TWIT 3

SEE TWIT 4 MUSK

see elon musk

see prev dorsey (not sure date estb here)

out front on de-platform BS qanon, fact check

aha 520 this is trump superweapon so can't afford to have even innocuous factcheck link attached thus goes to war/retaliation

he could have made it pvt/target with facebk dark post/ad, but semi-filter b/c mistly goes to his fans but he also wants/gets the fight?

may or may not be signif that these bad msg went out on soc med b/c all does? my question is cd stefanik also use for fundraising? pols get less/no scrutiny by moderators? dark post // direct mail b/c no filter/pushback

an 5 22

in a blunt column for theconservative Bulwark, Cato Senior Fellow Cathy Young raged against the spread of the so-called "replacement theory"that played a major part in prompting an 18-year-old white man in New York to go on a shooting rampage Saturday afternoon in a Buffalo-area grocery store situated in a community that is reportedly 80 percent black.

As Young put it, "Those who follow the news know that this is far from the first time “replacement theory” has figured in the ravings of a mass shooter," before adding, "We know these ideas are floating out there. We also know that, disturbingly, “replacement theory” is being mainstreamed on the right," the columnist specifying Fox News host Tucker Carlson who has repeatedly claimed that Democrats are trying to "replace" Americans with immigrants.

As Young notes, two prominent Republican lawmakers have also taken up the "replacement theory" banner, withRep Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweeting, "The Left/Media think of replacement solely on race/ethnicity terms. I don't at all. Democrats failed voters who relied on them to run their states/cities. Now they are importing new voters. That is my argument. Those reading more into it are projecting their own bias."

Add to that, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who Young explained, ".. jumped on the bandwagon as well with a Facebook ad claiming that the Democrats were going to use amnesty for illegal immigrants to 'overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.'"

"This is hateful, stupid, paranoid nonsense," she wrote before adding, "It is also, need I point out, the epitome of collectivist 'identity politics' the right sometimes likes to deplore in its progressive guises."

Noting that a recent poll shows that a third of Americans "agreeat least somewhat that 'There is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views,'" Young wrote, "In a sane and decent political climate, both media figures and political figures on the right would quickly and emphatically disavow “great replacement” as un-American, race-baiting nonsense. Which means … don’t hold your breath."

"That was a joke. Cue bitter laugh," she lamented.

You can read more here.

3 23

"for what?

https://www.alternet.org/anthony-fauci-elon-musk-prosecution/

===

3 23

https://www.alternet.org/steve-bannon-2659583058/

musk a phoney?

===

https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/elon-musk-reinstates-twitter-accounts-proud-islamophobe-laura-loomer-and-dirty-trickster

A week after declaring he would grant “general amnesty” to previously suspended accounts, Twitter CEO Elon Musk is continuing to reinstate high-profile right-wing users. His latest move has brought back anti-Muslim extremist Laura Loomer and “Stop the Steal” organizer and longtime GOP operative Roger Stone to Twitter.

Shortly after Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was finalized on October 27, previously banned users — including Loomer and Stone — celebrated the completed deal. Musk initially promised civil rights organizations that there would be a “clear process” for reinstating previously suspended accounts but quickly went back on his word when he declared “Freedom Fridays” on November 18 and brought back Jordan Peterson and The Babylon Bee. He has since reinstated multiple other high-profile right-wing users, including former President Donald Trump, and granted “general amnesty” to include accounts that push misinformation and white nationalist rhetoric.

Now, Musk has reinstated two more high-profile far-right accounts: Laura Loomer and Roger Stone.

Loomer, a conspiracy theorist, has previously described herself as a “proud Islamophobe” who is “pro-white nationalism” and was banned from Twitter in 2018 after making anti-Muslim attacks against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). After she was reinstated on December 8, Loomer tweeted that Musk “has finally unchained me from the doors of Twitter HQ,” referencing her bizarre 2018 protest over the suspension.

[twit pix in bak, antisem]

trump ally and self-proclaimed dirty trickster Stone supported Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen, promoted violence ahead of the January 6 insurrection, and has spread conspiracy theories about 9/11. He was banned from Twitter in 2017 after threatening multiple CNN reporters. Stone tried to rejoin the platform in April 2022, when Musk was still in the process of buying Twitter, but was suspended again shortly after. On December 7, Stone was officially reinstated and thanked Musk for his “commitment to fairness and free speech.”

Other high-profile right-wing accounts that are being brought back to Twitter under Musk’s leadership include:

Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA)
Right-wing organization Project Veritas
Right-wing personality Alex Lorusso
Anti-LGBTQ figure James Lindsay
Misogynist Andrew Tate
Right-wing figure Juanita Broaddrick
Anti-trans activist Meghan Murphy
Antisemite E. Michael Jones
British anti-feminist far-right personality Carl Benjamin
Right-wing blogger David Vance

Under Elon Musk’s new “general amnesty” plan, right-wing accounts pushing misinformation are brought back to Twitter

Media Matters found that Musk is reinstating accounts that push misinformation, right-wing talking points, and white nationalist ideology

WRITTEN BY RUBY SEAVEY

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM NATALIE MATHES & ZACHARY PLEAT

PUBLISHED 12/02/22

After single-handedly reinstating nearly a dozen high-profile right-wing users, new Twitter CEO Elon Musk is now broadly granting previously suspended accounts “amnesty.” In the week since this plan was announced, a Media Matters review has found that Musk has reinstated a variety of accounts, including those that post misinformation and amplify right-wing talking points.

Musk gained control of Twitter on October 27 after a tumultuous six-month-long acquisition process. Previously banned users quickly celebrated this purchase, QAnon accounts started rejoining the platform, and Musk interacted with right-wing accounts responsible for bigotry and extremism.

As the new CEO, Musk has already made his mark on the company by laying off half of Twitter’s workforce, announcing COVID-19 misinformation would no longer be removed from the platform (which experts say will harm public health), and reinstating banned accounts. Musk had promised civil rights organizations that the platform would “not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on the platform until we have a clear process for doing so,” yet he reinstated nearly a dozen high-profile right-wing accounts, including that of former President Donald Trump, seemingly without any formal process. Instead, Musk ran an unscientific Twitter poll and reactivated Trump’s account because he claimed “the people have spoken.”

Musk returned to the Twitter poll feature days later to ask his followers if Twitter should “offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts.” Based on the results – with around 72% of the respondents (likely including bots) saying yes – Musk claimed that “amnesty begins next week.” Platformer reported that “since Musk’s poll, Twitter has begun the process of reinstating roughly 62,000 accounts with more than 10,000 followers.”

Musk tweet about letting previously banned accounts back onto the platform

A Media Matters review has found that Musk is reinstating a variety of accounts, including ones dedicated to advancing right-wing talking points and misinformation, as well as accounts that primarily push spam, sexual content, and content related to nonfungible tokens (NFT).

Some of the reinstated accounts have demonstrated their loyalty to the violent QAnon conspiracy theory or are dedicated to attacking Democrats. Other accounts have amplified harmful and baseless misinformation about COVID-19, engaged in right-wing culture wars by sharing Project Veritas tweets or promoting conspiracy theories about the January 6 insurrection, and pushed harmful anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Many reinstated users have also pushed election misinformation or called for Democratic elected officials to be arrested.

Here are some of the accounts pushing bigotry and right-wing misinformation to hundreds of thousands of followers collectively:

EMichaelJones1

E. Michael Jones, an antisemitic radical traditionalist Catholic, thanked Musk for reactivating his account on November 23 and has since used his platform to push dangerous antisemitic rhetoric. He also uses Twitter to usher his more than 30,000 followers over to the far-right platform BitChute, where he posts antisemitic long-form content.

Tweet that says "pray for the conversion of jews"

Tweet with a link to BitChute article titled "It's Okay to Criticize Jews"

Sargon_of_Akkad

After thanking Musk for reactivating his account, British anti-feminist far-right personality Carl Benjamin, also known as Sargon of Akkad, has used his recent reinstatement to push white nationalist ideology and amplify the far-right message board 4chan to his more than 260,000 followers.

Tweet that says "England is an occupied country"

DVATW

Right-wing blogger David Vance returned to Twitter after a two-year suspension to engage in the right-wing anti-trans smear campaign targeting Disney.

David Vance Tweet that says Disney is a real and present danger to our children

He has also pushed white nationalist ideology to his 144,000 followers, sharing a Daily Mail article about the language demographics in England and Wales and claiming that non-English speakers are causing the “ghettoisation” of the United Kingdom. Vance also attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, saying, “There is a special place in hell reserved for this man.”

David Vance tweet: The ghettoisation of a country.

David Vance Tweet: there is a special place in hell for Dr. Fauci

OfficeOfMike

After being welcomed back to Twitter, Michael J. Morrison, whose Trump-supporting account has more than 55,000 followers, has used his platform to push anti-LGBTQ bigotry.

Morrison responding to a tweet that said trans women are women: "You’re entitled to your own opinion but you aren’t entitled to your own facts"

Additionally, he insinuated that the COVID-19 vaccine is responsible for infecting people with the virus and amplified multiple right-wing media outlets.

Morrison tweet saying "Isn't it odd how only the vaccinated are getting covid?"

Morrison retweeting Jack Posobiec

AmericanMex067

After being reinstated on Twitter, Latinos for Trump co-founder Jorge Herrera returned to his old habits of amplifying right-wing media. This time, he has shared misinformation about the recent midterm elections to his nearly 42,000 followers.

Marco Gutierrez retweeting Charlie Kirk saying Democrats rigged the 2020 election

Tamaraleighllc

Since being reinstated, Tamara Leigh, MAGA supporter and originator of the Pardon Flynn Now movement, has used her new platform to fundraise for people who were arrested after participating in the January 6 insurrection, amplify dangerous anti-LGBTQ accounts and rhetoric, and share COVID-19 misinformation about the vaccine.

Tamara Leigh fundraising for kids of people who were Jan. 6 insurrectionists

Tamara Leigh retweeting a Libs of TikTok tweet

Tamara Leigh retweeting Liz Wheeler video pushing covid-19 misinfo

Don't let right wing lies set the agenda. Donate now!

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Pagination

Current page1

…

Elon Musk is unilaterally reinstating banned Twitter accounts, despite assuring civil rights groups and advertisers that he wouldn’t

11/22/22

Right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists are spreading hate on Twitter with their newly purchased blue check marks

11/10/22

The GOP’s corrupt bargain with Elon Musk

11/07/22

1/2 ad sponsors gone; trump crap poll 52% ppl have spoken

https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/elon-musk-unilaterally-reinstating-banned-twitter-accounts-despite-assuring-civil-rights

https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/climate-deniers-gain-traction-elon-musks-twitter

no lnx twt

Climate deniers gain traction on Elon Musk's Twitter

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ILANA BERGER

PUBLISHED 12/08/22

Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter on October 27, climate change disinformation has flourished on the site.

The influx of junk science content is, in part, the result of several changes at Twitter. Last year the site announced it was making a concerted effort to provide users with accurate information about climate change, but under Musk’s leadership, previously banned accounts are being platformed once again, and popular climate change skeptic accounts have enjoyed a marked increase in followers. Meanwhile, Musk’s ubiquitous “free-speech” declarations are emboldening newer climate misinformation superspreaders, and climate scientists, writers, policymakers, and activists are losing the communities they’ve built, as some active users move to alternative sites.

Musk has taken input on Twitter from right-wing figures such as Catturd, who played a significant role in spreading climate change disinformation about the cause of power outrages during the Texas winter storm in 2021 and explicitly pushes climate change denial.Based on the result of a Twitter poll, Musk has reinstated accounts that promote QAnon and other conspiracy theories, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and antisemitism. Some of these, such as Jordan Peterson and David Vance, are also pushing climate change misinformation as an extension of these views.

Climate change skeptics saw a deluge of new followers after Musk took over

Multiple popular accounts that push climate denial that had been banned or had left Twitter have returned. Since his reinstatement on November 18, Peterson has tweeted a plethora of textbook disinformation talking points about climate change and renewable energy. Climate change denial blogger Steven Goddard (who goes by Tony Heller) started tweeting regularly again from his personal account in early November after Twitter banned his main account in December 2021. According to Hoaxy, a website that lets users visualize how a claim spreads on Twitter, Goddard has been partially responsible for spreading the hashtag #climatescam. According to theClimate Action Against Disinformation coalition, the hashtag has experienced a surge since the summer and for unknown reasons, it has often been appearing as the top search result on Twitter when users search “climate.”

Steven Goddard mocks "liberal Democrat" college professors for backing climate science

Steven Goddard says #climatescam hashtag is organic

Steven Goddard claims climate change is a scam based off a prediction made by The Independent

Reinstated accounts aren’t the only ones that appear to be benefiting under Musk. Recently, prominent climate change skeptics — some of whom have been identified as “superspreaders” of climate and energy-related delay rhetoric and disinformation — have enjoyed a large boost in followers. Using Social Blade, Media Matters found that the following climate change skeptic accounts experienced significant growth during November compared to the rest of the year:

Milloy is a former big tobacco lawyer who transitioned to climate change denial, working for the largest privately owned coal producer in the country. He was a columnist for Fox News and still appears on the channel as a guest. He also runs the climate change denial blog Junkscience.com.

Milloy gained over 7,800 followers in November, over four times his monthly average increase in 2022.

Michael Shellenberger

Shellenberger is an author and wannabe governor of California whose writing on climate change has been heavily criticized by experts, including those he has cited. He also appears on Fox News and regularly bashes renewable energy and climate activists while advocating for natural gas and nuclear energy. Shellenberger has latched onto other culture war issues such as targeting unhoused people and criticizing liberal cities.

Shellenberger gained nearly 17,900 followers in November, about 1,000 more than his average monthly increase in 2022.

