A short thread on *ssholes & conspiracies:

We all know amplification of conspiracy theories — usually in the form of a question — by right wing media has become standard fare to harden views.

“Can we be SURE Clinton didn’t kill Seth Rich?” Etc. (Note: she didn’t) /1
“How do we KNOW Chavez didn’t use Dominion to steal the election from beyond the grave?” (Note: because he’s dead FFS)

Posing it as “questions that need to be answered maybe” allows them to evade responsibility for what they are doing. It’s standard fare. /2
Why do I raise this?

So you may remember when Notre Dame burned in April 2019 — a tragic accident. Online conspiracy theories immediately flourished. One claimed the fire was an act of Islamic terror. Many right wing personalities amplified this lie. /3
It was a pathway that sounds familiar: established conspiracist makes something up, posts it, deletes it; in the meantime it has become and infowars story; global Kremlin narrative accounts amplify; this cluster includes Posobiec/OAN, Cernovich etc /4

buzzfeednews.com/article/janely…
Eventually (like, within 24 hours), Tucker Carlson, king clown *sshole of lies that kill people, runs a segment on it. Some nutter makes allegations. Tucker is incredulous (as per usual)

By then it’s canon and will echo around the internet forever /5
Important to remember this is always positioned as “why won’t the liberal lamestream media TELL YOU THE TRUTH about this hideous crime” (against Christianity and white people, usually)

Note: it isn’t in the NYT because it isn’t true. /6
In November, a man who believed the fire conspiracy killed 2 people while trying to blow up a mosque in France in retaliation for the fire. The French far right had also been using the conspiracy to rail against immigrants blah blah same page of music /7

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5d…
People believe this stuff. It exploits a bias, & it can radicalize them, pushing them to more extreme views. As it becomes a meme and continues to rattle around the internet, the echo goes deep into the mind. For some, the lie is proof of great injustice that must be answered /8
The guy who drove 6 hours to shoot up a pizza parlor thinking he was liberating enslaved children heard an echo.

Some people who ended up at the Capitol thinking they were saving freedom heard an echo. /9
Why do I bring up Notre Dame?

Because this is how Ben Shapiro gets to play respectable nextgen conservative, then launder radicalized conspiracy to his audience.

And this is how Don Jr amplifies it to remind people who the Trumps always were.

Stop normalizing these people /x

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More from @MollyMcKew

22 Jan
@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom I think maybe you can both be right — a bit. Perhaps you will both forgive a semi-long explanation.

Anne — very grateful for this contribution, precisely bc it removes the problem from the “nothing can be done” category & points out that plenty of places have done this before /1
@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom Also *we* have done this before. Throughout the civil war, Lincoln was obsessed with things infrastructure and national symbols (Thanksgiving Day, etc), knowing that eventually it would all have to be physically and mentally knit back together.
/2
@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom I also worked in Liberia just after the end of the long civil war, & saw how effectively some of the tools you describe in your thoughtful piece worked. Especially the overall “change the subject” idea. For the first time for a whole generation, they could be something else /3
Read 20 tweets
20 Jan
Biden is not messing around in this speech.

♥️
“A winter of peril and significant possibilities.”
“In each of these moments, enough of us have come together to carry all of us forward”

This. So much this. This is the story of America.
Read 8 tweets
20 Jan
Amy K rocking the coat she announced her presidential run in — love it. Very symbolic.
Jeanne Shaheen’s hat/scarf combo A+ — showing her cold weather chops by waiting outside. (It is cold and windy today, folks)
Oh look D-list wolverine deigns to show his face
Read 4 tweets
19 Jan
How do we change our mindset to better deter grey zone threats at home and abroad?

1) The Kremlin relies on below-threshold conflict to achieve strategic objectives. We must enhance our capabilities in these domains, and also how we monitor and assess threats in grey spaces. /1
2) The way we engage the Kremlin allows Russia to evade consequences, which encourages them to take greater risks and accelerate disruptive activities in their near abroad and further afield. We must own our role in contributing to this state of affairs, and up-end this cycle. /2
3) Ignoring Russian behavior creates a system that also requires us to ignore things about ourselves. We must evaluate the weaknesses that we have failed to confront, renew our strength at the seams, reconceptualize what resilience & defense are in an era of grey threats. /3
Read 7 tweets
17 Jan
Catch up today on the first sections of our serial on @RenewGreatPower evaluating our weakness at the seams and vulnerability to below-threshold and grey zone threats — and how they provide a template to renew American resilience

Introduction: /1

greatpower.us/p/autocracy-as…
Part 1: Trump became president at a critical juncture in a war we needed to fight. And he failed to do what was necessary.

We have failed to deter Russia — failed to confront the mindset that leaves us weak at home and abroad /2

greatpower.us/p/now-we-see-w…
Part 2: Evaluating the Kremlin’s actions in the world make it hard to deny what they aim to achieve.

From the Bronze Night riots to the SolarWinds hack, 15 years of unfettered Kremlin disruption has found a lot of success. /3

greatpower.us/p/from-the-bro…
Read 7 tweets
17 Jan
I am 100% here for the rawness and quiet fury of @RepRaskin

“I am not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021 — it’s not going to happen. The vast majority of the American people — republicans, Democrats, and independents — /2
— reject armed insurrection and violence as a new way of doing business in America... This was the most terrible crime EVER by a president of the United States against our country, and I want everybody to feel the gravity and solemnity of those events... /2
...At the same time, of course, all of us are deeply invested in President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris moving the country forward to repair all of the wreckage and damage of last year — on everything from COVID-19 to the economy... /3
Read 7 tweets

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