Fucking Hell...
"At least 70 pro-Trump conspiracists are election officials in key battleground counties — and they are poised to make a giant mess on Election Day"
Fucking Hell...
"At least 70 pro-Trump conspiracists are election officials in key battleground counties — and they are poised to make a giant mess on Election Day"
‘Mind your own damn business!’ is the perfect response to all the right’s blather about trans people and abortion and having cats but not children and everything else.
Like many of you, I have grown sick of discussing noted Afrikaner fascist supervillain Elon Musk, and given his various battles with the U.K government and EU regulatory bodies over his presumed "right" to incite fascist violence on the social media platform he purchased entirely for that purpose, I don't think Musk's quest to normalize fascist ideology and put his thumb on the scale to elect fascist politicians in the Pig Empire is the widely underreported story it used to be.
With that having been noted however, I'd like to briefly push back on the idea that "everybody knows" what Musk's game is by now, and that his efforts largely consist of preaching to the choir; an idea firmly rooted in the false assumption that anyone who isn't a fascist has long since exited Twitter (or X, if you insist.) Even setting aside the fact that this position is pretty ridiculous given that Pig Empire governments, politicians, news outlets, and celebrities all continue to maintain an active presence on "Daily Stormer the Social Media SiteTM," the empirical data simply doesn't back that position up. If we are to presume Musk is somehow only speaking to fascists, then the data suggests we as a society have a *much* bigger fascism problem than anyone is prepared to admit:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/08/election-disinformation-elon-musk-x-trump-harris/
Election Disinformation From Elon Musk Is Drawing Billions of Views on X
"The report from CCDH, a nonprofit organization focused on protecting civil liberties and holding social media companies accountable, found that 50 false or misleading posts shared by Musk on X between January 1 and July 31 of this year racked up a staggering 1.2 billion views. The group categorized the posts under three main themes: false claims that Democrats are “importing voters” through illegal immigration (the bulk of the content that researchers examined); false claims that voting is vulnerable to fraud; and a manipulated video, also known as a deepfake, of Vice President Kamala Harris.
According to the report, while independent fact-checkers found the content in all of those 50 posts shared by Musk to be false or misleading, none of the posts in question contained a “community note,” X’s user-generated fact-checking system that the company promise’s can contextualize “potentially misleading posts.” Just this week, Musk claimed in a post on X that community notes offer “a clear and immediate way to refute anything false in the replies,” adding, “the same is not true for legacy media who lie relentlessly, but there is no way to counter their propaganda.”
Imran Ahmed, CEO of the CCDH, said in a statement accompanying the report that Musk “is abusing his privileged position as owner of a small, but politically influential, social media platform to sow disinformation that generates discord and distrust.”
Yes, you read that correctly, at the time the CCDH report was published, fifty posts by Musk that are essentially election disinformation or fascist propaganda have received 1.2 billion (with a b) views; no doubt aided by Musk's manipulation of the Twitter algorithm to make his own posts the most popular content displayed on the platform. Furthermore, I think it's important to understand that this report looked at just fifty posts by only Musk himself; it says literally nothing about all of the other influencers, politicians, and nazi propagandists working to spread fascist ideology on the platform whatsoever. Finally, while I'm certain that there are a great number of chuds viewing Elon's posts, the reality is that pretending it's only chuds doing so simply cannot be supported by the raw data; whether X users like it or not, they're seeing Musk's fascist content by design.
Look, fascists have been producing fascist propaganda for a very long time, and they do so for a reason - because if enough people consume that propaganda, it works to spread and normalize fascist ideology, creating permission structures for fascist political activity. You are not immune to propaganda, and neither are the millions and millions of unsuspecting people consuming nazi ideology on Twitter/X.
This in turn means that Elon Musk and his social media platform are a legitimate fascist threat to Pig Empire society, and the vast portions of our establishment who remain on the platform, drawing unsuspecting readers to a place where they will be exposed to the fascist content Musk's site is disseminating, are part of the goddamn problem. Given the fact that Musk now appears to be actively suppressing content that disagrees with his reactionary, revanchist worldview, it is simply no longer acceptable for establishment figures in the Pig Empire to claim they must keep producing content for Musk (which is what posting on Twitter ultimately does) because "that's where the people are." Plunging the world into a nazi hellscape for views and likes, is simply not an acceptable tradeoff for anyone, anymore.
Latest comic: Weirdo Welfare
#2024election #uspol #vance #democracy #fascism #billionaires #extremism
The fact that Republicans only have to win an election while Dems have to first win and then successfully fend off the right’s relentless efforts to overturn their victory, under the constant threat of violence, is just an intolerable asymmetry. #fascism #Election2024 #maga #trump
Elon’s your dimwitted right-wing uncle who falls for any nonsense that crosses his FB page, but with billions of dollars and his own private social media company.