John Stossel

Stossel is a former Fox Business host who now hosts a YouTube show with the Koch-funded Reason Foundation that spreads misinformation about climate change and solutions. Stossel is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Facebook over a “missing context” label on two videos, including one in which Michael Shellenberger appeared, inaccurately dismissing the significant role of climate change in the devastating 2020 California wildfires.

Stossel gained 31,000 followers in November, almost 18 times his monthly average increase for 2022.

Bjorn Lomborg

Lomborg is a Danish political scientist and author who downplays the threat of a warming climate. He regularly appears on Fox News and writes op-eds for The Wall Street Journal. Lomborg’s writing and commentary have been criticized due to errors and misrepresentation. Within the past year, both Lomborg and Shellenberger have appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience.

Lomberg gained over 20,700 followers in November, more than five times his monthly average increase in 2022.

Newly created accounts are flocking to climate change skeptics

Media Matters also found that a high number of users who recently followed these accounts also created their Twitter profiles within the last two months. The following percentage of the deniers’ followers created their profiles in October or November:

Steve Milloy:17%

Michael Shellenberger: 30%

John Stossel: 33%

Bjorn Lomborg: 18%

Emboldened by faux free-speech rhetoric, new misinformers emerge

Newer voices have quickly gained a following with the support of more seasoned contrarians.Matthew Wielicki, a professor at the University of Alabama in the Department of Geological Studies, describes himself as a “skeptic on climate alarmism” and uses cherry-picked talking points and parrots arguments from other larger accounts on Twitter and TikTok to claim that “there is no climate emergency or climate crisis.” Wielicki has been a top source of the #climatescam hashtag and his content has been promoted by active climate change deniers such as Tom Nelson and Peterson. Wielicki claims to have gained about 13,000 followers over one week at the end of November, though his screenshots seem to indicate that this increase happened over at least two weeks. Still, that's a significant jump. Wielicki went from having a little over 1,000 followers to his current 14,600 in just a month. Social Blade data confirms that he gained at least 11,700 followers in November.

Wielicki claims the evidence is clear there is no climate emergency

Wielicki claims he went from 300 to 13,000 followers in one week

Wielicki highlights a user calling him out for pushing fake science

In the wake of journalist Matt Taibbi’s underwhelming “Twitter files” post, which revealed internal discussion on the platform about whether to remove posts related to Hunter Biden, Wielicki is imploring Elon Musk to “provide information about [the] suppression of skeptical views regarding anthropogenic climate change on Twitter and the institutions and government officials involved.”

Climate experts are taking a hit on Twitter

Renowned climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe has been writing about the changes she is observing on her account, saying that she has noticed a drop in mentions, followers, profile visits, and post impressions. “My list of 'scientists who do climate' has shrunk by 2% & my followers by about the same. So the most likely conclusion, at least for me, is that most of the decrease is due to people closing their accounts,” she wrote on December 1. Climate researcher Zach Labe and marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson made similar observations.

Climate advocates aren’t just seeing their follower counts drop; they also are seeing a vibrant online community atrophy. Paleontologist and climate scientist Jacquelyne Gill pointed out: “A lot of folks I know have left. Especially academics (not so many journalists yet).” Some are joining other spaces like Project Mushroom, a climate justice-oriented Mastodon community launched in November by meteorologist and climate journalist Eric Holthaus. Yet like many newer platforms, Mastodon, the open-source, decentralized Twitter alternative, has a steep learning curve.

With experts saying they fear productive conversation is all but lost on Twitter, it’s unclear how climate change deniers will manage to engage in the type of “civil scientific debate” they claim to want (even though they often get upset when people disagree with them). Climate activist and writer Leah Thomas wrote of Twitter’s deterioration: “I came here for cultural dialogue, following journalists to stay up to date with climate + social justice news and because in many ways it was a tool for movement building. So sad.”

--some lnx

since Elon Musk acquired Twitter on October 27, climate change disinformation has flourished on the site.

The influx of junk science content is, in part, the result of several changes at Twitter. Last year the site announced it was making a concerted effort to provide users with accurate information about climate change, but under Musk’s leadership, previously banned accounts are being platformed once again, and popular climate change skeptic accounts have enjoyed a marked increase in followers. Meanwhile, Musk’s ubiquitous “free-speech” declarations are emboldening newer climate misinformation superspreaders, and climate scientists, writers, policymakers, and activists are losing the communities they’ve built, as some active users move to alternative sites.

Musk has taken input on Twitter from right-wing figures such as Catturd, who played a significant role in spreading climate change disinformation about the cause of power outrages during the Texas winter storm in 2021 and explicitly pushes climate change denial. Based on the result of a Twitter poll, Musk has reinstated accounts that promote QAnon and other conspiracy theories, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and antisemitism. Some of these, such as Jordan Peterson and David Vance, are also pushing climate change misinformation as an extension of these views.

Climate change skeptics saw a deluge of new followers after Musk took over

Multiple popular accounts that push climate denial that had been banned or had left Twitter have returned. Since his reinstatement on November 18, Peterson has tweeted a plethora of textbook disinformation talking points about climate change and renewable energy. Climate change denial blogger Steven Goddard (who goes by Tony Heller) started tweeting regularly again from his personal account in early November after Twitter banned his main account in December 2021. According to Hoaxy, a website that lets users visualize how a claim spreads on Twitter, Goddard has been partially responsible for spreading the hashtag #climatescam. According to the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition, the hashtag has experienced a surge since the summer and for unknown reasons, it has often been appearing as the top search result on Twitter when users search “climate.”

...einstated accounts aren’t the only ones that appear to be benefiting under Musk. Recently, prominent climate change skeptics — some of whom have been identified as “superspreaders” of climate and energy-related delay rhetoric and disinformation — have enjoyed a large boost in followers. Using Social Blade, Media Matters found that the following climate change skeptic accounts experienced significant growth during November compared to the rest of the year:

Steve Milloy

Milloy gained over 7,800 followers in November, over four times his monthly average increase in 2022.

Michael Shellenberger

Shellenberger is an author andwannabe governor of California whose writing on climate change has been heavily criticized by experts, including those he has cited. He also appears on Fox News and regularly bashes renewable energy and climate activists while advocating for natural gas and nuclear energy. Shellenberger has latched onto other culture war issues such as targeting unhoused people and criticizing liberal cities.

Shellenberger gained nearly 17,900 followers in November, about 1,000 more than his average monthly increase in 2022.

John Stossel

Stossel gained 31,000 followers in November, almost 18 times his monthly average increase for 2022.

Bjorn Lomborg

Lomberg gained over 20,700 followers in November, more than five times his monthly average increase in 2022.

Newly created accounts are flocking to climate change skeptics

Steve Milloy: 17%
Michael Shellenberger: 30%
John Stossel: 33%
Bjorn Lomborg: 18%

Emboldened by faux free-speech rhetoric, new misinformers emerge

Newer voices have quickly gained a following with the support of more seasoned contrarians. Matthew Wielicki, a professor at the University of Alabama in the Department of Geological Studies, describes himself as a “skeptic on climate alarmism” and uses cherry-picked talking points and parrots arguments from otherlarger accounts on Twitter and TikTok to claim that “there is no climate emergency or climate crisis.” Wielicki has been a top source of the #climatescam hashtag and his content has been promoted by active climate change deniers such as Tom Nelson and Peterson. Wielicki claims to have gained about 13,000 followers over one week at the end of November, though his screenshots seem to indicate that this increase happened over at least two weeks. Still, that's a significant jump. Wielicki went from having a little over 1,000 followers to his current 14,600 in just a month. Social Blade data confirms that he gained at least 11,700 followers in November.

...

n the wake of journalist Matt Taibbi’s underwhelming “Twitter files” post, which revealed internal discussion on the platform about whether to remove posts related to Hunter Biden, Wielicki is imploring Elon Musk to “provide information about [the] suppression of skeptical views regarding anthropogenic climate change on Twitter and the institutions and government officials involved.”

Climate experts are taking a hit on Twitter

Climate advocates aren’t just seeing their follower counts drop; they also are seeing a vibrant online community atrophy. Paleontologist and climate scientist Jacquelyne Gill pointed out: “A lot of folks I know have left. Especially academics (not so many journalists yet).” Some are joining other spaces like Project Mushroom, a climate justice-oriented Mastodon community launched in November by meteorologist and climate journalist Eric Holthaus. Yet like many newer platforms, Mastodon, the open-source, decentralized Twitter alternative, has a steep learning curve.

https://www.mediamatters.org/dinesh-dsouza/election-denier-dinesh-dsouzas-reach-twitter-more-doubles-after-elon-musk-takeover

no lnx vid twt

Election denier Dinesh D'Souza's reach on Twitter more than doubles after Elon Musk takeover

WRITTEN BY MADELINE PELTZ

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CARLY EVANS & KAYLA GOGARTY

PUBLISHED 11/22/22

Since Elon Musk took ownership of Twitter on October 27, the average interactions on tweets from election denier Dinesh D’Souza have more than doubled, expanding the reach of a major source of disinformation and debunked conspiracy theories about the integrity of the 2020 election.

According to a Media Matters review of D’Souza’s tweets, he earned nearly 3.9 million interactions on 681 posts — averaging over 5,700 interactions per post during the 24-day period since Musk’s acquisition (between October 28 and November 20). This is a 144% increase from the more than 2,300 average interactions per post on D’Souza’s 682 posts from the 24-day period prior to the takeover.

D’Souza is a long-time troll and filmmaker best known for his inflammatory smears of Democrats and the left and unhinged pro-Trump commentary. His recent movie 2000 Mules took the right-wing media by storm, promoted far and wide across the echochamber as a way to keep false claims over voter fraud in the 2020 election alive in the years since Trump lost. An unfettered platform on Twitter will allow these types of conspiracy theories to spread even more easily. Musk himself recently liked a tweet from D’Souza that praised the platform under his management and replied: “Correct.”

Elon Musk replies to Dinesh D'Souza

D’Souza noted his increased engagement on his podcast, saying, “My own traction on Twitter has just exploded in the last few weeks and the reason can be put down to two words: Elon Musk” adding, “We’re delighted. I’m a big fan of Elon Musk because I think that what he’s doing is great.”

Video CitationFrom the November 21, 2022 edition of The Dinesh D'Souza Podcast

Some of D’Souza’s most engaged tweets since October 28 have promoted election denial and conspiracy theories about the attack on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi.

On November 17, D’Souza quote-tweeted a video that edited together footage of voters dropping ballots at drop boxes in Maricopa County, Arizona, with quotes from failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and reports from Fox News about Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ victory in the race. The video, set over ominous music, seems to suggest that the voters casting their vote were involved in some sort of undefined election fraud based on the vote tally shifting from Lake to Hobbs.

D’Souza’s tweet received over 41,000 likes, and the video has 1.4 million views as of this writing.

The account D’Souza quote tweeted, @Lauren3veMemes, has a verified blue check mark from subscribing to Twitter Blue, a subscription service launched by Musk that has since been postponed. Despite this, the program has allowed right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists an opportunity to purchase a verified platform.

D’Souza has also shared multiple conspiracy theories about the attack on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, falsely claiming the attacker was in his underwear when he was arrested, despite the allegation being retracted the same day it was first reported by a reporter for the local Fox affiliate in San Francisco, KTVU.

D’Souza’s tweet received nearly 50,000 likes. Another tweet falsely claiming Pelosi knew his attacker received over 83,000 likes.

D’Souza’s movie 2000 Mules, which pushed debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, has been a critical touchstone for the right-wing movement since its release in May of this year. The movie, which was based on unsubstantiated “research” from the QAnon connected group True the Vote, inspired conspiracy theorist Melody Jennings to launch a voter intimidation effort to “monitor” drop boxes in Maricopa County ahead of the midterms. Some of her volunteers showed up with what appeared to be weapons and wearing tactical gear.

In less than a month, Elon Musk has driven away half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers

11/22/22 4:40 PM EST

Elon Musk is unilaterally reinstating banned Twitter accounts, despite assuring civil rights groups and advertisers that he wouldn’t

11/22/22 1:13 PM EST

Dinesh D'Souza defends the Oath Keepers

NY post murdoch

yahoo

former Twitter executive conceded Tuesday that the social media company made the wrong call when it censored stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election.

Yoel Roth, the former head of Twitter’s Trust & Safety department, opened up about the decision in a discussion with tech journalist Kara Swisher, claiming the Oct. 2020 front page story by The New York Post was difficult for Twitter to initially verify,so the company chose to shut it down, suspending the news outlet and preventing users from sharing links to the article. (Those who obtained and disseminated the laptop initially refused to provide it to other outlets, making verification difficult.)

“We didn’t know what to believe, we didn’t know what was true, there was smoke,” said Roth, who quit earlier this month amid mass layoffs following Elon Musk’s takeover.

Federal authorities had warned social media execs to be on high alert in the lead up to the election for hacks and disinformation campaigns similar to those weaponized by Russia in 2016. The laptop story “set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack and leak campaign alarm bells. Everything about it looked like a hack and leak,” Roth said.

However, he said that, “ultimately for me, it didn’t reach a place where I was comfortable removing this content from Twitter.”

When asked by Swisher if it was a mistake to censor the story, Roth replied, “In my opinion, yes.” (He did, however, say he thought it was the right decision to ban Donald Trump.)

hunter Biden and President Joe Biden.

Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA]

The admission comes as the company prepares to release files related to the decision, according to a series of tweets from Musk.

“The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened,” he tweeted on Monday. “This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.”

Musk has been critical of the company’s decision to censor the story tying the president’s son to controversial business connections in Ukraine and China, parts of which were later confirmed by various major news organizations, even calling out Twitter just days after proposing a $44 billion buyout of the site.

“Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” Musk tweeted in April.

