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Greg Sargent Profile picture
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Jun 8 • 6 tweets • 8 min read
The Fox News blackout of the 1/6 hearings shows that Republicans benefit from a huge propaganda apparatus that hermetically seals off the GOP electorate from damaging truths. Meanwhile, right wing disinfo pollutes bothsides MSM coverage, helping GOP more:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
"If there is one last human being in DC who clung to the idea that Fox is a center-right journalistic institution with opinion at night, this should be the end of that."

I talked to @danpfeiffer about Fox's 1/6 propaganda and how it will influence MSM:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
@danpfeiffer "Roger Ailes was a political ad maker. He had this insight that if Fox was a pseudo news organization, it would have greater influence on what other news organizations covered."

@danpfeiffer on how we got to this point. Right wing ref-gaming is central:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
@danpfeiffer An interesting exchange: The younger generation of Dems like @ChrisMurphyCT, @brianschatz and @MalloryMcMorrow all grasp the value of making noise, of having big, viral moments.

The current Dem leadership came of age in a different media universe:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
@danpfeiffer @ChrisMurphyCT @brianschatz @MalloryMcMorrow Finally, I asked @danpfeiffer what his answers are to both the Dems' information problem and the intra-party "wokeness" debate:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
@danpfeiffer @ChrisMurphyCT @brianschatz @MalloryMcMorrow Numerous news organizations are describing the coming Fox/GOP disinformation push as "counter-programming" the 1/6 hearings.

Stop doing this. It puts rank propaganda on a plane of equivalence with legitimate congressional fact finding:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…

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More from @ThePlumLineGS

Greg Sargent Profile picture
Jun 9
No, Trump didn't "believe" 2020 was stolen. He wasn't "crazy" or a "sore loser." He wasn't just "enjoying the attack on TV." Above all, the 1/6 hearings must cut through the fog of media euphemism. Trump staged an insurrection, and the GOP was complicit:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
Brad Raffensperger could be a powerful witness for the 1/6 hearings. He could blow through the absurd media euphemism that Trump was merely exercising what he thought were his "legal options."

“John Dean for the streaming era," Norm Eisen tells me:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/… ImageImage
Trump didn't let the violence rage because he was "angry" or "taking pleasure in watching supporters fight for him."

He essentially weaponized the mob to complete the coup against the United States. Cassidy Hutchinson may be able to testify to this:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/… ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Jun 7
It's a big deal that the Proud Boys got indicted for seditious conspiracy. This unmasks a broader right wing movement toward embracing political violence.

"Regeneration through violence," one expert says, is "fundamental to the right wing imagination."

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
Fascinating stuff from scholar @JoeLowndes on the Proud Boys and other far right groups.

To them, political violence is "cleansing." Procedural democracy is suspect, and violent "regeneration" produces a more authentic "people."

(@lionel_trolling bait)

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
@JoeLowndes @lionel_trolling Tarrio admits the 2020 election wasn't stolen. Yet he hails 1/6 anyway, because it struck terror into the hearts of lawmakers, which was the explicit purpose of the violence from the Proud Boys and others.

How to reconcile these views? Here's how:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
Read 4 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
Jun 2
Doug Mastriano just endorsed the idea that gun regulations in response to child massacres are akin to Nazi tyranny. There's a direct link between this claim, his vow to subvert future elections, and his Christian nationalism. I tried to unravel it all:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
Once you unshackle yourself to the point of claiming that the workings of democracy in the form of modest gun regulations are fascist tyranny, it's easy to justify stealing elections.

If you believe you're an instrument of God's will, it's even easier:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
Doug Mastriano has endorsed the idea that the popular vote is not binding on certification of presidential electors.

It is a short leap from claiming democratic decisions regulating guns are tyranny to assuming the power to subvert a future popular vote:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
Read 4 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
May 31
"Authoritarian forces in this country view the AR-15 as a central organizing symbol."

I had a harrowing interview with former gun company exec @ryandbusse about the gun industry's radicalization and the cultural shifts creating our heavily armed society:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
@ryandbusse This is an interesting point from former gun executive Ryan Busse:

The Iraq/Afghan wars helped create cultural conditions for the zeal to militarize civil society. The gun industry exploited this shift, and what emerged was fetishization of the AR-15:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/… ImageImage
@ryandbusse In his telling, the AR-15 has come to embody something like a rejection of civil society, a kind of totem of authoritarian dominance.

AR-15 as totem was central to 1/6 and militia protests in Michigan.

These exchanges explore that. Dispiriting stuff:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/… ImageImageImage
Read 5 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
May 27
Awful: Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans are set to defy the 1/6 committee subpoenas, covering up Trump's coup.

Incredibly, the same McCarthy could soon have outsize control over which presidential electors get counted next time.

That's unacceptable:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
A great quote from scholar @Matt_Seligman about what it means if Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other House Rs have outsize control over which electoral votes get counted next time:

“It’s like putting bank robbers in charge of counting money at the bank."

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
@Matt_Seligman Just insane.

A top lawmaker who's actively working to scuttle a full accounting into a violent insurrection has no business playing a potentially decisive role in the process by which the next presidential election is brought to its official conclusion.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
Read 5 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
May 26
This is what I'm talking about. The debate over guns needs to come to the world of sports, as I tried to argue here: wapo.st/3a26oEN
As I argued today, with the help of @EdgeofSports, the gun debate entering the world of sports could help scramble the cultural faultlines on guns. It'll be harder to portray these concerns as effete liberal cultural elitism out of touch with Real America:
@EdgeofSports Another team weighs in:
Read 4 tweets

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