It’s amazing and sad that he’s convinced so many people that he’s some visionary genius.
https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-share-fake-news-uk-rioters-detainment-camp/
This is the way...
"Planned far-right rallies did not materialise over the weekend, amid a large turnout of anti-racist protesters...
"Reform UK['s] offices were targeted by [5k] anti-racism protesters in a peaceful march... and in Belfast 15k people turned up to one of the city’s biggest ever anti-racism gatherings."
This article / author typify my distrust / digust of NYT
Opinion - David French: To Save Conservatism From Itself I Am Voting for Harris
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/11/opinion/harris-trump-conservatives-abortion.html
https://persagen.com/docs/sources.html#newyorktimes
Never trust the NYT:
* conservatism
* presumptive rigid binary gender assignment
* transphobia
* ...
* NYT author David French served as senior counsel to SPLC-designated anti-LGBT hate group Alliance Defending Freedom
https://mastodon.social/@persagen/112040385795781852
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_Defending_Freedom
UAW Says It Knows How to Defeat Trump & Billionaire Class
"This is brilliant" said author Naomi Klein in response to new United Auto Workers ad
https://www.commondreams.org/news/uaw-working-class-solidarity
There is only one answer to the threat we face as a nation. The answer is solidarity.
Fight For a Better Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ubJFPJgL3Y
#UAW #TradeUnions #LaborUnions #unions #NaomiKlein #solidarity #Trump #GOP #HeritageFoundation #Project2025 #billionaires #fascism
“There’s two options that we're looking at and one is staying in, forming that new party, but we run the risk of a #HarrisWalz presidency because we draw more votes from Trump.
"Or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald #Trump”
-Billionaire tech-broette and #RFKJr running mate Nicole Shanahan
I absolutely loathe all these rich narcissistic crackpots.
Know what that is in that photo?
It's a dumpster full of books —mostly LGBT stuff but others too— heading to the landfill.
Know what *that* is?
It's goddamned fascism.
This is what hate looks like.
This is what hate does.
#USpol #USnews #DeSantis #Republicans #GOP #ChristianNationalism #Fascism #BookBurning #LGBTQIA
https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/education/2024/08/15/new-college-of-florida-throws-away-hundreds-of-library-books-diversity-lgbtq/74814756007/
#NewCollege of #Florida tosses hundreds of #library #books, empties #gender #diversity library
h/t to @alexwild and @futurebird
“O'Rourke admitted receiving around £1,400 a month in payments for his [Xitter] account.”
#elonmusk #fascism #disinformation #UKriots
https://www.lincsonline.co.uk/lincoln/keyboard-warrior-jailed-for-three-years-for-stirring-up-ra-9379396/
#PeteButtigieg, #OprahWinfrey & #TimWalz destroy #DonaldTrump & #ShadyVance (#JDVance) during #DNC’s third night.
#LGBTQ+ #speakers graced the stage, with one of them telling the #SupremeCourt, "You can pry this #weddingband from my #cold, #dead, #gay hand!"
#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Politics #DemocraticParty #Allies #Conservatives #Extremism #Fascism #Religion #RepublicanParty #Hate #Bigotry #Violence #ThePartyOfHate #EmptyThePews #Megathread
At this point I'm not sure who needs to hear this, but GOP Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance is a fascist and it's important to say that. Merely calling him Peter Thiel's puppet, or a techbro authoritarian doesn't go far enough; Vance is an out and open fascist, and there's no "crypto" about it. From my perspective, this reality is obvious when you listen to the things Vance says and the policy positions he endorses; now that the Pig Empire media has gotten interested enough to dig into his short political career however, the evidence of Vance's support for overt fascism is piling up high enough that it's literally undeniable. For a good example of what I'm talking about here, let's turn to a piece in today's edition of The Guardian talking about that time oh so long ago (you know, literally December 2023) when Vance defended noted white nationalist shitlord Douglass Mackey (aka Ricky Vaughn on Twitter) and then praised a book full of right wing extremist essays published by the minions at noted (fascist) think tank the Claremont Institute.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/22/jd-vance-speech-extremist-far-right-book
Revealed: JD Vance promoted far-right views in speech about extremists’ book
"In his speech, Vance first offered “congratulations on such a great book, and thanks for getting such a good crew together”, and then warmed to themes similar to Milikh’s.
“Republicans, conservatives, we’re still terrified of wielding power, of actually doing the job that the people sent us here to do,” Vance said, later adding: “Isn’t it just common sense that when we’re given power, we should actually do something with it?”
Brad Onishi, author of Preparing for War, a critical account of Christian nationalism and the host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast, said: “Vance, many Claremont people, including some folks in this volume, and especially the ‘post-liberal’ conservative Catholics that he hangs out with, have advocated for a form of big government that will wield its power in order to set the country right.”