But Roth, whose decision to quit was based partly on the calamitous Twitter Blue scheme as well as Musk’s “dictatorial edict,” said that the new CEO’s laissez-faire content moderation strategies were dooming the site and making it less safe.

Elon Musk’s Twitter Fiasco Is the Twilight of the Tech Bro

“There is no set it and forget it when it comes to trust and safety,” he said, questioning Twitter’s ability to now preempt malicious trolls and bad actors. “I don’t think there are enough people left at the company who can do that work.”

“You can certainly streamline things, but that doesn’t mean that malicious activity is going to get less complicated, it doesn’t mean trolls are going to stop. You can’t bury your head in the sand,” Roth added.

In the hour-long interview, Roth urged users to stay attuned to any shifting functionality of key features like muting, blocking and protected tweets.

“If protected tweets stop working, run,” Roth said.

https://redgreenandblue.org/2022/11/17/rightwing-disinformation-machine-goes-war-esg/

no grf lnx

over the weekend, a special edition of COP, Look, Listen featured network analysis from Graphika, which showed that the anti-environmental, social, and governance (ESG) campaign has become a meeting ground for general rightwing twitter posters, and the climate disinfo-specific actors.

Graphika’s map of 13,000 accounts who tweeted about ESG in October.

By Climate Denier Roundup

While their advanced network mapping of followers and content consumption used to showed that the climate disinformation group was a distinct sub-set of conservative accounts, now “computationally speaking, climate denialists in our analysis are no longer defined as distinct from right-wing culture wars influencers.”

Graphika found that “influencers in this group do the work of framing and amplifying climate topics as a culture wars issue, making it more palatable for a broader right-wing audience, beyond the usual climate denial community.”

The top-performing ESG post, out of 13,000 tweets in October mentioning the acronym, was from Consumers Research, a group funded by conservative activist Leonard A. Leo as part of his billion-dollar “anti-woke” campaign.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the financial resources at their disposal, right-leaning actors got more engagement, by far, than the International Environmental Community network.

Despite the fact that environmentalists tweeted way more content about ESG investing, Graphika found that “engagement from ideologically driven accounts far outweighs more consistent, reliable messaging on sustainable investing. It’s not the topic, but rather the divisive framing that wins attention and engagement.”

Which means “the climate community needs to double down on support for campaigns to keep greenwashing out of ESG, as companies look for opportunities to backslide on commitments to appease critics. Because social media algorithms amplify salacious content over quality, those spreading outlandish disinformation are rewarded while those posting the (sometimes dry or technical) truth are shouted over.”

With their billion-dollar backing and an assist from Big Tech, the Infowars Investors are dominating the digital discussion of ESG issues, and in the course of doing so, have managed to fully merge climate disinfo-specific and general rightwing audiences.

It’s the epic crossover event absolutely no one wanted.

(Originally appeared at DailyKos)

https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/right-wing-extremists-and-conspiracy-theorists-are-spreading-hate-twitter-their-newly

no lnx twt many

Right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists are spreading hate on Twitter with their newly purchased blue check marks

During a flawed rollout of Twitter Blue, CEO Elon Musk claimed that the program would decrease hate speech. The opposite appears to be true.

WRITTEN BY CAMDEN CARTER

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MIA GINGERICH, ALEX KAPLAN & PAYTON ARMSTRONG

PUBLISHED 11/10/22

In recent days, numerous Twitter accounts that were suspended for violating the platform’s rules or have a documented history of spreading conspiracy theories and hate speech have purchased a check mark through the new Twitter Blue feature.

On November 9, Twitter launched its updated Twitter Blue feature. The program allows users to pay $7.99 a month for a blue check mark -- which previously served to signal that the account’s identity had been verified -- and “early access to select new features,” such as “half the ads” and priority ranking for “quality content.”

In a Twitter Space held the same day, Musk tried to address some concerns, including about the new Twitter Blue feature and advertisers' concern around hate speech on the platform. During it, he baselessly claimed that ads will not appear next to hate speech and that “the propensity of someone to engage in hate speech if they have paid $8 and are risking the suspension of their account is going to be far, far less.” He provided no evidence for either claim.

Musk’s Twitter Blue has drawn criticism and concern, as users quickly abused the service to impersonate religious figures, government officials, politicians, athletes, brands, and others. (Twitter’s current policies still claim that “blue checkmarks may be taken away at any time for any reason at all by Twitter, including as the result of certain types of violations of the Twitter Rules, including but not limited to our rules around spam, ban evasion, and impersonation.”)

Media Matters has already identified several users that now have a blue check mark through a paid subscription to Twitter Blue, even though they have been previously banned or suspended from Twitter for violating its rules or are known to spread extreme content, hate speech, and misinformation. Some of these accounts have even already spread hate or misinformation since purchasing Twitter Blue.

Libs of TikTok

Anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok has become notorious for spreading anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on Twitter, while targeting schools, Pride events, and individuals. The account has been suspended from Twitter multiple times for hateful conduct.

A screenshot showing Libs of TikTok verified

Gays Against Groomers

Anti-trans group Gays Against Groomers has also worked to push the baseless claim that trans people are “groomers” and spread anti-trans sentiment on both Twitter and Instagram. Gays Against Groomers has been suspended from Twitter at least four times in the past.

A screenshot showing Gays Against Groomers verification

Billboard Chris

Chris Elston, who goes by Billboard Chris on various social media platforms, is a Canadian anti-trans activist known for harassing trans health care providers. His Twitter account has been suspended at least once in the past and since his return, he has continued to document his stunts and post harmful rhetoric about trans people.

A screenshot of Billboard Chris' verification

Catturd

Right-wing troll account Catturd – which Musk has interacted with on Twitter – has used the platform to spread misinformation and conduct harassment campaigns.

A screenshot of Catturd2's verification

Bryson Gray

MAGA Rapper Bryson Gray has expressed support for white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ America First movement, using his Twitter platform to do so. Gray is also set to do a livestream with white nationalist Baked Alaska on Fuentes’ streaming platform on the evening of November 10. In a video on the Telegram channel of QAnon promoter Jeffrey Pedersen, who goes by the handle “intheMatrixxx,” Gray invoked the QAnon slogan: “Where we go one, we go all.”

A screenshot showing Bryson Gray's verification

Red Eagle Politics

Jack Francis, who goes by Red Eagle Politics, is a member of the American Populist Union, a group similar to Fuentes’ America First. Francis has expressed support for the America First movement on his Twitter account.

A screenshot showing Red Eagle Politics verification

Blake Kresses

Blake Kresses -- a member of the Republican Hype House, a former Turning Point USA ambassador, and a content host for right-wing nonprofit Today is America -- now hosts a far-right YouTube show along with Today is America members Kaden Lopez and Gabriel Victal (who also has subscribed to Twitter Blue). Their show has featured Kai Schwemmer -- a known associate of white nationalist Nick Fuentes. During the show, Kresses referred to Schwemmer (who is also featured in Kresses’ Twitter banner photo, along with Jack Francis aka Red Eagle Politics) as a “favorite good friend” and promoted his streaming content on Fuentes’ website. Kresses has repeatedly posted blatant anti-LGBTQ rhetoric to his Twitter account and has been suspended at least once for doing so.

A screenshot of Blake Kresses verification

White supremacists Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer

In 2017, Twitter changed its account verification policy after facing criticism for verifying Jason Kessler, a white supremacist behind the deadly Unite the Right rally Charlottesville, Virginia. Twitter revoked Kessler’s verification, along with other white nationalists like Richard Spencer. Both Kessler and Spencer have subscribed to Twitter Blue, and Kessler is even advocating for Musk to reinstate fellow white supremacist David Duke.

A screenshot of Richard Spencer's verification

A screenshot showing Jason Kessler's verification

QAnon-supporting accounts

Twitter accounts belonging to Nicholas Veniamin, host of a QAnon podcast, and Woke Societies, a QAnon show banned from YouTube, have also been able to acquire a blue check mark through a paid subscription.

A screenshot showing Nicholas Veniamin's verification

A screenshot showing Woke Societies verification

THE LATEST

Tucker Carlson offers gushing, fawning praise of Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter

11/10/22 9:07 PM EST

Tucker Carlson: “Is this fraud? We’re not sure. And on some level it doesn’t matter.”

11/10/22 8:40 PM EST

Fox News host casts doubt on the integrity of election results in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania

11/10/22 8:09 PM EST

Sean Hannity claims votes have “magically appeared” in Arizona

11/10/22 6:28 PM EST

Right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists are spreading hate on Twitter with their newly purchased blue check marks

11/10/22

…

Twitter CEO Elon Musk is catering to far-right accounts promoting bigotry, extremism, and misinformation

11/07/22 6:34 PM EST

The GOP’s corrupt bargain with Elon Musk

11/07/22 12:53 PM EST

QAnon influencers are trying to use Twitter’s new subscription service to regain a foothold on the platform

11/06/22 4:15 PM EST

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/aoc-elon-musk/

no lnx many twts

Elon Musk's attack on AOC draws far right Twitter trolls – and charges of 'staggering' misogyny

AOC catches a Republican launching a 'cynical' smear against her — and has the receipts to prove it

Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at South By Southwest 2019 in Austin, Texas, nrkbeta

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement April 30, 2022

Whether you believe him or not (don't), Elon Musk claims he is buying Twitter to protect "free speech" but he's already turning the top social media platform into a home for the far-right – exactly as liberals warned.

On Thursday the billionaire was accused of sounding "just like Trump" when he posted a demonstrably false meme alleging conservatives haven't changed since 2008, while the "center" and liberals have moved to the left – with liberals running to the extreme far left. Again, demonstrably false.

Apparently not thrilled by the massive negative response from the left, on Friday Musk tweeted, "The far left hates everyone, themselves included!"

About 20 minutes later, again apparently gauging reaction, he added: "But I’m no fan of the far right either. Let’s have less hate and more love," acting as if he already owned the place – which he does not.

Friday night, Musk responded to a tweet from a powerful sitting member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). While she did not tag him, it was clearly about him.

"Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening bc some billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform and skews it because Tucker Carlson or Peter Thiel took him to dinner and made him feel special," she wrote.

News reported Friday suggested Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey asked Musk to buy the social media site – and "libertarians" like Thiel urged him on.

The Wall Street Journal reported hours earlier thatDorsey "was whispering in Mr. Musk’s ear that Twitter should be a private company, people familiar with the matter say." The Journal also reported billionaire Peter Thiel, a strong Trump backer, had been urging Musk to get involved. Thiel is also a strong backer of Trump-aligned MAGA candidates.

So it's no wonder that Musk responded to AOC in a most vile manner, sexualizing her remarks, which was a dog whistle – if not a clarion call – to the misogynistic far right, who came barking with glee.

This was Musk's ugly response:...

Emma Vigeland, the co-host and producer of The Majority Report with Sam Seder weighed in: "Congratulations on reaching yet another right-wing milestone, Elon: projecting your own creepy sexual fixations onto Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It’s a rite of passage!"...

ruh-roh

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/elon-musk-2657236693/

d badash ncrm

many twt graf

Elon Musk in a court agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission is required to get his tweets pre-authorized after being forced to pay $40 million in a fraud case ($20 from him, $20 million from Tesla). It is not clear he is doing so.

Musk, the richest man not just in the world, but in the history of the world, this week bought Twitter, the social media platform that likely has the strongest ability to shape public opinion. (Kind of like his tweets, the deal is subject to Federal Trade Commission approval.)

On Thursday Musk posted a demonstrably false tweet that suggests conservatives have not changed positions since 2008. It basically also says that liberals have moved much more to the extreme left. And it provides precisely zero evidence to back up the claim.

Many on Twitter blasted Musk, providing ample proof of just how wrong he is.

One of those leading the charge against Musk’s erroneous and divisive claim is Parker Malloy, a former Media Matters editor-at-large who just penned a piece at Substack that begins, “Maybe if Twitter had actually enforced its policies, it wouldn’t have become the type of hellhole a guy like Elon Musk would want to buy.”

Malloy points to aPew Research Center study that states outright: “Republicans have moved further to the right than Democrats have to the left.”

Why is Musk’s erroneous tweet divisive? Because it’s false, yet feeding the already non-reality-based right wing — which is the exact concern many have about what the social media platform that shapes public opinion and legislation will become under Musk’s ownership.

Alexander Howard, the Director of the Digital Democracy Project, also pushed back on Musk’s claim. Pointing to a piece in The Economist, Howard tweets: “The GOP has shifted to the far-right since the 1990s, embracing illiberalism & anti-democratic views. The Democratic Party has not shifted far-left.”

[[AHA: CLICKS --> CLOUT

rt qanon loses mind b/c last bastion of binary thinking B/W rt/wrong good/evil ~ sec hum moral relativism postmod? can cruz usetwitteras effectively as trump? more so b/c he will stay below de-plat level? note he w/ spc media algo gets amplify/boost from algo; twitter has better record on de-plat not cranking up rage algorithm to max profit?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-2657046068/

tells mayor pete and boyfriend to stay out of girls bathroom

aha yikes they are monetizing victimization, polarization, demonization see crensharrrrh vs mtg

note rubber glue (how much of that is " See they do it too" so not only are they corrupt, they are hypocrites, not to be trusted , morally deficient; how dare they [global coastal elitist) accuse real patriotic americans of wrongdoing; putin disinfo is to tear down trust in system/gov't/civil society/ pols, a pox on both houses leads to apathy if not polarysis; soc med gives instant quantitative feedback (it's an instant poll of your constituents/maga base?

an 3 22

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), like many other Republican lawmakers, has made this week’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings for justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson into more of a political circus than a professional inquisition.

From subtly misogynistic insinuations the blatantly racist remarks, Republican lawmakers have been deeply criticized for their treatment of Jackson.

