@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin Keep in mind that various forms of affinity fraud are RIFE in MAGA World, and I'm not just talking the affinity frauds from TFG, I'm talking "his Christian Nationalist base has a *very long history* of being taken in over and over again by affinity fraud"
A thread:
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin So, probably THE earliest form of affinity fraud is in the *religious* base of Christian Nationalism, and specifically New Apostolic Reformation Christian Nationalism (which is widely regarded as a coercive religious movement)
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin There is an extremely good argument to be made that the NAR (all the way back to Branhamism) was BORN of religious grifts (Branham was forced to retire due to being caught out as a fraud, his mentor--who also co-founded the 2nd KKK--ALSO had history of religious fraud)
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin Andthe NAR from its beginnings (Branhamism era, and Manifest Sons of God and Latter Day Rain branding) always had some form of "Prosperity Gospel" at its roots (basically they're all sons and daughters of God and thus Deserve all the worldly riches as little kings)
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin And that led to basically the classical Prosperity Gospel grift in which the Almighty Himself was promoted as a Ponzi scheme, and that ANYTHING donated to the church (inc. all beyond the 10% volun-told tithing in "love offerings") would be multiplied 10x fold
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin People literally have spent themselves into bankruptcy over this, people have spent themselves into food insecurity over this, I myself grew up in functional poverty because my parental units were giving fully 40% of pretax income to the church playing the God Lottery.
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin And, unsurprisingly, this has led to a LOT of OTHER associated frauds, because the average Christian Nationalist congregation is FULL of proven marks AND marks that will trust ANYONE who says the right Jesusy Shibboleths at any specific time.
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin One of the earliest forms of this, and one which really had its co-genesis with a *very* similar form of church management in NAR circles, is in MLMs; AmWay and Cho-lineage NAR Christian Nationalist churches have cross-recruited since their respective origins in the 50s
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin And to this day, pretty much the two communities MLM huns target the hardest are LDS women and Quiverfull women in NAR Christian Nationalist and IFB Christian Nationalist groups, for almost identical reasons (easy marks & almost only acceptable employment for women)
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin Another longterm grift--in part because of the inherently racist origins of Branhamism, and the LONG association with Birchers and its sister-mother movement in Christian Identity--is promotion of various "sovereign citizen" nonsenses popular longterm in these circles
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin And these basically claim that almost every amendment after the 12th isn't legally valid because Reasons (why yes, this is a backdoor recruitment into neo-Confederacy more often than not), and that it's all plots by TEH J00ish BANKURZ to rob them of their INHERITANCE
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin And more often than not, this ends up in some claim that White Land-Owning Men are More Citizens Than Other Citizens (who are merely Subjects), and they can be Lords of their Domain Again if they just follow the specific Legal Ritual to RECLAIM THEIR RIGHTFUL RICHES
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin (Note: This does not, and has never, worked. Generally sovcit nutters filing false liens and refusing to use license plates because they think the Articles of Confederation are still in effect just manage to *at best* annoy police and judges dealing with their Nonsense.)
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin And of course this is often promoted to people who are getting calls from collectors every day over not paying their bills because they've been giving ludicrous amounts of Love Offerings (which they cannot afford) to the church, and getting MAYBE used Israeli pennies back
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin (OH YES THIS WAS A GRIFT TOO. NAR Christian Nationalist churches doing "Bible tours" of Israel during the 80s when Israel had an S&L collapse and associated hyperinflation of their currency, buying up out-of-circulation 1-agora coins and proffering them as "widow's mites")
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin (And of course the Israeli government was functionally selling the old coins for the money they could get from the aluminum used to mint the things, and the Widow's Mite grift did interestingly dry up once Israel's economy stabilized and they dropped the 1-agora coin.)
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin THIS IS STILL NOT THE END OF THE AFFINITY FRAUD IN CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST COMMUNITIES.
There's the *classical* Ponzi scheme (outside of, you know, the Prosperity Gospel sort) called the "Christian Gifting Scheme"...which is basically the classic "Make Money Fast" crap
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin And that stuff is INCREDIBLY rife in Christian Nationalist "small groups", right alongside MLM Hun Work At Home Moms for Jesus and seminars on how You Too Can Get Out Of Taxes By Use Of Commas And Pointing Out Fringed Flags In Your Courtroom When Inevitably Sued.