He added: “And you may think, well, OK, that doesn’t sound so bad. But here the common good is rooting out queer people, making sure non-Christians don’t immigrate to the country and outlawing things like pornography that are currently a matter of personal choice.”
Despite the Guardian's inexplicable squeamishness about calling all of this what it is, fascism, I strongly encourage you to read the entire article because the more of it you read, the more obvious it becomes that Vance supports overt, bald-ass fascism. However, for purposes of summarization we can divide its contents into two major issues.
First, JD Vance expressed support for and told lies to protect a white nationalist influencer who used to post on Twitter; the aforementioned Douglas Mackey, aka "Ricky Vaughn." For those of you unfamiliar with his work, in addition to being an admitted white nationalist, Mackey was also convicted (in 2023) of "conspiracy against rights" for trying to rig the 2016 election for Trump using online disinformation.
"Prosecutors said that on 1 November 2016, Mackey as Vaughn produced an image depicting a Black woman standing in front of a sign that said “African Americans for Hillary Clinton”, with a caption falsely claiming that voters could “avoid the line” and “vote from home” via text. Another fine-print caption at the bottom of the image read “Paid for by Hillary for President 2016”.
Prosecutors say that at least 4,900 people texted the candidate’s name to the number on the image in following days, as instructed by the disinformation image."
During his speech, given after Mackey was charged but before he was convicted, Vance accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of trying to throw Mackey in prison for "posting a meme" and said the post describe above was somehow "a joke." Obviously, a federal jury did not agree, but Mackey is still appealing the conviction. Vance also suggested, I shit you not, a solution to cases like Mackey's would be stacking the judiciary with fascist loyalists, saying “maybe we should be appointing people at the Department of Justice who actually take a side in the culture war, the side of the people who elected us, and not just pretend we don’t have to take sides at all.”
(Continued)
#Fascism #JDVance #GOP #USPol #DouglasMackey #DOJ #Trump #Election2024
“The altercation came moments after #Trump criticized major media outlets for what he said was unfavorable coverage”
Then, as the cops hailed him out Trump said, “is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?”
https://apnews.com/article/trump-rally-arrest-taser-media-68fe78b79ae65556c4efc850e142998c
#fascism #Election2024
A lot of people who are up in arms over Brazil banning Xitter aren’t acknowledging the fact that the country cast off a military dictatorship in 1985 and Elon’s openly allied with the neofascist who tried to restore it, with help from Elon Social, just two years ago. Pretty unique situation.
That judge may well have a beef with Musk because of his intransigence but the stakes are much higher than that.
Jesus fucking Christ, NYT, was the Holocaust also an affordable housing plan?
These people have lost their damn minds.
#media #Election2024 #HarrisWalz2024 #fascism #immigration #trump
This wild story of the #QAnon cop is getting wilder still
[thread] Trump, MAGA
Trump’s Wildly Unhinged Ramblings Reveal True MAGA
Speaks directly to MAGA’s increasingly radicalized obsessions
* flatly declaring his right to interfere in last presidential election
* mused God chose him to fix sick country
* seethed about enemy within
* Trump feeding MAGA audience’s pathologies getting darker/uglier
#Trump2 #MAGA #Trumpism #GOP #HeritageFoundation #Project2025 #fascism #disinformation #FOXnews #authoritarianism #extremism #ElonMusk #billionaires
Ken Paxton’s vote suppression goon squad raided an 87-year-old Latina who “said that the officers told her they came because she had filled out a report saying that older residents were not getting mail ballots. “Yes, I did,” she told them. For 35 years, Ms. Martinez has been a member of LULAC, the civil rights group, helping Latino residents stay engaged in politics.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/25/us/texas-latinos-democrats-raids-paxton.html
#fascism #whitesupremacy #Election2024 #texas #paxton #votersuppression
The moral panic around trans people is harming everyone.
#transphobia #fascism
https://19thnews.org/2024/08/the-toll-of-americas-anti-trans-war-series/
These fuckers are relentless.
“Mass confusion can be a potent voter suppressant, especially when people are scared they could be criminally charged for trying to register, as changes around felony disenfranchisement in states like Virginia and Kentucky have recently demonstrated.”
https://boltsmag.org/nebraska-voting-rights-restoration/
#fascism #Election2024 #votersuppression #gop
Political scientists had long found that candidates who used explicit racial demagoguery paid a price for it at the polls. Hence the need for coded dog-whistles.
But after Obama's election, they found that that penalty had disappeared.
And here we are.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/yes-donald-trump-is-making-white-people-more-hateful/
#trump #jdvance #fascism #propaganda
#Election2024 #immigration
#StochasticTerror
Is there a gaping loophole in the law barring federal contractors “from making contributions or expenditures to any political party, committee, or candidate for federal office,” or do we just rely too much on this guy to get stuff into space to enforce it?
#elonmusk #fascism #Election2024 #trump
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-super-pac-spending-competitive-house-races-republicans-2024-9