That also included @ProjectLincoln who, again, originally planned this thing as an obvious stunt before their supporters bought into the hoax, which is a nearly Shakespearean thing to have happen on the eve of Election Day.
But they weren’t alone. We had a whole outrage cycle for this one.
Here’s @DavidCornDC, who has been repeatedly duped by the most extravagant claims tied to “Russian collusion,” swallowing this one hook, line and sinker.
There was an interesting level of insistence that Youngkin denounce something that people supporting his opponent (if not his opponents own team, more on that later) had done.
If I were a member of Congress who had fallen for not just the Russiagate hoax but was also the victim of a Chinese honeypot, I simply wouldn’t rush to push out unconfirmed and dramatic reports that align with my priors. @ericswalwell.
In retrospect it is enormously rich that @MattNegrin would use this stunt to blame the media for not being tough enough on Republicans *over an obvious hoax*
Even members of @TerryMcAuliffe’s own campaign got involved in pushing this disinformation.
Seems hard to claim that “this is who Glenn Youngkin’s supporters are” when it’s your own team, @christinafreund. And “disqualifying” seems a stretch, @jengoodman75.
The original reporting on this one...wasn’t ideal. Despite this pretty obviously not passing the sniff test, @holmes_reports, tweeted out a picture of the fake proud boys without additional context (or bothering to ask questions), which kicked off the firestorm.
And of course, that led to other people presuming this was real news.
Here’s @themaxburns jumping all over the fake story.
For a lot of very online people, the hammer of “Republicans are evil” is the only tool they’ve got, and so things like racial hoaxes are too tempting a nail to pass up.
And there were plenty more like these from @MattLesser (okay kinda funny), @prof_gabriele and @mcbyrne that helped amplify a fake story.
I mean, this guy, @glennkirschner2, was a prosecutor for thirty years.
If he could fall for this, what else might he have believed without evidence simply because it fit his priors?
I don’t like to include local news outlets - they have a tough and mostly thankless job as it is - but this story from @NBC29 in VA *after* an enormous amount of pushback perfectly captures why these hoaxes keep happening.
But the real cherry on top came later, when @ReutersWorld ran an objectively false story calling the Lincoln Project Republicans, which led at least @SethAbramson & @aaronbergcomedy to conclude that this was a false-false flag.
Just incredible.
Now, you’ll notice that these tweets were never flagged for disinformation or anything of the sort.
Something tells me that if the parties were reversed, some outlets may call this an organized attempt to spread lies days before an election to suppress the vote.
The takeaway here should be clear: as I’ve said many times before, if a story perfectly, hilariously and inexplicably confirms all of your priors, it may well be too good to be true.
It never hurts to wait for more details to come out.
And it should go without saying, but it’s despicable behavior from @ProjectLincoln at a time when racial relations are, by any metric, bad and trending worse.
Using that as a way to score cheap retweets on Twitter is shameful.
This story isn’t over, though. What I want to know is who these tiki torch wielding Dems are and what their affiliation with the VA Dems or McAuliffe campaign are.
As @alec_sears has pointed out, many of them look oddly identical to staffers affiliated with one or the other.
If that’s the case, it wouldn’t just be an obvious embarrassment, but it would mean someone is lying.
Both the VA Democratic Party and the McAuliffe campaign have denied involvement on the record.
My gut tells me that there are more shoes to drop on this story, and more information to get to the bottom of.
But in the meantime, we should remember that actual disinformation is bad no matter who does it. As this event makes clear, that includes folks on the left, too.
These threads have always been yeoman work, something I do because I think it’s important.
But for those who’ve asked, I finally set up my account to receive tips, so if you’d like to throw me some beer money (Venmo or Bitcoin), you can click this icon on my page.
Sorry, didn’t realize that feature was just on mobile. If easier, Venmo is Drew-Holden-1. But, please, don’t feel obligated, and thank you to the folks who have already been incredibly generous.
Look, I know there’s bigger news today, but with Biden’s “black jobs” quip on Friday, I’ve gotta revisit the media meltdown on the term, as stupid as it is.
Do you remember how insulted & offended the press were when Trump said “black jobs”?
I’ve got screenshots. ⤵️
Some quick context: Biden in a speech on Friday, referred to jobs as “black jobs,” as in held by black folks.
If that phrase sounds familiar, it’s because Trump said it at his debate with Biden a couple months ago.
The media went ballistic.
Just look at the indignation here from @axios when Trump used the phrase.
“Reality check.” I mean, cmon!
And so now what, Axios? Is Biden suddenly a monster, too?
I was struck by the number of dubious statements and flat-out lies at the DNC.
It appears the mainstream media isn’t much interested in them, amid their jubilant, joy-full coverage. So I decided to do some fact-checking, focused on Biden’s speech.
There’s a lot. ⤵️
1. The first thing that jumped out to me was Trump’s alleged “very fine people on both sides” description of Charlottesville.
Haven’t we been over this, time and again? The context makes clear Trump didn’t mean the neo-Nazis. Even @snopes admitted it!
Yet Biden trotted it out.
2. Biden claimed he and his admin “demonizes no one.”
What, then, about Biden’s remarks about Trump supporters? That they are “determined to destroy democracy,” practitioners of “semi-fascism,” and “a threat to the very soul of this nation.”
The media haven’t been interested in providing voters with much of a picture of Kamala Harris beyond “vibes.”
So I did the work for them and went back through what she’s actually said and done on policy and beyond.
It isn’t a pretty picture. Follow along ⤵️
There’s nowhere better to start than on immigration. Back in 2020, Harris was among the Dem candidates who supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings.
Now @politico claims she “promised to go tough on border security.”
Color me skeptical.
Especially considering she supported eliminating ICE, tried to stop production on the border wall, and otherwise unwind the Trump policies that actually reduced illegal immigration.
I know it’s difficult to keep track of all of Tim Walz’s “stolen valor,” exaggerations & false claims about his time in the military.
I tried to compile as many as I could, as well as a few egregious cases of the media spinning for him.
Buckle in, there’s a lot. ⤵️
First, the false claims. To avoid a sort of journalistic stolen valor, I want to be clear: others did this work.
I’ll try to source as well as I can, starting with the latest Walz whopper: saying he took part in the Afghanistan surge in a 2010 debate.
From @NoVA_Campaigns:
There’s been a lot of good reporting. Perhaps none better than from @ChuckRossDC of the Free Beacon.
His first is on that Afghanistan claim, citing Walz’s repeated description of himself as a veteran of “Operation Enduring Freedom,” the gov’t name of the fight in Afghanistan.