Now, The Daily Beast's Matthew Fuller is offering an unfiltered breakdown of all that has transpired this week. At one point during the 200th episode of The Daily Beast podcast, "The New Abnormal," Fuller joined the panel to speak with the show's co-host Andy Levy as they rehashed the Republican senator's bizarre behavior.

Fuller, who bluntly describes Republican lawmakers' actions as "the full-flavored version" of “straight racism," weighed in with his reaction to the grotesque displays during the confirmation hearings.

"I think I expected it to be maybe a little bit more coded, a little bit more dog whistle-y," Fuller said. "'Certainly, I knew that they were gonna bring up stupid things like critical race theory. I didn’t expect the line of attack to be just so overtly racist, with false suggestions that 'Jackson is soft on crime, she’s soft on child pornographers' even though her sentencing practices were well in line with the average sentences people were getting.'”

Fuller went on to express concern about the bigger problem as he noted the real reason for Republican lawmakers' antics during the confirmation hearings.

“But the broader issue,” Fuller explains, “is Republicans know Democrats have all the votes. At the end of the day, I'd be very surprised if Jackson is not confirmed, and confirmed with probably a couple Republican votes. They know that, and the hearing is just aboutscoring points, which is why you see Cruz giving his speech and then checking his Twitter mentions. This isn’t about actually moving people. This is about raising money. This is about adding to their own clout. And it’s been frankly a pretty disgusting confirmation.” ]]

...Tenpenny has been added to the Center for Countering Digital Hate's infamous**"disinformation dozen**," a group described as "12 people it said were responsible for spreading a majority of anti-vaxxer falsehoods on Facebook."

ref report

https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.filesusr.com/ugd/f4d9b9_750e5af82aea4920a270b1c5a8b094c2.pdf

no lnx

KEY FINDINGS

Analysis of a sample of anti-vaxx content that was shared or posted on Facebook and

Twitter showed up to 65% of anti-vaccine content can be traced to the leading online

anti-vaxxers, who we label the Disinformation Dozen.

? Individuals were selected based upon their high social media followings and high

volume production of anti-vaccine content.

? Our sample of anti-vaccine content was shared or posted on Facebook or Twitter a

total of 812,000 times between February 1 and March 16 2021, with 65% of that

sample attributable to the Disinformation Dozen.

? In the last two months, our analysis of anti-vaxx content posted or shared to

Facebook 689,000 times shows that up to 73% of that content originates from

the leading anti-vaxxers included in this report.

? Analysis of 120,000 anti-vaccine tweets and shares during this period finds that

up to 17% feature the Disinformation Dozen.

Deplatforming repeat offenders is the most effective way of stopping the proliferation of

dangerous misinformation.

?The Disinformation Dozen -- including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Joseph Mercola, and

Ty and Charlene Bollinger, among others -- continually violate the terms of service

agreements on Facebook and Twitter. While some anti-vaxxers identified by

CCDH have been removed from a single platform, comprehensive action has yet to

be taken, and most remain active on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

? CCDH’s ongoing tracking of 425 anti-vaxx accounts finds that the total following

across platforms reached 59.2 million in December 2020, an increase of 877,000

since June

https://www.counterhate.com/disinformationdozen

===

twt covid BS

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/marjorie-taylor-greene-suspended/

===

soc med media BS?

an 521 me

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was left flustered on Monday when a mysterious package of white power was left at his doorstep. Almost immediately after the discovery, he sounded off and pointed the finger because he believed he knew who was behind it: 80s pop singer Richard Marx.

In a statement to Politico, Paul sounded off about the package as he described himself as a "repeated target of violence." He also slammed Marx, whom he described as "a C-list" celebrity who is encouraging violence against him. According to Paul, a tweet Marx shared on Saturday likely influenced whoever left the package at his home.

"As a repeated target of violence, it is reprehensible that Twitter allows C-list celebrities to encourage violence against me and my family," Paul said in the statement to the publication. "Just this weekend Richard Marx called for violence against me and now we receive this powder-filled letter."

However, Marx argues otherwise. The "Right Here Waiting" singer insists his tweet was nothing more than "a wise-crack about Rand Paul's neighbor."

When a critic asked Marx about Paul's accusatory remarks, he fired back with a sarcastic statement of his own. "I'm the only person on Twitter who's ever referenced Rand Paul's neighbor," Marx tweeted, adding, "Must have been me."

According to The Washington Post, the package also included an image of Paul weraring a neck brace and had a message that read, "I'll finish what your neighbor started." The message was in reference to Paul's physical altercation with his neighbor Rene Boucher. In 2017, Paul and Boucher had "an argument over yard waste from the neighboring home." The incident escalated to a physical fight that left Paul with six broken ribs.

The current incident involving the mysterious package is being investigated by Capitol Hill police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

twitter suspends right-wing activist James O’Keefe

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

April 15, 2021

**James O'Keefe**, the activist best known for producing and promoting selectively edited, deceptive videos used to advance a far right wing agenda, appears to have been suspended from Twitter, and that...

trump orig ban only for 12 hrs after insurrection, later permanent but tried to used minion acc'ts pretty quickly shut down in face of perm ban?

rudy scrubs high gop from his followers after insurr trial by combat? an 121

aha tweets are more infotainment than info?

walter benjamin on nazi art. amanda Hess on twt

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trumpism

matt r salon

more than eighty years ago, a then-obscure German philosopher wrote an essay that foresaw the essential reason behind President Donald Trump's enduring political appeal. His name was Walter Benjamin; born to a Jewish family in Berlin, Benjamin was present for a pivotal moment in history, and watched Hitler rise to power. By the time he wrote his most famous essay, he was an exile living in France amidst financial hardships, having recognized that the Reichstag fire three years earlier signified that the Nazis had achieved total power in Germany.

In 1936 — as Hitler was violating international treaties with impunity and preparing Germany for war (a threat that many Western powers did not take seriously) — Benjamin, a Marxist and a Jew who was thus obviously opposed to the Nazis, postulated that modern fascists succeed when they are entertainers. Not just any entertainer — a circus clown or a juggler-turned-fascist wouldn't do. Specifically, modern fascists were entertainers with a distinct aesthetic, one that appeals to mass grievances by encouraging their supporters to feel like they are personally expressing themselves through their demagogue of choice.

Benjamin's insight, which appears to have been largely forgotten, is that keeping fascism out of power means recognizing how they use aesthetic entertainment to create their movements. That does require us to admit, cringe-inducing though it may be, that Trump is an artist — albeit a tacky, shallow and transparently self-aggrandizing one. More importantly, his movement, the MAGA crowd, has a distinct aesthetic which he has created and honed for them.

The key passage from Benjamin's _{"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,"}_ which was published in 1936, deserves to be quoted in full:

Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life.

Earlier in the essay, Benjamin describes how the history of art itself had changed in modern history. Although works of art were initially created carefully by individual craftsmen working under mentors, industrialization made it possible for art to be produced on a large scale and distributed quickly and easily among millions of people. (Bear in mind that he wrote this in 1936, when printing presses and radio were the main means of mass distribution, television was in its infancy and the internet had yet to be conceived.)

Not surprisingly, this meant that politicians had learned how to utilize art to advance their own agendas. Fascists, however, took things one step further: They recognized that, by using purely aesthetic entertainment to create solidarity among their supporters, they could distract them from the economic and social forces oppressing them, and instead build political movements based around the ability to creatively express their grievances. In other words, you could promote policies that rampantly redistributed wealth upwards, consolidated power in the hands of a few and dismantled democracies, and one's followers would not care as long as they had the aesthetic entertainment to comfort them and make them believe they were being heard by those very politicians who fundamentally despised them.

Because Benjamin was most concerned with Adolf Hitler, who ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, his essay drew particular attention to Hitler's love of extravagant military exhibitions. Clearly, there are parallels to Trump, who has used_{gaudy}_ _{military}__{pageantry}_ in unprecedented ways to impress his supporters, as well as_{declared}__{literal}__{war}_ on many of his own citizens, in part to achieve that same effect. Benjamin quotes Italian fascist and futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, whose celebration of war is chillingly poetic:

War is beautiful because it establishes man's dominion over the subjugated machinery by means of gas masks, terrifying megaphones, flame throwers, and small tanks. War is beautiful because it initiates the dreamt-of metalization of the human body. War is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow with the fiery orchids of machine guns. War is beautiful because it combines the gunfire, the cannonades, the cease-fire, the scents, and the stench of putrefaction into a symphony.

Obviously, Trump's understanding of art and entertainment precedes his military displays, and may explain how he became the first president to lack either political or military experience. Acknowledging that_{he did not actually write}_ the books like "The Art of the Deal," which helped make him famous, he still played a major role in choosing the_{faux-opulent}_ and _{brassy architectural style}_ that distinguished his early buildings. He was a major creative force behind his hit reality TV show "The Apprentice," which he hosted for a decade until shortly before he began his 2016 presidential campaign. While it would be a stretch to describe Trump as having the soul of an artist, he has always intuitively understood that people like to be entertained, and that making a spectacle of your businesses (such as his real estate holdings) and of oneself (such as through his reality TV show) is good for business.

By developing a knack for entertaining the masses in a self-promotional way — whether by claiming credit for art he did nothing to produce, like "The Art of the Deal," or actually playing a role in artistic choices over investments like his buildings and his TV show — Trump created an image for himself as the quintessential American businessman, the type of billionaire that, ascomedian_{John Mulaney astutely observed in 2009}_, is a caricature of what a hobo might imagine a wealthy person to be like. For the first sixty-plus years of his life, Trump became adept at using aesthetic presentations to make himself into a pop culture icon.

When he decided to run for president, he simply transferred that understanding to the political realm.

There are two main ways that he did this prior to his presidency, both of which he has continued to do during his administration. The first is through his tweets, which took advantage of Americans' dwindling attention span by regularly packing memorable, punchy ideas into very small packages. As_{Amanda Hess wrote in Slate back in 2016}_, the secret to Trump's ability to create a political movement off of Twitter is that "whether he realizes it or not—and he's tweeted that he has 'a very high IQ,' so I'm assuming he does—his most Trump-ian tweets manage to hit upon all three of Aristotle's modes of persuasion: logos (the appeal to logic), ethos (the appeal to credibility), and pathos (the appeal to emotion)."

Trump has tweeted so much that it would take an entire academic paper to deconstruct all of them thoroughly, but Hess' analysis of a Trump tweet directed at one of his rivals in the 2016 Republican primaries, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is quite revealing. After quoting Trump's tweet — "Jeb Bush never uses his last name on advertising, signage, materials etc. Is he ashamed of the name BUSH? A pretty sad situation. Go Jeb!" — Hess points out that "he seized on a truth about Jeb Bush's campaign branding, leveraged it to question the very legitimacy of the Bush name, declared the situation 'sad,' and still had leftover space to offer some condescending words of encouragement."

One finds the same strategy in his tweets trying to delegitimize Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election, which the president insists he won even though he has_{repeatedly failed in court}_ to prove any of his claims. On Thursday he nevertheless_{tweeted}_, "The 'Republican' Governor of Georgia, [Brian Kemp], and the Secretary of State, MUST immediately allow a signature verification match on the Presidential Election. If that happens, we quickly and easily win the State and importantly, pave the way for a big David and Kelly WIN!" Again, Trump very strategically packed a lot into this single tweet: An insult against a fellow Republican who he feels has been disloyal by not helping him steal the election, to inspire anger PAthos]; a seeming appeal to logic by requesting "a signature verification match"; and the offer of rewards for other powerful if his wishes are granted. ETHOS IS I AM A WINNER. FIGHTER, THESE DISLOYAL PUSSIES LET YOU ALL DOWN

But the other aesthetic that Trump has honed impeccably is the art of trolling. As my colleague Amanda Marcotte wrote in her book_{"Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself,"}_ this fit with a longstanding trend among American conservatives. Indeed, for years before Trump's rise, they began transitioning away from advocating for traditional conservative ideas and instead focused on encouraging their followers to be bitter, hateful and paranoid. Over time, American right-wing politics was no longer defined by beliefs,but by intense hostility toward perceived threats that they invariably attributed to the left.

"Watch Fox News [ INFOTAINMENT HYPE ANGER] any day of the week, and most of what they cover is a bunch of segments about how liberals are hypocrites or liberals are the worst,"_{Marcotte told Salon in 2018}_ when discussing her book. "Everything is just reinforcing the stereotype of liberals as these hate objects you can just feel justified in trying to punish." She later added that "conservative audiences respond to this kind of media because they want to. I think we underestimate how much people are going to do what they want to do and believe what they want to believe." While Trump supporters may recognize that certain government programs help them, they will disregard those facts if a right-winger appeals to their hostility toward racial minorities, women, the LGBTQ community, immigrants or members of other marginalized groups. A SORT OF 2NDARY/PROXY EXPRESSION OF FEELINGS /DEFENSE OF THEIR RIGHTFUL POSITION SEE BENJ ABOVE]

This trolling approach defines Trump's official speeches, his press conferences, the rhetoric he employs at political rallies and virtually every other aspect of his political life. For his followers, this type of communication trope has become ingrained into their being. Plenty of conservative politicians appealed to their supporters' basest instincts prior to Trump, but the president and his followers made overtly vilifying the left and gleefully savoring upsetting leftists through their words and actions into their central appeal.

He did this when he kicked off his aborted 2012 presidential campaign by promoting a racist conspiracy theory about President Barack Obama and his successful 2016 effort by disparaging Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals. He has done this on the countless occasions when he has made inflammatory statements about important issues that inevitably upset the left and, just as inevitably, put Trump in the headlines. He and his supporters have even sold T-shirts with controversial messages by appealing to supporters' desire to"drive liberals crazy." Frequently, Trump supporters will actually admit that they _{don't agree with his rhetoric}_, but they enjoy his _{sadistic bullying}_ because it makes them feel good. In other words, they connect with the aesthetic.

