Thread by @ashtonpittman

The right wing has a very deliberate strategy behind its endless cries of victimhood, suppression & liberal bias: to bully powerful institutions into granting it special privileges & establishing double standards for their benefit.

In sports, it's called "working the refs." 1/

https://twitter.com/craigsilverman/status/1363504533733838848

One of the most successful targets of this long-time campaign to "work the refs" was James Comey.

@Comey began the Clinton email investigation for fear the FBI would look political if he didn't.

He publicly criticized Clinton even as he exonerated her due to the same fear. 2/

Comey didn't go public about the investigation into evidence that the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia for fear of right-wing accusations of bias if he did.

Comey went public about finding "new" Clinton emails 10 days before the election for the same fear. 3/

Clinton was far ahead in the polls after the Access Hollywood story and after she demolished him in the debates.

Comey's letter created a flurry of negative speculative stories about her in the last 10 days and her polls cratered; she lost by 77k votes in 3 states. 4/

When Pres. Obama reached out to Mitch McConnell in fall 2016, hoping to make a joint cross-partisan statement about intelligence on Russian efforts to help Trump, McConnell not only refused, but threatened to scream partisanship if Obama made the efforts public. So he didn't. 5/

James @Comey's total submission to fears of accusations of anti-conservative bias helped ensure years of right-wing dominance of the WH, Congress ans the federal courts.

And the right continued full-steam w/the same playbook against social media & weak execs like Zuckerberg. 6/

Throughout the Trump presidency, the right wing ran amuck on social media, making Facebook particularly unbearable & flooding it with fake news that enraged white voters with made-up controversies. FB also allowed extremist groups to fester & plot violence.

FB did nothing. 7/

Despite FB's inaction, right-wing media figures & right-wing politicians continued a concerted effort to accuse the platform of a conspiracy to "silence" conservatives, keeping FB locked in a fearful stasis as hate festered & extremist conspiracies grew on its platform. 8/

@Facebook ensured extreme right-wing voices had more protections on its platform than everyone else, allowing far-right extremist lies to spread across its platform unchecked (systemic white supremacy in action).

This helped set the stage for the Jan. 6 insurrection. 9/

It's no coincidence that many of the insurrectionists organized Jan. 6 on Facebook and that some even used it to communicate with each other while storming the Capitol.

Despite and due to accusing FB of liberal bias, FB had largely become a safe space for the extreme right. 10/

The right used claims of liberal bias & oppression to establish & maintain for itself special privileges on social media—privileges that white Americans had always been accustomed to.

The fever only broke at FB after hundreds stormed the U.S. Capitol & people literally died. 11/

What if the insurrectionists had succeeded & Trump stayed in office?

Would FB & Twitter have snapped out of their fears of being accused of silencing & oppressing the right in that case?

Their cowardice helped make the attack—& Trump's presidency—possible from the start! 12/

But it's not just social media.

The national mainstream media establishment has spent decades reacting to right-wing victim-mongering and adjusted its coverage in response, treating manufactured b.s. faux-scandals as serious stories to avoid accusation of bias. 14/

Even as the MSM obsessed over Her Emails in the last days of 2016, they barely peeped about sworn federal affidavits in NY by a woman who said Jeff Epstein & Trump raped her at a party at 13 & another woman who swore she recruited the girl for Epstein & witnessed the rapes. 15/

These were sworn affidavits in federal court by 2 women, incl. one who was willing to incriminate herself as having recruited underage girls for Epstein and his wealthy friends to rape.

The MSM treated that as speculation, while breathlessly covering mystery "new" emails. 16/

Part of the motive was mainstream media feared being accused of bias & speculation if they said too much about affidavits alleging Trump raped a 13-year-old at Epstein's party.

But they'd been reporting baseless speculation on @HillaryClinton for 25 years & kept doing it. 17/

Days before the 2016 election, the woman who alleged in federal court that Trump had raped her when she was 13 cancelled a planned press conference and withdrew her lawsuit, citing threats against her life & safety. 18/ google.com/amp/s/www.deep…

The alleged threats against Trump's accuser's life that cowed her into silence went largely unnoticed in the mainstream media, which was breathlessly speculating on "new" Clinton emails.

Now, imagine a different scenario...
19/ google.com/amp/s/www.deep…

Imagine if in 2016 a woman had filed a lawsuit claiming Bill Clinton had raped her at a party when she was 13 and even had a witness swear in federal court to having recruited her and seen it happen.

Then, imagine she pulled out, citing threats against her life. 19/

Does anyone really think that, though the accusations would've been against Hillary's husband and not her, these federal affidavits wouldn't have been a huge story?

That the media wouldn't have been demanding HRC answer for the alleged threats against her husband's accuser? 20/

This is how the right has manipulated "the refs" thru claims of culture oppression to establish a separate set of rules for itself as others get held to higher standards.

The fact that this often coincides with preserving privileged status for white men isn't coincidental. 21/

Trump even tried this strategy against GOP election officials (eg: Raffensperger in GA), accusing them of bias against Trump to try to bully them into a pro-Trump result.

But unlike malleable institutional policies & practices, the vote totals are the vote totals. 22/

We could also talk about the moderate & liberal officials at public universities who are extra sensitive to grievances by some wealthy right wing donors who say the schools are too liberal or not sufficiently oriented toward their views. But I digress. 23/
mississippifreepress.org/4876/the-fabri…