YouTube account.
Richard “Bigo” Barnett, of Arkansas, was quickly identified by his local news station as the man in Pelosi’s office. He later bragged to the New York Times that his time in Pelosi’s office included “scratch[ing] his balls” and taking an envelope, for which he said he paid a quarter. Barnett was arrested on Friday and has been charged with entering or remaining on restricted grounds, violent entry or disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and theft of public property.
<img alt="Richard Barnett, a supporter of US President Donald Trump sits inside the office of US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as he protest inside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 6, 2021." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/L96JAxJ3nK6WFxuxzMwUsblhd_U=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22220981/GettyImages_1230454190.jpg" />
<cite>Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Richard “Bigo” Barnett, who boasted of entering House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and taking an envelope off a desk, is now in police custody.</figcaption>“The shocking image of Mr. Barnett with his boots up on a desk in the Speaker of the House’s office on Wednesday was repulsive,” Jeffrey Rosen, acting US attorney general, said in a statement.
The subject of another much-circulated photo, of a cheerful and waving bearded man walking through the Capitol with the speaker’s lectern, has been identified by the Bradenton Herald as Florida man Adam Johnson (not “Via Getty”). Johnson was arrested on Friday and hit with the same three charges as Barnett. The complaint against Johnson references photos posted on his own Facebook account that appear to show him inside the Capitol building and were sourced from a newspaper article about the riot. Additionally, someone who has a mutual friend with Johnson called the FBI to report that he was the man in the photo with the lectern.
<img alt="A member of the pro-Trump mob that invaded the Capitol Building carries the Speaker of House’s lectern through the rotunda." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dcxqOpUUNh4sqC7kVkf1N8XnUw4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22220534/GettyImages_1294949346.jpg" />
<cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Adam Johnson carries the House speaker’s lectern through the Capitol Rotunda. This photo is part of the evidence cited in the criminal complaint against him.</figcaption>And Doug Jensen — an Iowa man photographed wearing a QAnon-branded shirt and who appeared to be leading the charge of one of the groups inside the Capitol building — was arrested on Friday and charged with entering or remaining on restricted grounds, violent entry or disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, disrupting the orderly conduct of government business, parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building, and obstructing law enforcement. Jensen posted photos of himself to his Facebook page wearing the same shirt on the day of the riot.
Also arrested on Friday was Derrick Evans, a freshly sworn-in Republican member of West Virginia’s House of Delegates, who livestreamed himself entering the Capitol building. (He has since deleted that footage and now claims he was there as an independent member of the media.)
Evans has been charged with knowingly entering or remaining on restricted grounds and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. An FBI agent stated in the complaint against Evans that the agent matched the voice in the livestream to one of Evans’s campaign videos, and that the agent was able to review the deleted livestream because it was reposted on Reddit. Evans’s Facebook page also had several public posts advertising his presence at the January 6 event in the weeks and days leading up to it.
Evans is now a former delegate. He resigned on Saturday, less than a month after he was sworn in.
<img alt="Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest in the US Capitol Rotunda on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gN4OEd7qlIwoFNgTbdtfu-IyLt4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22220977/GettyImages_1230455373.jpg" />
<cite>Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Capitol rioters pause mid-rebellion to take a breather and admire the artwork.</figcaption>It remains to be seen if other sitting or incoming state lawmakers from Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia who boasted of their presence in DC will suffer the same fate. (Unlike Evans, as the Associated Press points out, it’s not clear if they were part of the mob that entered the Capitol, or just attended the rally that preceded it.)
More brazen was Connecticut’s Joe Visconti, who ran for governor in 2014, and who tweeted an image of himself on the Capitol stairs next to graffiti that said “our house.” He made sure to tag local publications to alert them of his actions, but has since removed that post.
There have been professional repercussions, too. Several participants have already been fired or resigned from their jobs.
Jensen was fired from his job at an Iowa masonry company, which the company announced on the same day that he was arrested.
Goosehead Insurance confirmed Thursday on Twitter that Paul Davis, an associate general counsel at the company, was no longer employed there. Davis posted a video on Instagram from outside the Capitol in which he complained of being tear-gassed.
Another man was photographed wearing a clearly visible employee ID badge. He is no longer an employee. Navistar Direct Marketing fired him “after a review of photographic evidence.” Another former employer of the man, Glory Doughnuts, identified him as Nicholas Rodean on its Instagram account.
Libby Andrews, a Chicago real estate agent, was fired from her job on Thursday after her real estate employer, @properties, said it received “a tremendous amount of outreach” about Andrews, “who acknowledged on social media that she took part in ‘storming the Capitol.’” Andrews told the Chicago Tribune that she didn’t realize she was doing anything wrong and that “it was like a party.”
And former Pennsylvania state Rep. Rick Saccone, who boasted on Facebook that he was “storming the capitol” and “our vanguard has broken through the barricades,” has resigned from his adjunct teaching position at St. Vincent College.