Trump's is an an approach that goes beyond mere rhetoric and enters the realm of performance art, a fact that Trump himself unintentionally acknowledged during his_{first speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention}_, when he urged his supporters to chant "12 more years" in order to "really drive [liberals] crazy." That moment epitomized precisely howTrump has transformed traditional political rhetoric into performance art: Instead of simply making the case for his candidacy or advocating for certain ideas, Trump focused on creating a moment in which he would entreat his followers to join him in a performance — not for a major political point, but simply to elicit a desired emotional response from their supposed common enemy.It was the type of performance art that Trump has perfected: To act like a troll, and encourage his supporters to act like trolls, and thereby create an act of mass catharsis through creative self-expression that did absolutely nothing to address any legitimate economic or social concerns that his supporters might have.

If Trump was simply using these ends to advance an otherwise traditional political career, it would debase democracy but not necessarily pose a threat to it. The problem is that Trump is not a traditional American politician; he has all the hallmarks of being a fascist. As Italian philosopher_{Umberto Eco wrote in a 1995 essay about fascism}_, "behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives." There are many drives that fuel fascist movements and are present withTrump, including a glorification of an imagined past through appeals to traditionalism (hence Trump's slogan to "Make America Great Again"), a hostility toward intellectuals and a fear of difference(to quote Eco, "the first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders" and is thus "racist by definition").

Fascist movements also pander to the individual and social frustrations of their followers,heavily rely on_{nationalism}_, convince themselves that their opponents are elitists and utilize a specific type of machismo that "implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality." When fascists talk about their support of "the People," it is not in terms of a belief in individual rights but rather as "a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People."

Even if Trump never again holds political office, the fascist tendencies that he exploited will continue to thrive, and it is not inconceivable that a future fascist political aspirant will figure out how to replicate his ability to create a political aesthetic as the glue that holds their movement together. [gaslight "posh trump" eg tom cotton] The ongoing debacle over Trump's refusal to accept his 2020 election loss is a perfect example of that. For Trump himself, this is almost certainly a symptom of his_{obvious narcissism}_, the fact that in his world nothing is worse than being a "loser." Yet it is telling that so many people are buying into his claims (a_{recent poll}_ found that 73 percent of likely Republican voters and 44 percent of all likely voters are questioning Biden's victory), despite there being _{no evidence of voter fraud}_ _{whatsoever}_.

Even if Trump miraculously vanishes from the political scene after leaving office, his lies about the 2020 election are likely to foreshadow future ways in which American fascists use mass entertainment to win over support. As_{Marcotte recently noted}_, polls show that most Republican voters do believe that their votes counted, and there are no plausible signs of waning interest in participating in future elections, because they realize that Trump's claims of being robbed are yet another performance art piece in which they can participate.

"Republican voters understand perfectly that Trump's lies are part of a con game — and they imagine they're in on the con,[ wwf?] " Marcotte wrote. Replace "con" with "spectacular show," or "mass entertainment," or even (dare I say it) "work of art." That's the Trump aesthetic.

The reality is that the problems facing ordinary Americans economically, socially, ecologically and internationally are largely due to the forces identified by the left: income inequality, lack of access to basic needs like healthcare, student debt, predatory lending and so on are all side effects of capitalism. Yet as long as fascists know how to win over supporters by appealing to an aesthetic — whether military parades and catchy tweets or trolling public statements and conspiracy theories that exist mainly to create a shared false narrative that can upset and delegitimize the left — their followers will misidentify the source of their misery, as Benjamin foresaw.:

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

after the president threatened to massacre civilians, Fox News focused on Twitter’s warning sticker on the tweet

WRITTEN BY ERIC KLEEFELD

PUBLISHED 05/29/20 10:25 AM EDT

Shortly after midnight, President Donald Trump tweeted about the ongoing civil unrest in Minneapolis, following protests over the police killing of an African-American man, George Floyd: “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

On the Friday morning edition of Fox & Friends, however, the big story about the inflammatory tweet was this: Twitter soon hid that message behind a warning, declaring it violated the service’s rules about “glorifying violence,” but still allowed the message to be viewed after the user pressed a button on the screen.

One discussion over Twitter placing a flag on the tweet lasted for over eight minutes...

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-a-notoriously-stupid-fox-news-host-inadvertently-let-slip-trumps-corrupt-plan-media-reporter/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4673

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-a-notoriously-stupid-fox-news-host-inadvertently-let-slip-trumps-corrupt-plan-media-reporter

twt vi9d]

although President Donald Trump has used Twitter incessantly to promote himself, he has been furious with the social media outlet this week for fact-checking two of his tweets — so furious that on Thursday, he issued an executive order targeting social media companies and claimed that he did so to “defend free speech.” Twitter hasn’t removed any of Trump’s tweets, but flagged or hidden them as inaccurate or violent. While legal scholars have been asserting that the order cannot withstand legal scrutiny, Media Matters’ Matt Gertz stresses that it serves a useful purpose for Trump nonetheless — and that purpose has been identified by the “notoriously stupid” Fox News host Steve Doocy.

“President Donald Trump capped off a multi-day tantrum at Twitter for appending a mild fact-check to one of his false tweets by retaliating with the power of the federal government,” Gertz explains. “The executive order he signed Thursday is slapdash and incoherent, rooted in a false premise, hypocritical and potentially unconstitutional, legally unenforceable yet dangerously authoritarian, with sections that read like a Fox News screed. But to analyze the executive order’s flaws is to miss the point entirely.”

That purpose, according to Gertz, is “raising the cost of defiance until his perceived enemies break” — and the executive order “forces Twitter to expend resources fighting it, but if the company bends to Trump and does what he wants, maybe it will just go away.”

“Steve Doocy of all people — the notoriously stupid ‘Fox & Friends’ host who is one of the president’s favorite cable news personalities — (inadvertently) nailed it on Wednesday,” Gertz notes. “Social media companies would face ‘a big headache’ if Trump tried to repeal the section of federal law that the executive order targets, he exclaimed, so ‘they might think twice about putting a footnote on a tweet from the president of the United States.’”

Gertz emphasizes that with his executive order, Trump is “drawing a line between companies that defy him and are punished and those that work to benefit him and receive praise.” Trump, Gertz observes, “lauded Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for criticizing Twitter’s decision to fact-check him.”

“Zuckerberg is the poster child for what Trump wants from the head of a social media company,” according to Gertz. “The Republican political operatives he hired to run Facebook’s policy wing have carved out exemptions from the site’s rules for Trump and his media allies. Trump is making clear that it is in the interests of other social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube to adopt that same corporate strategy — and he will continue to raise the temperature until they do.”

bunch // AN 520

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/donald-trump-just-issued-his-most-serious-threat-yet-to-free-speech

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salon

'Totally asinine’: Legal experts pour cold water on Trump’s call to ‘strongly regulate’ social media companies

Alex HendersonMay 28, 2020

Although Twitter has been one of President Donald Trump’s favorite modes of communication, he is furious with the social media outlet this week for fact-checking two of his tweets: Twitter…

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/kellyanne-conway-paints-target-on-back-of-twitter-executive-in-charge-of-fact-check-label/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/white-house-turmoil-as-senior-staffer-denied-key-promotion-after-right-wing-fury-on-twitter-report/

according to a report from Politico, a senior White House official slated to take a high profile position overseeing domestic policy had his appointment derailed by a furious response on Twitter from extremist conservatives questioning his bonafides.

The report notes that Derek Lyons was on the verge of being announced as President Donald Trump’s next top domestic policy adviser before having the rug pulled out from him and seeing the job suddenly go to Brooke Rollins.

According to Politico’s Anita Kumar and Daniel Lippman, “The abrupt shuffle at the Domestic Policy Council was the result of several typical Trump-era factors: an announcement that got out early, conservative anger and differing internal messages.”

“Nothing’s done until it’s done, and that’s always been true in Trump world and this is yet another of many examples,” explained a person close to the White House.

jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, :{:{floated:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:several people for the role, including both Lyons and Rollins. Newly installed chief of staff Mark Meadows floated his own name, Stephen Miller, an influential immigration policy aide. It was expected that the domestic policy chief would play a significant role in the president’s efforts to reopen the country amid the coronavirus pandemic,” the report notes. “After several days of deliberations, it appeared Kushner and Meadows had selected Lyons to serve as acting DPC director for the rest of Trump’s term, while continuing in his current role as White House staff secretary, a key official who manages document flow to the president.”

However, after a Politico report noted the upcoming announcement, it set off a furor among conservative hardliners about Lyons association with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

“Lyons, a lawyer and Harvard Law School grad, started his career as a law clerk to Brett Kavanaugh when the Supreme Court justice was still a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals. He later worked on Capitol Hill,” the report continues. “But it was his time with Jeb Bush’s campaign that made some conservatives suspicious. His affiliation with Kushner also raised some eyebrows, given that Trump’s son-in-law has:{:{pushed:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: for some more moderate policies, including business-friendly immigration changes that hardliners say are too lenient.”

:{:{That announcement set off anti-immigration gadflyMichelle Malkin who tweeted out, “This is not what #AmericaFirst voters signed up for,” along with the hashtag, “#JaredKushnerIsNotMyPresident..”

Conservative writer and political consultant Ryan Girdusky, piled on, tweeting, “Trump has picked Derek Lyons as the head of the Domestic Policy Council…- he’s a former Jeb! Person.”}:}:

The report notes that the outside criticism set off alarms in the White House that eventually led to Lyons being skipped over.

“A White House official said Meadows received praise internally about Lyons but some in the White House worried that criticism from influential conservative pundits, such as Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson of Fox News, would soon follow,” the report states. “There was another problem that arose during deliberations: Meadows and Kushner had yet to have Trump sign off on Lyons’ appointment when the news broke, according to two White House officials. The White House official said Lyons and Rollins were finalists for the job, but the job ultimately went to Rollins in part because she would be able to appear on television as part of ‘the public facing role’ of DPC director.”

“By the end of the week Rollins had been tapped to head the DPC in an acting capacity,” the report notes before adding, “Lyons was elevated to the title of counselor, making him one of the closest advisers to the president alongside Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway, who have similar titles, although Conway is senior counselor. The move was seen internally by some as a face-saving measure and by others as a Kushner attempt to diminish Conway’s status.”

You can read more here.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/matrix-co-creator-calls-out-elon-musk-and-ivanka-trump-for-urging-people-to-swallow-the-red-pill/

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no lnx twt

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'Matrix’ co-creator calls out Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump for urging people to swallow the ‘red pill

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Written by Alex Henderson May 18, 2020

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Although the term “the red pill” has come to be identified with far-right anti-feminist websites such as Return of Kings, that’s not where it originated: the expression made its debut in sisters Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s first of three “Matrix” films. Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently used the expression in a tweet that White House Senior Adviser Ivanka Trump forwarded — and Lilly Wachowski is calling them out for it.

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In the first “Matrix” film, taking “the red pill” means accepting a dystopian world as it really is. But when the alt-right adopted the term, they give it a far-right, socially conservative anti-feminist connotation — one in which someone who “takes the red pill” has had an alt-right awakening and rejects liberal or progressive ideology.

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On Sunday, May 17, Musk tweeted, “Take the red pill.” And Ivanka Trump, upon seeing Musk’s tweet, responded, “taken!” Lilly Wachowski, in response to their tweets, posted, “Fuck both of you.” In a separate tweet, Musk (who has 34 million followers on Twitter), described “the red pill” as “one of my fav Matrix memes.”

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Elon Musk

@elonmusk

Take the red pill

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460K

10:44 AM - May 17, 2020

Twitter Ads info and privacy

122K people are talking about this

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Ivanka Trump

@IvankaTrump

· 21h

Taken! https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1262076474565242880 …

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Elon Musk

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@elonmusk

Take the red pill

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Lilly Wachowski

@lilly_wachowski

Fuck both of you

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192K

12:36 PM - May 17, 2020

Twitter Ads info and privacy

43.9K people are talking about this

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One area of the far-right anti-feminist movement, incels, have come up with their own twisted expression: “the black pill,” which refers to avoiding women altogether and sets itself apart from the “red pill” ideology that Return of Kings promoted before it went on hiatus in 2018. While Return of Kings founder Roosh Valizadeh promoted “PUA” or “pick-up artist” ideology and encouraged domination of women, incels (which is short for “involuntarily celibate”) embrace a different form of misogyny and see “taking the black pill” as avoiding women altogether.

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Lilly Wachowski, who has been outspoken on transgender rights, followed up her anti-Musk, anti-Trump tweet with a request for donations to the Brave Space Alliance (an organization that supports transgender rights).

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The “Matrix” co-creator wasn’t the only Twitter user who had a negative reaction to Musk’s tweet. Democratic activist Jon Cooper, @joncoopertweets, posted, “Take the red pill and shove it, Elon.”

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Lilly Wachowski

@lilly_wachowski

· 20h

Replying to @IvankaTrump

Fuck both of you

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Lilly Wachowski

@lilly_wachowski

Support @BSAllianceChi if you can. https://www.bravespacealliance.org/donate

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Donate — Brave Space Alliance

bravespacealliance.org

9,610

1:06 PM - May 17, 2020

Twitter Ads info and privacy

1,306 people are talking about this

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Elon Musk

@elonmusk

· 22h

Take the red pill

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Jon Cooper ????

@joncoopertweets

Take the red pill and shove it, Elon.

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5,183

4:16 PM - May 17, 2020

Twitter Ads info and privacy

669 people are talking about this

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===

AHA RARE CASE OF DOWNSIDE TO BS GRIFT?

