They're Fine With It
By: Amanda Carpenter (The Bulwark)
Republicans have no qualms with Trump's dangerous conspiracy theories
— until they get tangled up in them themselves
Most Americans... most Democrats, even...
have yet to come to terms with the lessons
of the last four years.
Republicans - the whole Republican Party -
are perfectly happy with fascist behavior, as
long as they themselves aren't the targets.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Donald Trump pauses as he gives an update on the Nation's Coronavirus Testing Strategy at the White House on September 28, 2020
Oliver Contreras/Washington Post via Getty Images
After four long years, it's finally time to stop parsing the motivations behind their collective silence and say what the real answer is, which is almost too scary to admit.
They're fine with it. All of it.
Really.
Ponder the grim circumstances of our current reality.
The overwhelming majority of Republicans voted for Trump in 2020. Even after witnessing his escalating threats of violence and direct attacks on our democratic system.
Take your pick of the worst events of the Trump presidency. Charlottesville, Lafayette Square, kids in cages, Trump's egging on of militiamen, pipe bombers, mass shooters, and vigilantes. None of it led to a significant break between Trump and elected Republicans.
Sure, sometimes someone like Mitt Romney makes a statement—but the point is that he and the others like him who occasionally chime in are outliers. Far-out outliers.
The only times we've heard real, vigorous pushback against Trump have been when Republicans found themselves suffering the unpleasant consequences of their party's decision to cultivate a rabid, unhinged base.
Which brings us to Georgia.
There, two Republican elections officials are speaking out against Trump for the looney conspiracy theories he's pushing about how the election was supposedly stolen from him. But, one has to ask, would they be saying anything if they weren't the ones being targeted?
Therein lies the problem.
You see, I remember Trump calling lots of other Americans "an enemy of the people" and putting them in danger before he attached that label to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. For some reason, though, it didn't matter to Raffensperger until it happened to him.
In an op-ed lamenting the attacks from Trump and his allies, Raffensperger said the "smooth election" should "be something for Georgians to celebrate, whether their favored presidential candidate won or lost. For those wondering, mine lost—my family voted for him, donated to him and are now being thrown under the bus by him."
Meaning everything was fine before Raffensperger faced with the rough end of the conspiracy stick. He voted for Trump but didn't like it when Trumpism collided directly into his life. All that other bad stuff didn't matter.
Likewise for Raffensperger's colleague, elections administrator Gabriel Sterling. A fellow Republican, Sterling held a solo press conference that went viral on Tuesday. Millions of people watched the video of him bemoaning the fact that a young technician involved in the Georgia recount had received death threats, and that Sterling himself and Raffensperger now require police protection.
"Someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get shot, someone's going to get killed, and it's not right," he warned. He blasted Trump campaign lawyer and former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova for calling for the execution of Chris Krebs, the federal elections cybersecurity chief recently fired by Trump. Many more election workers are reporting threats, too.
Sterling begged the GOP to put an end to it all. "It has to stop," he said. "Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop. We need you to step up."
Sterling added, "I'm talking about Sen. David Perdue and Sen. Kelly Loeffler, two people whom I still support. But they need to step up."
Except they haven't, and most likely won't.
Perdue and Loeffler, who are competing in January run-off elections that will determine the balance of power in the Senate, are both all in on Trump's rigged-election claims, perpetuating the very nonsense that is putting people's lives in danger.
Perdue and Loeffler have called for Raffensperger to step down, citing unnamed "failures" in the Georgia presidential election counts. Under pressure to respond to Sterling's plea to condemn diGenova, they issued the most basic, boilerplate statements imaginable. In nearly the same breath, Perdue said, "We won't apologize for addressing the obvious issues with the way our state conducts its elections."
What are those "issues"? Perdue never said. It's whatever Trump and his supporters believe they are. Whatever happens to people like Krebs, Raffensperger, and Sterling because of it, oh well.
Because what are a few death threats, even among supposed GOP friends, when it comes to retaining and reclaiming political power?
They're fine with it.
Deep down, Sterling is too. Just as long as it isn't affecting him.
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They've been shouting "Lock her up!" for years.
Why was no one listening?
What does this make it now?
150 times you posted it?