Law enforcement has been happy to make use of social media and internet activities to track down alleged criminals in the past, just as they are doing now. Social media feeds and livestreams led to the arrest of protesters in Portland last July, and the FBI used Instagram, LinkedIn, Etsy, and Poshmark to identify a Philadelphia woman who allegedly set two police cars on fire during the George Floyd protests last June.
Arguably, if law enforcement had previously paid this much attention to social media, where Trump fans were openly organizing ahead of the insurrection on Capitol Hill, they would have been better prepared for the riot that followed — and perhaps may have prevented it from happening at all.
Relatively few of the alleged Capitol rioters have been arrested so far, considering how many people were there and how well-documented their actions were. But with so many people motivated to hold them responsible — and many of the alleged rioters already identified — expect that number to continue increasing. Acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin said on Thursday afternoon that 55 cases had been filed relating to the riot.
“This is just the beginning,” he said.
Update, January 9, 6 pm ET: Updated to add the recent arrests of several alleged rioters.
“It’s like a hall of mirrors”: The online far right’s disordered response to the storming of the Capitol.
In the wake of pro-Trump extremists invading the Capitol, the online right displayed fault lines as it publicly processed the events of the past week.
Clear arguments and ideas are gaining traction and some have even been repeated by members of Congress. On Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, the message board TheDonald, and Parler, a “free speech social network” created in opposition to Twitter, some users blamed antifa for the attack while others claimed credit for it. Meanwhile, others were angry at the president for posting a video Thursday acknowledging a “new administration” would take over.
Even as the online right is divided about how to react to the events of this week, loyalty to President Donald Trump is still strong. Many online supporters refer to him as “GEOTUS,” or Grand Emperor of the United States, and have called fellow members to stand by him.
But there is fracturing within the movement: Some are confused about why they were asked to come to the January 6 rally if not to take extreme action, others are angry at Trump’s concession video posted on Twitter Thursday night where he described Wednesday’s events as a “heinous attack,” and others still are developing new conspiracy theories.
Ashley Babbit's last stream. She believed she was doing her patriotic duty, she died wrapped in a flag that said Trump 2020. Yet Trump betrayed her, and Pence's secret service killed her.
— Syrian Girl ️ (@Partisangirl) January 8, 2021
I'm not even American and I can't stand this shameful betrayal. pic.twitter.com/cA3SSD30sx
“It’s like a hall of mirrors,” said Jessica Stern, a Boston University global studies professor and expert on terrorism. People on these platforms want to communicate with one another and strategize, but at the same time they’re using these platforms to boast, make niche jokes, and taunt law enforcement, she told Vox.
It’s hard to know how seriously to take any individual threat or comment made by members of these forums. Distinguishing between legitimate threats and trolling is difficult — and that reality is mirrored by the president himself. Trump will make “jokes” that target groups or individuals and undermine democratic norms. His supporters casually dismissed criticisms of these comments, or chastised observers for taking the president literally.
With five people dead, the time for parsing such distinctions has to be over.
In the hours following the storming of the Capitol on January 6, Vox reported on the baseless yet quickly proliferating rumor that antifa activists were behind the violence in Washington. Within hours, a theory that started in Twitter replies and message boards was being repeated publicly by Republican Reps. Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, and Matt Gaetz. The latter went so far as to cite a now-retracted article from the Washington Times which falsely alleged that a facial recognition company had identified members of antifa. In reality, the company, XRVision, had found “two members of neo-Nazi organizations and a QAnon supporter among the pro-Trump mob,” according to BuzzFeed News.
Others on these forums began calling out what they perceived as hypocritical treatment from the police and the media compared to Black Lives Matter (BLM) and antifa. “I watched cops kneel to BLM and antifa,” one commenter wrote. Another angrily pointed out that his social media friends were “perfectly fine with BLM shooting people up months ago” — insinuating that they should be fine with the violence at the Capitol, though it’s not clear what he’s referencing, as Black Lives Matter protesters have not “shot up” anyone.
A perception that law enforcement is more lenient on the left is almost certainly false — Vox’s Fabiola Cineas reported on new research finding that law enforcement is harsher on left-wing protests than ones conducted by right-wing groups. Researchers wrote: “When authorities engage demonstrations associated with the right-wing, they use force nearly one-third or 34% of the time. Meanwhile, authorities use force in demonstrations associated with the left-wing over half or 51% of the time.”
But mostly, people were angry that “RINOs” — Republicans in name only, a pejorative term for Republicans deemed insufficiently conservative or loyal to Trump — were attempting to give credit to antifa for something they were proud to have done.
“WE TOOK THE FUCKING CAPITOL WITHOUT A SHOT. And very minor damage was sustained in the process. NO APOLOGIES. WE’LL FUCKING DO IT AGAIN,” reads one comment on a popular post on TheDonald. One very popular commenter told his fellow agitators to “own it” and stop getting “cold feet” about what they had done and blaming it on antifa:
“They deserve every broken window they got. And I laughed at the photos of them cowering in fear under their chairs. The government should fear the people, never the other way around. I support every action of every patriot against this illegal occupation. We need to support every move our side makes.”
But some are less forgiving of what they view as betrayal from their commander-in-chief.