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Diamond and Silk take the fall for Fox’s irresponsible coronavirus coverage

week, Fox parted ways Diamond and Silk (stage names of Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson) over their promotion of dangerous conspiracy theories related to the spread of the coronavirus. The Trump supporters and Fox commentators have promoted a variety of conspiracy theories, including claims that people are increasing the number of coronavirus deaths to make Trump look bad, as well as speculating that virus is being spread deliberately. Twitter even deleted their tweet opposing quarantines and calling for people to expose themselves to the virus.

Fox’s actions removing low-level commentators are simply a public relations strategy. The network lets their big stars to amplify the same messages to larger audiences, while punishing low-level people who get too much bad press.

For example, Fox host Tucker Carlson and Brit Hume, Fox’s senior political analyst, argued earlier this month that the COVID-19 death toll had been inflated due to what Carlson termed journalists’ “agenda.” Further, just hours after news broke that Diamond and Silk were shown the door, Carlson argued on his show that there is no scientific justification for quarantines and baselessly claimed that the spread of the virus has been slowed not by social distancing measures.

The language and content of these conspiracy theories are nearly identical, though Fox’s most notable figures are rarely held accountable. As Media Matters' Matt Gertz explained, “Fox’s executives have made the calculation that its big stars are too big to fail. Unless further pressure from advertisers and cable providers changes the financial equation, they will have no reason to hold them accountable.”

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trump-defenders-diamond-and-silk-were-locked-out-of-twitter-for-spreading-misinformation-about-covid-19/

fox

News’ Laura Ingraham tried to insult Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — but it completely backfired

Walter Einenkel / Daily KosApril 3, 2020

Early Friday morning, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted out a reminder that while viruses do not by nature care what race or class or position you hold in society, the pandemic adversely affects…

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/twitter-deletes-right-wing-outlets-post-suggesting-americans-get-intentionally-infected-with-covid-19

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no lnx

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Twitter deletes right-wing outlet’s post suggesting Americans get intentionally infected with Covid-19

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Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement March 25, 2020

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Twitter has finally stepped in and deleted a post from The Federalist that links to their article suggesting a program intentionally infecting healthy Americans with the coronavirus. The highly-controversial article which runs counter to medical experts’ advice effectively suggests coronavirus parties as a “social activity,” a database of every person in the U.S. and their COVID-19 infection status, and wonders: “Will we allow parents to make these sorts of infection decisions for both themselves and their children?”

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“This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules,” is the message social media users trying to access The Federalist’s tweet now receive.

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“This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules,” is the message social media users trying to access The Federalist’s tweet now receive.

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Facebook has not deleted The Federalist’s post promoting its article. NCRM will not link to it but our original reporting on the article is here.

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The article itself, penned by an Oregon dermatologist, has not been taken down, but it has been removed from the front page and does not appear in the website’s list of most popular stories, which given the controversy surrounding it, likely is.

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“Twitter initially added a warning to the link stating that the post might be ‘unsafe,’” Mediaite reports. Twitter then “temporarily locked” The Federalist’s account, but it is once again active, sans the offensive and dangerous tweet, which read: “It is time to think outside the box and seriously consider a somewhat unconventional approach to COVID-19: controlled voluntary infection.”

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“Twitter has taken aggressive measures to crack down on misinformation surrounding the coronavirus,” but there is still a tremendous amount of user-generated bad information on the platform.

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As NCRM reported earlier, aside from the obvious problems with the article itself, the author ignores the fact that there is no proof re-infection would not happen after the coronavirus parties. There is sufficient anecdotal information to suggest at least some can “catch” the virus after recovery.

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The Federalist is a right wing website whose secret finding has been the source of much online speculation. It advocates increasingly extremist viewpoints, and was co-founded by Ben Domenech, who is a regular on NBC’s and MSNBC’s “Meet the Press.”

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320 wapo

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The Fix

Analysis

Twitter removes David Clarke’s tweets as he and other Trump allies sow coronavirus conspiracy theories and doubts

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Aaron Blake

March 16, 2020 at 2:09 p.m. PDT

“If you’re healthy, you and your family, it’s a great time to go out and go to a local restaurant, likely you can get in easy. Let’s not hurt the working people in this country...go to your local pub” pic.twitter.com/jXdhOfwe9R

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— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) March 15, 2020

On CNN on Sunday morning, Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged people to stop going out to eat and drink. “I would like to see a dramatic diminution of the personal interaction that we see in restaurants and in bars,” he said. “Whatever it takes to do that, that’s what I’d like to see.”

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The same morning, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) appeared on Fox News with an almost diametrically opposed bit of advice. “If you’re healthy — you and your family — it’s a great time to go out and go to a local restaurant. Likely you can get in easy,” he said, adding, “Go to your local pub. ”

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Nunes said he didn’t want the lack of work to harm the employees of those establishments, and that’s a legitimate concern as the stock market tumbles. But Fauci indicated that the bigger concern right now is the spread of a deadly disease.

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And even as officials such as Fauci have increasingly urged people to socially distance themselves and take the coronavirus seriously, a number of top allies of President Trump, such as Nunes, have pressed forward with very different messages. Some of them have even floated conspiracy theories. While Trump’s commentary on the virus has routinely been more optimistic than that of health officials, these allies seem to have taken his cue and gone quite a bit further in stoking doubts about the whole thing.

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Update: Trump was asked about Nunes’s comments on Monday afternoon, when he himself urged people to stay away from bars and restaurants. Trump said, “I haven’t heard that. I haven’t heard that from Devin or anybody else." But when told of the substance, he said, “I would disagree with it, but right now we don’t have an order one way or another. But I think it’s probably better that you don’t.”

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Among them Sunday was a man Trump recently pardoned, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik. Kerik said on Twitter: “Why do I feel this hysteria is being created to destabilize the country, and destroy the unparalleled and historic economic successes of President @realDonaldTrump?” He then compared the virus death toll (which is still climbing rapidly) to other causes of death worldwide.

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Why do I feel this hysteria is being created to destabilize the country, and destroy the unparalleled and historic economic successes of President @realDonaldTrump?

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Worldwide Deaths... Jan-Feb 2020

2,360: Coronavirus

69,602: Common Cold/Flu

240,950: HIV

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— Bernard B. Kerik (@BernardKerik) March 16, 2020

In another set of tweets, Kerik attacked mayors and governors who he felt were overreacting to the coronavirus.

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“Where is the unity, calming of fears, leadership, and the message that we as a country are going to get through this?” Kerik said. “President @realDonaldTrump is the only leader in the whole damned country! The rest are instilling fear, and are going to push 30% of the country into poverty!”

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Where is the unity, calming of fears, leadership, and the message that we as a country are going to get through this? President @realDonaldTrump is the only leader in the whole damned country! The rest are instilling fear, and are going to push 30% of the country into poverty!

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— Bernard B. Kerik (@BernardKerik) March 16, 2020

Another outspoken Trump-supporting former police chief, former Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke, was even more conspiratorial. He suggested on Twitter that the alleged hysteria was being pushed by liberal billionaire George Soros — a common subject of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories — and urged people to take to the streets.

“Not ONE media outlet has asked about George Soros’s involvement in this FLU panic,” Clarke said. “He is SOMEWHERE involved in this. ”

Not ONE media outlet has asked about George Soros’s involvement in this FLU panic. He is SOMEWHERE involved in this.

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— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) March 15, 2020

Early in the Trump administration, Clarke said he accepted a top post at the Department of Homeland Security, then abruptly withdrew that acceptance. He, like Nunes, also urged people to disregard the advice to stay away from crowded places. He told his 917,000 followers, in fact, to take to the streets as a form of protest.

“GO INTO THE STREETS FOLKS,” he said. “Visit bars, restaurants, shopping malls, CHURCHES and demand that your schools reopen. NOW! If government doesn’t stop this foolishness … STAY Ind. THE STREETS. END GOVERNMENT CONTROL OVER OUR LIVES. IF NOT NOW, WHEN? THIS IS AN EXPLOITATION OF A CRISIS. ”

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GO INTO THE STREETS FOLKS. Visit bars, restaurants, shopping malls, CHURCHES and demand that your schools re-open. NOW!

If government doesn’t stop this foolishness...STAY IN THE STREETS.

END GOVERNEMNT CONTROL OVER OUR LIVES. IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

THIS IS AN EXPLOITATION OF A CRISIS.

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— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) March 15, 2020

Twitter has taken down other Clarke tweets in accordance with its policy against tweets that encourage self-harm, including one in which he urged people to “defy the order” to not go to restaurants and bars and another in which he referred to the idea that “we have to err on the side of caution” using an expletive.

...

===

frontrunner out of iowa, thus flak serenghetti (chris matthews?

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/the-myth-of-bernie-bros-how-a-misunderstanding-of-social-media-is-driving-media-elites-to-psuh-an-easily-disprovable-stereotype/

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no lnx many

The myth of ‘Bernie Bros’: How a misunderstanding of social media is driving elites to push an easily disprovable stereotype

Written by Keith A. Spencer February 9, 2020

The nature of punditry makes it hard to tell which myths media personalities earnestly believe in, and which they perpetuate in bad faith. Consider the “welfare queen,” a villainous trope popularized by Ronald Reagan in stump speeches in the 1970s, and which never actually existed. Despite being a clear fiction, the idea was tantalizing both to politicians and pundits, and hence the welfare queen became embedded in culture. Pundits and politicians today still invoke the racist caricature, often through dog-whistles.

Why do some myths persist, or remain uncorrected by the media, while others dissipate? The short answer seems to be that when they serve a media narrative, or play on existing stereotypes, they grow to possess a power that goes beyond fact or truth. To this list of indefatigable myths, one might add the pernicious “BernieBro” — so ubiquitous a concept that it has its own Wikipedia article. The self-explanatory neologism was coined by Robinson Meyer in an Atlantic article in 2015 before being distorted by the Twittersphere and the punditry — something that Meyer later came to regret, as he felt the term he reified suffered from “semantic drift.”

But that was five years ago, before we had as much data on Sanders’ support base — which, as it turns out, should be sufficient to debunk the stereotype that Sanders’ support base consists entirely of a mythic tribe of entitled, pushy young millennial men. To wit: young women make up more of Sanders’ base than men. He polls especially high with Hispanic voters, far more so than with white voters; Hispanic voters also donated more money to him than any other Democratic candidate. Polls consistently show that nonwhite voters prefer him over the other candidates. Notably, the demographic group that likes Sanders the least is white men.

Moreover, of all the candidates, Sanders has taken in the most money from women.Many of Sanders’ female supporters bemoan how they are ignored by the mainstream press. “The ‘Bernie Bro’ narrative is endlessly galling because it erases the women who make up his base,” writer Caitlin PenzeyMoog opined on Twitter. “To paint this picture of sexism is to paint over the millions of women who support Sanders. Do you see how f**ked up that is?”

And yet. Even with all this demographic data on Bernie Sanders’ support base, many intelligent pundits and politicians persist with the myth. How do they justify it? They just know, apparently. But specifically, they feel it on Twitter.

Just one week ago, New York Times op-ed columnist Bret Stephens published a column with the headline “Bernie’s Angry Bros.” The column did not contain a shred of the aforementioned demographic data about Sanders’ support base, but rather was driven by a series of anecdotes supposedly proving his point about the irascible fans of the Vermont senator. Stephens’ main evidence, aside from social media anecdotes, was a story about Sanders supporters getting angry during or after the 2016 Nevada caucuses, believing they had been rigged against their candidate. (The idea that people might grow angry at being disenfranchised is horrifying to Stephens, probably because he is a well-insulated upper-middle class pundit for whom political decisions have no real material impact on his life — unlike the people in Nevada he disparages.)

The Daily Dot has a long feature listing pundits who have helped perpetuate the BernieBro narrative long after demographics showed his support base to be a multiracial, working-class coalition. Hillary Clinton apparently still believes that Sanders is tailed by a horde of “online Bernie Bros” who issue “relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women,” as she said in a Hollywood Reporter interview just last month.

What could compel otherwise intelligent people to perpetuate a false and harmful narrative that essentializes Sanders supporters and erases their real and diverse identities?

Again, the answer to that is Twitter. Specifically, how Twitter is understood by journalists and pundits, and how it is wielded by angry people online.

The skewed demographics of Twitter

Twitter, unfortunately, informs the worldview of many of the country’s most elite pundits, and some of its politicians too. Opinion columnists like David Brooks and Bret Stephens (both of the New York Times) are excellent examples of pundits who, at various times, seem to see the world as refracted through the bluebird’s drinking glass.

The problem is, Twitter is very much not a representative sample of the world. It is not a zeitgeist; it is not a cross-section of the population.

It is hard to understand this, even for very smart people, because the corporation that runs Twitter tries very hard to make it seem like Twitter is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of every cultural and political conversation.

But it is not true. However, the eponymous corporation behind Twitter profits from this perception of its platform as a zeitgeist. After all, the president is on it! Still, Twitter (the company) promotes this narrative of itself as where the conversation lives. They make money off of the lie that it is a representative cross-section of the world’s opinions and thoughts.

But a study of Twitter demographics say otherwise.

Pew Research polls from 2019 found that about 22% of the US population is on Twitter, and 44% of users are in the 18-24 age range. Linger on that for a second: a substantial proportion of the people getting in Bret Stephens’ mentions and making him upset may be scarcely older than children. Interestingly, Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine — a pundit with whom I rarely agree — is on the mark here.

“It is hard to exaggerate the degree to which the platform shapes the minds of professional political observers,” he wrote in a recent column. “Part of Twitter’s allure to insiders is that it creates a simulacrum of the real world, complete with candidates, activists, and pundits all responding to events in real time. Because Twitter superficially resembles the outside world’s political debate — it does, after all, contain the full left-to-right spectrum — it is easy to mistake it for the real thing.”

But a study of Twitter demographics say otherwise.

Demographics and “real” users aside, Twitter — like most social media sites — has a huge number of accounts that aren’t even individuals. A great deal of Twitter users are instead are brands, spam accounts or bots who behave like actual people.

