MARCH: 4% of American adults didn’t trust 2020 election results and were prepared to join a protest that might turn violent. That’s 10 Million Americans. @ProfessorPape @TheAtlantic @bartongellman
🧵/1
JUNE: 8% of American adults agreed “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president” & “use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.”
More extreme; 2x support.
21 million American “committed insurrectionists”
/2
This needs to be repeated, daily:
Trump et al have convinced millions of Americans (including 68% of all Republicans in a Nov 2021 PRRI poll) of #TheBigLie : that Biden stole the election from Trump.
/3
“‘January 6 wasn’t designed as a mass-casualty attack, but rather as a recruitment action’ aimed at mobilizing the general population.”
@Kathleen_Belew, historian, @UChicago
/4
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
“Trump has built the first American mass political movement in the past century that is ready to fight by any means necessary, including bloodshed, for its cause.”
@bartongellman essay is must reading. I’ve highlighted what resonated or scared the 💩 outta me.
/5
What’s the playbook? (No surprise, not original)
Who’s his target?
Trump rhetoric mirrors Slobodan Milošević, Yugoslavia, 1989.
~ @ProfessorPape, @CPOST_UChicago
Two days after #January6th:
“I…told [my research team] we were going to reorient everything we were doing.”
/6
“Milošević, @ProfessorPape said, inspired bloodshed by appealing to fears that Serbs were losing their dominant place to upstart minorities.”
Replacement propaganda.
You heard it in Charlottesville. Trump stoked those fears on #January6th.
/7
wsj.com/livecoverage/t…
The #January6th demographics were atypical:
Median age, 41.8 (older)
Jobless: 7% (low)
“The last time America saw middle-class whites involved in violence was the expansion of the second KKK in the 1920s,” Pape said. (Same fear of “the other”, White men lighting tinder)
/8
What’s the driver?
Fear of losing majority privilege.
“Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the [W]hite share of the population was in decline.”
Replacement propaganda drove the insurgency.
/9
Of the 21 Million committed insurrectionists, about two-thirds agreed that “African American people or Hispanic people in our country will eventually have more rights than whites.”
Not EQUAL rights.
MORE.
/10
Believe Replacement Propaganda?
Then you’re about ~4x as likely as those who do not believe to support Biden’s violent removal from the White House.
About 15% who believe had served in military, considerably more than the 7% of the adult population who has.
/11
I agree:
“The charlatans and cranks who filed lawsuits and led public spectacles on Trump’s behalf were sideshows. They distracted from the main event: a systematic effort to nullify the election results and then reverse them.” @bartongellman
/12
Not enough attention paid to states, although GA is shaping up as 2022 bellwether.
Brad Raffensperger “who refused to ‘find’ extra votes for Trump? Formally censured by his state party, primaried, and stripped of his power as chief election officer.”
Then there’s the leg:
/13
In MI, currently in the spotlight due not to pollution but Trumpster parents in jail along with their son.
Aaron Van Langevelde certified Biden’s victory and has bern “[h]ounded off the Board of State Canvassers.”
/14
In AZ, Gov. Doug Ducey signed the state “certificate of ascertainment” for Biden. Trump has endorsed Kari Lake, former Fox 10 news anchor for governor.
The legislature passed a law prohibiting Katie Hobbs, the D secretary of state, to participate in election lawsuits.
/15
In PA, New Jersey resident, media star and Trumpster Mehmet Oz is running for US Senate, claiming he’s moved from his self-designed NJ mansion overlooking Manhattan to his in-law’s outskirts-of-Philly home. *cough*
/16
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has urged Republicans who control the Wisconsin Legislature “to take over the running of federal elections in the state and direct local officials to ignore election guidance issued by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.”
/17
cnn.com/2021/11/19/pol…
Finally, Nevada.
/18
esquire.com/news-politics/…
Returning to @TheAtlantic :
“In at least 15 more states, Republicans have advanced new laws to shift authority over elections from governors and career officials in the executive branch to the legislature.”
/19
I did NOT know this.
If it does not make your hair stand on end, go talk to someone who has worked for county elections board.
Or talk to me (nine years, two presidentials).
/20
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