There’s real anger and betrayal being levied at the president from some people. Many have expressed confusion as to why Trump told them to come to DC, if not to act. One popular comment on TheDonald read: “To be honest, I feel betrayed by GEOTUS who asked us to be there, that’d he’d have ‘new evidence’ to prove what really happened. Except he didn’t release one damned thing. Makes me wonder about a lot of things at this point...”
In reply, another commenter writes: “I’m confused about what the purpose of telling people to come to DC if was just for the same canned speech, no new info ... thousands of pissed off people who feel the election was stolen what did anyone expect would happen?”
After Trump released his concession video, some grew angry at the president referring to the events as a “heinous attack” and not standing by them after, in their view, they were just doing what he asked.
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZFD9GHKomK2sGOuEy6gIcO8G2kw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22223626/Screen_Shot_2021_01_08_at_5.42.51_PM.png" />
<cite>Kelsey Piper/Vox</cite>
<figcaption>A now-deleted screenshot from the right-wing message board TheDonald from January 7.</figcaption>But these are not the norm — a very popular post on TheDonald two days after the riots simply read “I remain 100% in support of Donald J. Trump, last legally elected President of the United States and 100% in support of MAGA.” On Facebook, under a Newsmax article headlined “Trump Spokeswoman Says President Emphatically Condemns Riot at Capitol,” all of the top comments were in support of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and loyal to Trump.
Trump is the unifying figure for a lot of this diverse group of people — it’s unlikely that they’ll turn on him en masse, and there are some indications that even though the president has conceded, his followers still intend to fight to stop President-elect Joe Biden from being sworn in.
On Parler, one account — in a message that has made its way through screenshots to Twitter and Instagram — wrote that “many of us will return on January 19, 2021, carrying our weapons ... We will come in numbers that no standing army or police agency can match.”
This is just one of several posts in which individuals are planning and strategizing for future anti-government actions. But the sheer volume and diversity of these messages makes it difficult to discern which are direct threats.
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/iXWnlXvhxTQw5nHfd489fB4-hZ8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22224364/coloneltperez_parler.jpeg" />Many of these posters could be minors or pranksters trolling online, with no intent or means of traveling to foment an armed insurrection. But that’s exactly what makes this movement so dangerous.
“One of the challenges is that there’s so much chatter, there’s so much noise, what constitutes a genuine threat [is difficult to parse] — in my view, this is exactly their strategy,” Georgetown University’s Bruce Hoffman, a professor specializing in terrorism studies, told Vox. This ecosystem consists, he said, of “endless feedback loops of calls to violence... where the people posting it may not pose any kind of direct threat but they’re hoping that someone sitting in their basement ... is going to read that, get angry enough, feel that there’s community support for the violence and then go out and do something.”
Both Hoffman and Stern pointed to the internet and social media as being a necessary component to the right-wing movement growing nationally. Previously, these extremist groups were discrete entities that had to be searched out. Now, they are adjacent to and intermingled with mainstream political ideas and leaders, and people can exist as a part of the movement without formally identifying as a member of an extremist group.
All it takes is an internet connection and a vague belief that the election was stolen, and all of a sudden people are a part of Facebook groups where posts allege gross fraud and illegal activity undermining democracy. Many people may not even know that the same talking points they post on their social media accounts originated from white supremacists in shady corners of the internet.
Social media and tech companies have scrambled in the past few days to act, as pressure mounts. Apple threatened to remove Parler from its App Store, and Google Play did remove the app shortly thereafter. Twitter has removed Trump entirely from their platform, even going so far as to ban other accounts that he attempted to use following his ban.
While the effort to remove extremism from mainstream social media companies could help curb the spread of extreme ideas to casual users of the internet, the ever-evolving web of right-wing social media and messaging boards will likely defy the control of these tech giants. Just take a look at TheDonald, formerly a part of Reddit; once banned there, it managed to migrate to its own outpost on the internet.
“This was always the dream of white supremacists who first began organizing on a nationwide coordinated basis in the early 1980s ... to bring together the disparate strands of the extremist movement: anti-federalists, people opposed to taxes, people opposed to governance above the local level, racists, anti-Semites, xenophobes. Lacking the communicative power of social media they can only go so far,” Hoffman explained.
Well, they have it now.
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It really does!
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Everybody’s 6 feet away
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A former patient was so brain damaged afterwards that he wrongly believed he'd won an election that he actually lost by 7 million votes.
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He says to the Jew, “See how good I am? The owner didn’t see a thing.” The Jew says to the Arab, “That’s typical of you Arabs. I am going to show you an honest way to get the same result.”
He goes to the owner of the bakery and says, “Give me a pastry and I will show you a magic trick.” Intrigued, the owner accepts and gives him a pastry. The Jew swallows it and asks for another one. The owner gives him another one. Then the Jew swallows that one and asks for a third pastry and eats that, too.
The owner is starting to wonder where the magic trick is and asks, “So what did you do with the pastries?” The Jew replies, “Look in the Arab’s back pocket…”
submitted by /u/KrisP8
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One is a Coronavirus, the other is a Verona Crisis.
submitted by /u/ps_1337
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