Because of this, getting in arguments with “people” on Twitter — or even just seeing Twitter as the so-called public sphere — is akin to arguing politics with a clown in a funhouse mirror. It is so heavily distorted — by corporate PR and marketing, by the way that people behave differently online, and even by powerful bad actors (whether state or individual) who can wield Twitter armies quickly and easily — as to be effectively useless as any sort of gauge of public opinion. It is a terrible place to gauge human behavior, or make broad pronouncements of what humans are like. And it’s an even worse place to get a sense of a politician’s support base.

I have a modest proposal for my peers in the journalism world: I would like to propose that anyone writing about a Twitter “mob” of any political ilk be required to include the previous paragraph in an asterisk at the bottom of their story. We should all be forced to include a disclaimer to clarify that it is impossible to make any kind of quantitative assessment of human behavior on Twitter because of how deeply skewed it all is — by hackers, PR professionals, paid influencers, intentional government or corporate misinformation campaigns, and the way the online disinhibition effect makes people act.

The reactionary mind at work

After reading all this, someone with a personal story of a (purported) Sanders supporter being cruel to them online might still object. The Bernie Bro is real! This anecdote proves it.

But to say “a single candidate’s follower was mean, therefore I don’t support this candidate’s policies regardless of their actual political implications,” is a rhetorical fallacy. There are definitely individual assholes out there. Likewise, assholes can believe in good causes, and nice people can support terrible causes. It is a reactionary mistake to oppose a candidate — who represents a set of specific political positions poised to help or harm different social classes — on the basis of another’s individual behavior.

That means that the normalization of the BernieBro also diminishes the experience of those who are bullied by other candidates’ supporters. A video went around of an Elizabeth Warren supporter accosting two Sanders fans at the Iowa caucus; yet it didn’t get a lot of play because it didn’t reinforce existing stereotypes that we have about Warren’s supporters. Plenty of stories about online bullying by other candidates’ supporters are ignored because we lack a comparable stereotype to bundle them.

It would be one thing if Bernie Sanders — or any popular politician — told their supporters to be angry and menacing and threatening online, and then that behavior was reified on Twitter and in real life. But that has not happened with Sanders, nor with anyone else among the current crop of Democrats. You cannot draw a line from Sanders’ rhetoric to any of the stereotypes of BernieBros, because his rhetoric and voting records speaks to him being an egalitarian, a civil rights advocate and a compassionate progressive voice.

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AHA: TALK RADIO + POL-OP + TWITTER = DJT

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TWITTER is reductionistic, it's "killer app" attraction is 140 character, why?

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...How does authoritarianism impact people’s sense of time and history?

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Part of the experience is the anxiety of the minute. Twitterfacilitates this because it is not just how many people check the news, but also journalists drip out news stories in the form of small tweets.This is not just one presentation of a story and the facts. It is not like reading the front page of a newspaper and getting the whole narrative at once. Twitter is a filter for information and experience that is constantly changing. People lose perspective on what is important and what is not.

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Our capacity for discernment goes down and our anxiety goes up. Everything is made to feel urgent. Yet the more time people spend on Twitter the less time they are doing anything about Donald Trump and the crisis.Twitter is just an example of this problem. But it is the prime example because it is an unhelpful mechanism psychologically, emotionally and politically because it’s like a mass venting session without much real world impact....

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/heres-how-trump-weaponizes-crackpot-ideas-to-maintain-a-firm-grip-on-his-maga-base

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no lnx

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Here’s how Trump weaponizes crackpot ideas to maintain a firm grip on his MAGA base

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Written by Alex Henderson January 10, 2020

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If President Donald Trump is reelected in November, it won’t be because the majority of Americans share his views, but because of his ability to fire up his MAGA base, whip them into a frenzy, address their grievances and get them to the polls in large numbers. Trump, journalist Michael Kruse explains in a Politico article headlined “Trump’s Art of the Seal,” knows and understands his audience — and one of the things that has kept that audience excited is his ability to take fringe ideas, get them discussed in mainstream venues and weaponize them.

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Trump has inspired widespread discussion of crackpot conspiracy theories ranging from birtherism (the racist claim that President Barack Obama was really born in Kenya instead of the U.S.) to the CrowdStrike theory — a belief that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election. It was Trump’s pursuit of the CrowdStrike theory, Kruse explains, that led to him being impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives.

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During President Barack Obama’s first term, Kruse explains, Trump’s “proto-political operation was essentially a two-man team” consisting of veteran GOP operative Roger Stone and his protégé Sam Nunberg.

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“One of Nunberg’s self-appointed tasks was to help Trump understand what the masses on the right really wanted, and one way he did that was by listening to MarkLevin’s increasingly popular radio show,” Kruse recalls. “The people who were tuning in most intently to Levin, Nunberg thought, were the people most likely to vote for Trump if he launched an actual bid.”

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Nunberg, according to Kruse, helped Trump realize that the far-right Tea Party movement was as angry at the GOP establishment as it was at Democrats.

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“The Tea Party, in the estimation of Levin and his listeners, didn’t start as a reaction to the liberal outrages of President Barack Obama — it started as a reaction to what they viewed as the inconsistently hardline conservative policies of President George W. Bush,” Kruse observes. “Amnesty for immigrants, for instance? An absolute no-go.”

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As Trump’s movement grew, Kruse notes, it didn’t do so by appealing to conservative intellectuals.

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“For the better part of the past half-century, Trump, 73, has extracted from an array of similar sources — from the New York Post’s dishy Page Six to the toxicity of Twitter to far-right websites and lowbrow TV — a knack for knowing what people want. Not all people, but many people.”

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Poll after poll has demonstrated that Trump is unpopular with the majority of Americans. But among his hardcore MAGA base, he is still quite popular. And Kruse wraps up his Politico article by describing the stranglehold Trump maintains on the Republican Party in 2020.

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“If Trump began his political ascent as a follower — cannily co-opting ideas that resonated with a certain segment of the electorate — in doing so, he clearly has proceeded to forge a following of his own,” Kruse explains. “He has become a leader of those who are willing to be led in this way, solidifying lockstep support from the agenda-setting base of his party as well as its kingpins and figureheads, who parrot him the way he once did Levin.”

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ref

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https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/01/10/donald-trump-art-of-the-steal-096841

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POLITICO

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no lnx many

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Trump’s Art of the Steal

How Donald Trump rode to power by parroting other people’s fringe ideas, got himself impeached for it—and might prevail anyway.

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By MICHAEL KRUSE

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01/10/2020 05:09 AM EST

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Michael Kruse is a senior staff writer for POLITICO.

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Sometime soon, Donald Trump, the third president in the history of the United States to be impeached, is expected to face a trial in the Senate, charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Traced back to its roots, this is a crisis entirely of his own creation: He came across a sketchy scrap of information, a debunked piece of Russian propaganda relating to Ukraine, and he saw it as something he could use, to help himself and to hurt an opponent. He latched onto it, pumped it up, and passed it along.

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Anyone wondering how the president could make this kind of mistake has missed something important about Trump’s rise. For as long as he has been in politics—in fact, for longer—he has been a ruthlessly effective practitioner of the art of parroting others’ most provocative, salacious ideas. “There are a lot of people that think …” “That’s what I heard …” “Some people even say …” His gossipy M.O. was a staple of his campaign, propelling his historic victory, but it also has driven the scandal that has consumed his presidency—“I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike,” he said on the now well-known call last July with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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If what he was referencing sounded kind of like a dodgy talk radio rant, that’s not an accident. It’s a deliberate tactic, one that Trump was developing, and exploiting, from the moment he first seriously started to consider a run for the White House.

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In the early to middle part of the previous decade, Trump’s proto-political operation was essentially a two-man team—there was Roger Stone, now a felon, and there was Stone’s protégé, Sam Nunberg. One of Nunberg’s self-appointed tasks was to help Trump understand what the masses on the right really wanted. And one way he did that was by listening to Mark Levin’s increasingly popular radio show. The people who were tuning in most intently to Levin, Nunberg thought, were the people most likely to vote for Trump if he launched an actual bid. “Donald Trump,” Nunberg told me, meaning his candidacy, meaning his victory, “would never have happened without Mark Levin.”

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[Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump, left, walks to the Federal Courthouse in Newark, N.J., with Roger Stone, the director of Trump's presidential exploratory committee Monday, Oct. 25, 1999, for the swearing-in of Trump's sister as a federal appeals court judge. In a prelude to his possible presidential bid, Trump quit the Republican Party Monday and joined New York's wing of the Reform Party setting the stage for a possible presidential nomination battle with Pat Buchanan.

Donald Trump, photographed in Oct. 1999, with Roger Stone, the director of his presidential exploratory committee, walking behind him. | AP Photo]

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Nunberg’s frequent emails to Trump, sent via an assistant in Trump’s office and which have not been reported on before, were accounts of the many grievances that animated Levin and his listeners. Union members resented union leaders. Republican rank and file loathed Republican elites. The Tea Party, in the estimation of Levin and his listeners, didn’t start as a reaction to the liberal outrages of President Barack Obama—it started as a reaction to what they viewed as the inconsistently hard-line conservative policies of President George W. Bush. Amnesty for immigrants, for instance? An absolute no-go. Trump, Nunberg stressed when we talked, didn’t want to be told what to say, but Nunberg nonetheless made his pitch for him as an insurgent outsider: “This is all marketing and you’re a great product … in a new type of market,” he said he told Trump. “Help me help you sell gold to these people that normally buy gold.”

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Trump started listening to the show.

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“He would call me up sometimes,” Nunberg recalled. “‘Oh, did you just hear what Levin said?’”

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For the better part of the past half-century, Trump, 73, has extracted from an array of similar sources—from the New York Post’s dishy Page Six to the toxicity of Twitter to far-right websites and lowbrow TV—a knack for knowing what people want. Not all people but many people. And not what they say they want, but what they really want. Ostentatious and aspirational glitz. Plain talk to the point of crude talk. Conflict.

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Employees, executives, aides and others who’ve known Trump well say he’s not a book-reader so much as a room-reader, “sucking in information that he finds valuable,” grabbing “nuggets” that he thinks can help him get what he covets, which is some slurry of wealth, attention, respect and power. “A creature of feel,”the late strategist Pat Caddell described him to me in the summer of 2018, “a visceral stimulus creature”—who could repackage what he took in and sell it back to the hoi polloi.

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In 2010, for example, he recognized a lightning-rod issue torquing emotions and jumped right in, gleaning buzz for himself with his offer to purchase the site of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”—which alerted him to the potential potency of anti-Obama birtherism, which paved the way for his anger-girded, fear-mongering presidential candidacy. Trump is in this way less a thinker and more a megaphone, an amplifier of the ideas of others, the value of those ideas in his mind based not on veracity so much as utility. Which is another way of saying he’s not so much a leader as he is a follower. Perhaps the ultimate follower. Trump is the Follower of the Free World.

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[Top: People protest a mosque construction near Ground Zero during a New York City Landmarks Commission vote in 2010. Bottom: A copy of President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate sits on a reporter's lap in the White House Briefing Room on April 27, 2011, after the administration released the document following extended criticism by those who did not believe he was born in the United States.

Top: People protest a mosque construction near Ground Zero during a New York City Landmarks Commission vote in 2010. Bottom: A copy of President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate sits on a reporter's lap in the White House Briefing Room on April 27, 2011, after the administration released the document following extended criticism by those who did not believe he was born in the United States. | Getty Images]

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“Donald was never a CEO. He was a brand manager—you know, how do I appeal to the masses?” former Trump publicist Alan Marcus told me recently. “It’s like Elmer Gantry. It’s the carnival barker. It’s what every pitchman has always done. Tell the people what they want to hear.”

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“Taking the information he wants or needs,” former Trump casino exec Jack O’Donnell said.

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“Whether it’s true or not,” former Trump Organization exec Barbara Res said.

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Taking it in. Sending it out. Over and over. Again and again.

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This, regardless of whatever else it is or means, is a remarkable and undeniable talent: hoovering others’ ideas, making them his, and in doing so growing a following uniquely his own that far exceeds the size of the even considerable original audience. AMP It’s what got him elected. In some ways, too, it’s what got him impeached.

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“There’s no question,” presidential historian Doug Brinkley told me last week. “He just trolls around and looks for weird stories that grab his attention, and he figures, ‘I know the American psyche, and this’ll grab their attention,’ and he throws it out there.”

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But effective as cherrypicking and amplifying the most emotionally and politically useful tidbits has been for Trump throughout his life, it has proved an uneasy fit when practiced from the inside of an office that is supposed to represent the accumulated knowledge and official position of the entire U.S. government. In some sense, the entire impeachment process is a collision between Trump’s magnification of random, unverified rumors and an official regime of fact and process. The outcome will determine more than whether Trump is removed from office. It may well establish a new standard for what our government defines as true.

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Speedy with job-site arithmetic but dismissive of academics, whom he considered weak and effete, Fred Trump Sr. of Queens, N.Y., bestowed upon his middle son and eventual heir not just extravagant riches but an anti-elitist, expertise-averse worldview. At New York Military Academy, at Fordham University in the Bronx and then the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, classmates have said, a young Donald Trump was a “disinterested,” skyscraper-doodling student, “loath to really study much,” game to “bluff his way through.”

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But the fact that he wasn’t a scholar didn’t mean that he was stupid, according to people who worked with or watched him closely over the decades of his professional existence.

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[Donald Trump (L), owner of the New Jersey Generals of the U.S. Football League, said his league’s $1.32 billion antitrust suit against the National Football League will crack “one of the great monopolies in the is country.” At right is his attorney Roy Cohn.

Donald Trump and his attorney Roy Cohn in October, 1984. | Getty Images]

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“If he’s willing to listen, he’s a quick learner,” Res said.