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www.msn.com /en-us/news/politics/overrun-with-misinformation-georgia-senate-runoff-elections-are-latest-battleground-for-facebook-and-twitter-falsehoods/ar-BB1bCVn3
'Overrun with misinformation': Georgia Senate runoff elections are latest battleground for Facebook and Twitter falsehoods
The Senate's January runoffs in Georgia have become the nation's latest battleground for election misinformation as false and misleading posts swarm Facebook and Twitter.
A new report from human rights group Avaaz found a dozen false claims on Facebook including voter fraud and intimidation spread through 204 posts in English and Spanish which generated 643,000 interactions. Sixty-percent of the posts slipped through undetected and reached voters without fact-check labels, the report found.
Among the unfounded claims: that Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock – who is running against incumbent Republican senator Kelly Loeffler – supports Fidel Castro, and that the NAACP issued a warning that white supremacists and other fringe groups planned to target Black men.
Avaaz campaign director Fadi Quran warned that the growing onslaught of falsehoods before early voting begins Dec. 14 could further erode public trust in the election process and suppress voter turnout.
"Georgia voters are just weeks away from deciding the direction of the U.S. Senate – and the direction of the country – and their News Feeds are being overrun with misinformation," Quran said in a statement.
Another report out Friday and provided exclusively to USA TODAY found that Twitter is averaging 1.5 million posts a day on the Georgia race, with conversations dominated by claims that the runoffs will be fraudulent and other election-related falsehoods.
Four of the top five posts on Twitter in the last week, including three from President Donald Trump, made unsubstantiated claims about the election, according to the report from Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest research group which studies disinformation.
Five of the top 10 hashtags used in conversations about Georgia in the last week insinuated voter fraud. Among those hashtags is #fightback which was promoted by attorney Lin Wood who urged a crowd of Trump loyalists this week during a "Stop the Steal" gathering in Alpharetta, Georgia, not to vote on Jan. 5 for either of the two incumbent Republican senators, Loeffler or David Perdue, who is running against Democrat Jon Ossoff.
Seven of the top 10 most shared links in Twitter posts about Georgia in the last week sent users to websites promoting election fraud claims, Advance Democracy found.
Playing a role in the spread of falsehoods are followers of QAnon, said Daniel Jones, president of Advance Democracy.
"Conspiracy theories about the runoff elections in Georgia are pervasive on Twitter, and are driven almost exclusively by President Trump and lawyers who support him," Jones said. "Claims of widespread election fraud by the President, his most prominent supporters, as well as a community of QAnon followers, are clearly having an impact – and sowing massive distrust in the democratic process."
Tech companies pledge to curb misinformation
During a Senate hearing last month, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey pledged to take rigorous action against misinformation during the two Georgia senate runoffs.
"We share Avaaz’s goal of limiting misinformation," Facebook spokesman Andy Stone told USA TODAY in a statement. "We remain the only company to partner with more than 80 fact-checking organizations, using AI to scale their fact-checks to millions of duplicate posts, and we are working to improve our ability to action on similar posts. There is no playbook for a program like ours and we're constantly working to improve it."
Twitter says between Oct. 27 and Nov. 11, 300,000 tweets were labeled as disputed or misleading, 0.2% of all election-related tweets. Twitter limited the spread of 456 tweets which also bore a warning label.
Approximately 74% of the people who viewed those tweets saw them after Twitter applied a label or warning message, the company said.
"Twitter continues to take enforcement action on tweets that contain misleading and disputed information whether on Election Day or in the lead up to the Georgia runoff elections," the company said in a statement.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger pushed back Monday at new conspiracy theories spread by Trump's allies.
"There are those who are exploiting the emotions of many Trump supporters with fantastic claims, half-truths, misinformation, and frankly, they're misleading the president as well, apparently," Raffensperger said at a news conference.
Trump, who has blasted Raffensberger and Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp over the recounting process, is refusing to concede the election despite signing off on Biden's transition, leveling unfounded claims of voter fraud to argue the election was stolen from him.
"We've been waiting for senior Republican officials to show some leadership and call the president’s statements what they are: dangerous and wrong," Jones said. "We need all of our elected officials to stand-up and stand against the rampant spread of disinformation that threatens our democracy."
C'mon, folks... Please try to Comment pertinent to the seed.
... and, yes! That means you have to read it...
I did,and unfrcknfortunately have to agree with it. Spineless crustaceans, have 'backed' the lies and sent US on a "Degradation Trip" , without Jerry Cantrell to guide US All