Remember when Ali Alexander, Roger Stone. & Jacob Engels OPPOSED recounts in 2018? These bad faith actors always accuse their opponents of fraud, regardless of facts, bc it is propaganda. It dates back to 2000. h/t @LeaLovesUSA #narrativewarfare 1/ miaminewtimes.com/news/trump-fan…
2/ Seriously. I know many of us already know they have screamed “stop the steal” since 2000 but it is nonetheless infuriating to see it spelled out so clearly in 2018.
3/ Jack Posobiec was involved too.
4/ So was Laura Loomer.
5/ The “Stop the Steal” playback dates back to the 2000 astroturf Brooks Brothers Riot, which helped stop the recount in an election that Bush supposedly won by just 537 votes. It is propaganda, as Brad Blakeman readily acknowledges. Excerpt from something I’m writing:
6/ Karl Rove used the same “stop the steal” playbook back in 1994 in Alabama. He, Stone, & Manafort are all alumni of the same Republican shark tank: College Republicans. link.medium.com/uoMsnAtf0jb
7/ From my Medium article in post 6. They just recycle “stop the steal” over and over. Again, this is re: 1994.
8/ 2016 too. I strongly suspect that Trump’s false claims of a rigged election are, in part, what caused Ds to underplay security concerns re: the 2016 election & concede without even a recount. We are still living w/ the repercussions of that bad (imo) decision.
10/ Trump’s baseless claims about a rigged election in 2020 and propaganda #fraudits are almost certainly the reason why Democrats decided to NOT reintroduce legislation that would require rigorous manual audits for all federal races starting in 2022.
11/ I wrote this about Ron DeSantis’s and Rick Scott’s poll defying & otherwise questionable Florida wins in 2018. It is Democrats who shld have worried about potential fraud, not the GOP. link.medium.com/Tc6nNFph0jb
Terrific post by @LuluFriesdat of @Smart_elections —which seeks a hand recount of the presidential election in Rockland County, NY—in which they correct those who have wrongly suggested that Smart Elections’ legitimate concerns & findings thus far amount to “proof” that the election was rigged for Trump.
THIS is what credible election integrity messaging looks like: “Are we concerned about all the software updates they released? You bet we are. Can we say conclusively that there was some kind of malware in those updates that changed vote totals? No we cannot. That’s why we’re in court. To get that kind of information.”
👏👏👏👏 1/ open.substack.com/pub/smartelect…
Those of you who have followed me for years know that I spent about four years of my life focusing on election security. (See my article below.) 2/ buckscountybeacon.com/2023/10/trump-…
3/ After the Big Lie, I felt that the movement had been so discredited—by people improperly conflating vulnerabilities with “proof” of fraud & then using that non-existent “proof” to justify violence—that I could no longer effectively advance this ball.
“As of three weeks ago, 172 of these individuals [pardoned by Trump] had pled guilty to assaulting law enforcement. By their own admission, they assaulted police. About 140 officers were injured, including Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the following day. Four officers who responded that day have since died by suicide.” 1/25/25 (Link in post 2.)
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Trump has picked Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel. As of 9 days ago, Ingrassia’s Instagram included a pinned photo of himself w/ self-professed “misogynist” Andrew Tate who has since been charged w/ rape & trafficking in the UK & who performed the Nazi salute on video (in apparent defense of Elon Musk). 1/
MAGA’s favorite White South African activist group—Afriforum—admitted last year that “there is no white genocide going on in South Africa.”
(In 2018, Afriforum had traveled to the US to discuss their claim that White South African farmers were being murdered due to their race. They have since hobnobbed with Tucker Carlson, Jack Posobiec, New Founding, CPAC, & NatCon.) 1/
The Center for Renewing America—founded by Trump’s OMB Director pick Russ Vought, a top architect of Project 2025—has *explicitly* said that it wants the federal govt to “eliminate” Obamacare’s life-saving Medicaid expansion. Here are some stats on the expansion. 1/ cbpp.org/research/healt…