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“A quick study,” biographer Gwenda Blair concurred.

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“Donald just absorbs, absorbs, absorbs,” former Trump Organization executive Louise Sunshine said. “He can extract so much information from his awareness of his surroundings and of the world around him.”

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Starting in the 1970s, he learned, of course, how to fight dirty and win from his antagonistic attorney and mentor, Roy Cohn.

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In the ’80s, he learned from Stone, and from watching George Steinbrenner, Ed Koch and Ronald Reagan, too. Steinbrenner, the bombastic owner of the New York Yankees, led as a loner. His secretary frequently could be heard saying, “Mr. Steinbrenner, Trump on line 2”. Koch won three terms as the mayor of New York in part “by playing the kibitzer,” wrote Martin Shefter, “the brash fellow who has an opinion on everything.” The formula for success, Koch thought, was relatively uncomplicated: Get attention to get votes. “And you can only do that,” he once said, “by being bigger than life. It’s theatrics.” Staging news conference after news conference, Koch packed the way he talked with superlatives, “best this” and “best that.” Reporters joked about having to join gyms just to keep up with him. But he seldom left them wanting for material. He called foes “wackos” and “kooks.” He called the city council “a gaggle of clowns.”

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Reagan, meanwhile, won the Oval Office in one way not dissimilar to Koch’s path to Gracie Mansion—by winning over blue-collar, disaffected Democrats, who sought “safety” in the face of the changing, increasingly diverse society surrounding them. Reagan spent the decade blurring the lines between politics and entertainment, wondering at times how anybody could be an effective president without having been an actor first.

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For Trump, the “visceral stimulus creature,” Steinbrenner, Koch and Reagan provided daily tutorials of sorts. And while his political affiliations were elastic and his overall ideology embryonic, Trump demonstrated early his acumen for tearing pages from proven playbooks and giving them his own signature twists—with blaring full-page newspaper ads in the late ’80s, criticizing American foreign policy and calling for the death penalty for (the innocent) Central Park Five. AA

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[Top: At the June 1978 launching ceremony of the new New York Hyatt Hotel/Convention facility that will be built on the site of the former Commodore Hotel are, from left: Donald Trump, Mayor Ed Koch, Gov. Hugh Carey and Robert T. Dormer, executive vice president of the Urban Development Corp. Bottom right: President Reagan shakes hands with Donald Trump at a White House reception for members of the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies Foundation. Bottom left: New York Yankees manager Billy Martin, standing, meets developer Donald Trump at Municipal Stadium in West Palm Beach in March 1988. Seated with Trump are his son Donald, 10, with a ball given to him by Martin, and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

Top: At the June 1978 launching ceremony of the new New York Hyatt Hotel/Convention facility that will be built on the site of the former Commodore Hotel are, from left: Donald Trump, Mayor Ed Koch, Gov. Hugh Carey and Robert T. Dormer, executive vice president of the Urban Development Corp. Bottom right: President Reagan shakes hands with Donald Trump at a White House reception for members of the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies Foundation. Bottom left: New York Yankees manager Billy Martin, standing, meets developer Donald Trump at Municipal Stadium in West Palm Beach in March 1988. Seated with Trump are his son Donald, 10, with a ball given to him by Martin, and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. | AP/Ronald Reagan Presidential Library/Getty]

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And in the ’90s, Trump learned from watching Ross Perot run for president (and lose) and Jesse Ventura run for governor of Minnesota (and win). “The nutty billionaire and the wrestler,” he called them, according to Stone. He watched Newt Gingrich weaponize words in the political arena in a new and virulent manner, labeling Democrats “traitors” and “sick,” urging his fellow Republicans to do the same. He watched the rise ofpartisanship on cable TV, MSNBC on the left, Fox News on the right, and the spiking clamor for conservative talk radio—from 240 all-talk stations in the country in 1987 to 900 in ’92 to 1,130 in ’95. Rush Limbaugh, the trailblazer, the precursor to somebody like Mark Levin, railed away about “feminazis” and “commie-libs”—and his listeners loved it. “He’s saying what I think,” they thought.

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And Trump in 2011 seized on what people, some people—misguided, bigoted or both—thought about the country’s first black president. The birtherism campaign he began to wage was the distillation of his scattershot but resolute education as the kibitzer, the gossip hound, the insurgent outsider, the nascent politician, the feeder off the fever swamps. The follower.

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“I’m starting to wonder myself whether or not he was born in this country,” he said on Fox News in March of that year.

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“He doesn’t have a birth certificate,” he told talkerLaura Ingraham two days later.“Somebody told me …”

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“A lot of people do not thinkit was an authentic certificate,” he said on CNN in 2012, long after the White House released Obama’s “long form” birth certificate.

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[Mark Levin speaks, with President Donald Trump behind him, during a ceremony to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former Attorney General Edwin Meese, in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019, in Washington.

Mark Levin speaks during a ceremony at the White House in 2019. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo]

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“Was it a birth certificate?You tell me,” he told ABC News in 2013. “Some people saythat was not his birth certificate.”

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That same year, Nunberg arranged for Trump to make his Levin show debut, preparing a memo “to familiarize Mr. Trump with Mark Levin,” he wrote—deploying tried-and-true ways to pique Trump’s interest. Nunberg emphasized Levin’s ratings history (“In the first 18 months on the air, the program jumped to #1 in the time slot”), the company he kept (considersSean Hannity “his best friend”),his reach (books Liberty and Tyranny and Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America sold more than a million copies, Nunberg noted), and his compensation (“a reported annual salary of $12.5 million a year”). Nunberg mentioned, too, that what he said on the air often was disseminated on a variety of websites like TheRightScoop.com. People, in other words, “some people,” “many people,” “a lot of people,” were listening to what Levin was saying.

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Armed with this advance work, the memo as well as the emails, Trump fit in well with Levin. In addition toshilling for the upcoming season of “The Celebrity Apprentice”—“Trace Adkins, La Toya Jackson, Dennis Rodman”—Trump delivered to Levin’s listeners what they wanted—which essentially was … Levin’s ideas, studiously collected by Nunberg, consumed by Trump and regurgitated back to the host.

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“If the Republicans are going to win,” Trump said, “they’re going to have tobreak away from the Karl Roves of the world and, frankly, get more involved—you know, the Tea Party, these people are great. I’ve done some speeches in front of theTea Party.They are great Americans, they love this country, they work so hard, and they have been so mistreated by … the liberal media. … They truly are not treated with proper respect.”

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And he landed especially hard on immigration and any notions of amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

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“I watched last night,” he continued, referring to Obama’s State of the Union that year, “as Senator McCain and everybody were jumping up and down, you know, applauding—I never saw him move so fast, you know, nice guy, but he jumped up—and was applauding as soon as the immigration became a part of the discussion, a part of the speech.”

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“Immigration,” Trump said, “will be the next thing, based on what I’m watching.”

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Trump and Levin wrapped up by exchanging compliments.

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“I’m extremely impressed with what you’re doing,” Levin said.

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“You just have a great show,” Trump said. “I’m always listening.”

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“Donald Trump,” Levin told his listeners after Trump signed off.“See that, folks? Very solid. Very conservative. To the right of the Republican establishment. Strong supporter of the Tea Party.I’m telling you. I’ve been watching this. I’ve been listening. People have been sending me his tweets.”

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There was a reason for that. “He’s putting stuff out there,” Nunberg told me of Trump’s tweets at the time, some of which Nunberg was suggesting, “that sounds like Mark Levin.” FEEDBACK LITERALLY

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In the few months before his interview with Levin:

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Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Obama weak on immigration. All words, no action. He's been Prez 4 years.

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197

6:12 PM - Oct 16, 2012

Twitter Ads info and privacy

987 people are talking about this

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Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Obama is laughing at Karl Rove & all the losers who spent hundreds of millions of dollars and didn’t win one race, including the big one!

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1:05 PM - Dec 3, 2012

Twitter Ads info and privacy

349 people are talking about this

And in the few months after:

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Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Whether you like it or not, Bush also gave us Obama!

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8:12 AM - Jun 27, 2013

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190 people are talking about this

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This ear-to-the-proverbial-ground political ramp-up wasn’t limited to Levin and talk radio. It was around this time as well that Trump began to give more and more talks on the pre-presidential hustings, GOP chicken dinners in places like Iowa and New Hampshire.

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He talked to Pat Caddell about what he was picking up on the trail.“He would put forth his position or his feelings, and he would judge the level of the response to it, and that helped him organize, I suppose to whatever degree it was organized, his views about issues,” Caddell told me in 2018. “Things he said that didn’t go over disappeared. Things that did stayed.”

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Twitter, too, increasingly served a similar purpose.

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“He glommed onto it like it was an oxygen source,” Caddell explained. “And he would tweet what he believed, and people would retweet or answer or whatever, and it was kind of his ongoing focus group.”

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“He loved it,” Nunberg said. “He doesn’t trust the political people who do the focus groups.” Instead: “What are we getting the most retweets on?”

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In 2014 and ’15—well before Trump came down the escalator and announced his intention to run—Nunberg sent Trump nearly daily updates of snippets of news and possible topics and wordings for tweets. At the tops of the documents he showed the number of Trump’s Twitter followers ticking up (a snapshot from December of 2014: 2,751,488 … 2,753,548 … 2,757,190 …) and the number of days left until the GOP primary debate at the Reagan library and the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries ticking down.

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A month into the presidential campaign, after the Vietnam-avoiding Trump insulted McCain by saying he was “not a war hero” and that he liked people “who weren’t captured,” he refused to apologize. That, Nunberg said, partly was because of what he had internalized by listening to Levin. Nunberg told Trump it was going to help him. (It certainly didn’t hurt him.) “He said, ‘Why?’” Nunberg said. “And I said, ‘Because our people despise John McCain. They despise the fact that McCain hides behind his military record to shit on Republicans and you can’t criticize him on anything because of his military record. I said, ‘John McCain—he is hated almost as much as Barack Obama on talk radio.’ … I said, ‘He might as well be Barack Obama on talk radio.’”

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Talk radio led the way. Trump followed.

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Theoretically, Trump could have changed. As successful as this pattern of behavior had been in the years preceding his run and during the campaign itself—he was, after all, elected president—Trump could have adjusted once he took office, having at his disposal, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, the world’s preeminent intelligence-gathering apparatus. But no—sticking to “that gossip kind of mentality,” said O’Donnell, the casino exec, Trump has continued to mine Twitter, plucking what he wants, “very comfortable with half thoughts,” “always looking for tidbits of information that he can use to his advantage.”

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“He sees the ones that are the most popular,” former Fox News anchor Eric Bolling, identified by Time as someone who speaks regularly to Trump, told the magazine in June of 2018, “and getting the most [of the] zeitgeist, most attention on social media.”

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And then? The last and most important piece of this by now almost rote process?

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“He repeats it,” Bolling said.

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[BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP, NJ - NOVEMBER 20: (L to R) President-elect Donald Trump and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani shake hands following their meeting at Trump International Golf Club, November 20, 2016 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey. Trump and his transition team are in the process of filling cabinet and other high level positions for the new administration.

President-elect Donald Trump and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani shake hands at Trump International Golf Club in New Jersey, days after the election in Nov. 2016. Giuliani would go on to become President Trump's personal attorney. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images]

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And for as long as he’s occupied the Oval Office, Trump’s been thinking about Ukraine.“Ukraine,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said a couple months back, “has always been problematic, from Day One. He’s heard a lotabout Ukraine from a lot of people.” He’s heard about it, according to reports, from RudyGiuliani, from his favored right-wing media outlets, from Vladimir Putin.

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He started spreading it almost immediately.AMP

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“I heard it’s owned by a very rich Ukrainian,” he said of CrowdStrike, incorrectly, in an interview with The Associated Press in April of 2017. “That’s what I heard.”

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Officials have insisted to the president the CrowdStrike conspiracy is just that. He has not heeded their counsel.

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It’s what led to the call with Ukraine’s Zelensky that led to the series of events that led to his impeachment. “The server,” Trump said, “they say Ukraine has it.”

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“It’s combustible because Trump’s only looking for news stories and information that suits his persona, that build his persona up,”Brinkley, the presidential historian, told me last week. “And by doing that he is following the trolls down an ugly path.”

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There are those who predict Trump’s tendencies will ultimately undo him. Thomas Bossert, who was Trump’s first homeland security adviser, logged a warning on a Sunday morning last fall. “If he continues to focus on that white whale,” Bossert said of Trump’s questionable Ukraine theory, “it’s going to bring him down.”

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But it is hard to see that happening now. It’s virtually assured that Trump’s impeachment will end not with his ouster but with an acquittal by the Republican-controlled Senate. This purported ordeal could even be a boost. In fundraising, and in some polling, it already has been. And come November, he absolutely could win again. And if that happens,Trump in some sense would possess more power than any president ever—subjected to the gravest constitutional check, then given by voters another four years.

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If Trump began his political ascent as a follower, cannily co-opting ideas that resonated with a certain segment of the electorate, in doing so he clearly has proceeded to forge a following of his own. He has become a leader of those who are willing to be led in this way—solidifying lockstep support from the agenda-setting base of his party as well as its kingpins and figureheads, who parrot him the way he once did Levin. The result: a crescendoing feedback loop, in which followers are leaders and leaders are followers, perpetuating ideas based on what works rather than what’s real.

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“One of the sacred principles in U.S. history has been that presidents are supposed to tell the public the truth,” Brinkley said. “So this is a new kind of Republican that refuses to ever admit culpability or a mistake and is willing to destroy not just institutions but fact-based thinking, empirical thinking.” Trump? “He doesn’t care whether it’s true or not true, whether it destroys somebody or not—there’s no morality into it. It’s just a strange, weird bit of information—‘and it helps me, and I’m going to propagate it.’”

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