How much longer do Mitch McConnell and other GOP power brokers want to say and do nothing? How much more damage do they want to watch Trump do to American democracy? Their complicity in this only grows more historically damning by the day
When something like this goes down — and it will if Republicans with power don’t help put a stop to the Trump madness soon — then the blood will be on their hands too 6abc.com/amp/pennsylvan…
“police got a tip about a group, possibly a family, driving up from Virginia in a Hummer to unleash an attack at the Convention Center where votes are being counted in Philadelphia,” reports @6abc
Ted Cruz and Sean Hannity will have blood on their hands. You can draw a straight line from their dangerous rhetoric to this alleged thwarted violent plot
What Cruz, Hannity and others are doing is also known as stochastic terrorism—when public figures use mass communication to incite anger and hatred, knowing it easily leads to predictable violence, even if the exact form of that violence is unpredictable. cc @juliettekayyem
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We’re watching the nation’s electoral system under attack in real time by a US president. No surprise from Trump, who made clear long ago he would do this, but still a stunning moment in history
Trump has done only one thing so far on Twitter since Election Day: push disinformation and conspiracy theories aimed at undermining legitimate voting. (With some throttled by Twitter as violations.) Again, we are watching an unprecedented attack by him on American democracy
"what Trump has already done is what the Russians have always tried to do: cast doubt on American elections and destabilize the United States....He may hug and kiss American flags and pretend to be a great patriot, but this is a betrayal of our country." nytimes.com/2020/11/04/opi…
Trump looks and sounds mostly sour, defensive and angry. His base will of course celebrate it, but he'll persuade no one else. He's losing.
Biden is quietly landing punches, especially on the Covid 19 disaster. His talking directly to the audience is also effective. He sounds mostly prepared, cogent, presidential. Meanwhile Trump just keeps interrupting, making petty insults, badgering him and Wallace...
"I don't want to pay tax." —Donald Trump, on his life before becoming president
A person who behaves dangerously unhinged like this has zero business working in a high-profile *communications* role in the US government. Michael Caputo should resign immediately bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
The details on Caputo’s freakout are quite disturbing. If he doesn’t resign the House Democrats should act — his incitement is dangerous nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/…
Caputo: “And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin. The drills that you’ve seen are nothing.”
Early warnings on Trump inciting white supremacist violence: A brief story in 5 parts
Aug 2017: “A disaster. There are real concerns about where it leads the country.” —A senior U.S. law enforcement official on Trump’s response to Charlottesville motherjones.com/politics/2017/…
1/5
Sept 2017: “I hit ’em with neo-Nazi. I hit them with everything. I got the white supremacists, the neo-Nazi. I got them all in there, let’s see. KKK, we have KKK. I got them all.” —President Trump, ridiculing the media during a political rally motherjones.com/politics/2017/…
2/5
July 2018: “The racist rhetoric has empowered white supremacist groups to be much more public. It’s very dangerous because these people who have a history of violence now feel they have state sanction to commit violence.” —Ex-FBI agent Michael German motherjones.com/crime-justice/…
3/5
Stopped counting long ago how often Trump has feigned ignorance or claimed to be just "joking." If you haven't figured out yet that Trump is a racist who is glad to endorse "white power" in an ugly bid to cling to his own, you haven't been paying attention washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
"Trump’s enduring campaign tactics—from calls for black protesters to be “roughed up” to circulation of racist, anti-Muslim, and anti-Semitic language and memes—is proof for them that white nationalism has not only arrived, but has found a champion in a nominee for US president."
Trump boasting about Tulsa a few days ago: “I think we’re also going to take the convention hall next door, and that’s going to hold forty thousand, so we’ll have twenty-two thousand plus forty thousand”