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin And there is a LOT of goldbuggerie, and (much, much more recently) at least some promotion of Dunning-Krugerrands Based On Arbitrarily Complex Math (though there's still much more goldbug stuff, including more than a few outright gold investment Ponzis where no gold exists)
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin AND IT GETS WORSE.
The Iraqi Dinar grift was a Thing that was actively promoted in far-right circles, including Christian Nationalist circles, in that (wildly hyperinflated) Iraqi dinars would be worth MILLIONS
(This, needless to say, Did Not Happen. At all)
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin There's been a LOT of *Israel* focused investment grifting, too, in Christian Nationalist communities--everything from oil prospecting in Israel and even claims on the Gaza Strip (note: Israel is possibly the WORST place in the Middle East re oil exploration prospects)...
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin to investments of a decidedly more esoteric (and potentially extremely inflammatory) nature, like breeding programs for "red heifers" to be sacrificed to dedicate the Third Temple (nevermind the Dome of the Rock exists there now, they'll deal with THAT after Gaza)
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@Thomas93469886 @Jemsinger @andrewrsorkin to any number of investment opportunities specifically geared at a) promoting things connected to Christian Nationalist endtime theology re Israel and b) separating Christian Nationalists from the contents of their wallets.)
Polls don't vote. People do. Today and tomorrow is where we seal the deal and bring it home and that only happens when we vote in NUMBERS.
It looks good so far, but it's always better to get MOAR and make it OVERWHELMING--important in light of GOP lawfare threats
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So the things important for y'all voting on Election Day:
a) Many states require businesses to give you off time to vote
b) Need a way to get to polls? Most public transit agencies give free transportation, and Uber/Lyft give discounted rides, also Urban League can help
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@Politics_Polls @MorningConsult And here, I'm going to remind folks of my First Law of Political Polling:
Never, ever, *ever* trust any political polling group that refuses to publish its crosstabs freely and not locked up behind a paywall (including a paid subscription wall).
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@Politics_Polls @MorningConsult Yes, there's a VERY SPECIFIC reason I say Never Trust Anyone Who Won't Share Their Crosstabs Publicly And For Free.
Almost without *exception*, any group refusing to publish a breakout of basic things like "size of pool", "composition of pool", and so on is Hiding Something
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@Politics_Polls People talk a lot now about "herding" in polls. Probably THE most common way "herding" occurs is through issues of weighting members of a poll, and I'm going to lay out the many ways that just *weighting* the people in a pool can seriously fuck with a result
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So digging through the state-level Marist polls, and we are seeing more evidence (already indicated by both the CES national poll with 78k respondents AND previous Marist polls) of a "Dobbs Effect" that is reaching strongly even into white evangelical Christian pops
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So Marist is one of two polls that tend to be less hot garbage than most, and tend to go into some deeper details like sub-surveying of self-identified white evangelical Christians. And this is a MAJOR barometer for a Dobbs Effect, as I'll explain below
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Something like 15% of Americans self-identify as "white evangelicals" in larger religious surveys by PIRR and Pew Forum, and these populations (in deeper studies of Christian Nationalism and New Apostolic Reformation/Seven Mountains theology) are extremely R-trending
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Even IF Biden had outright called MAGAts "garbage" he'd not have been wrong and he would have arguably been CHARITABLE to *merely* call them "garbage" after that "Daily Scheisser Live" three-sheets-short-of-a-cross-burning Hate Rally at MSG
Like, literally, let's JUST go over what was pushed THIS WEEKEND AT AFOREMENTIONED HATE RALLY, and I will remind EVERYONE here that *all of this was explicitly approved to the point it showed up on teleprompters and in rehearsals* so they damn well KNEW what was up
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a) Has a shock "comedian"--who was so infamously racist he got banned from Joe Rogan's club, and who was originally going to include a routine referring to the VPOTUS as a <C-BOMB>--does the infamous "PR is a floating island of garbage" routine
And this is where I talk about a particular effect of WHY polling has gone to hell (and about all that you can get that's useful is things from crosstabs)
I have dubbed this the Straw Market Problem, and it's an issue even beyond political polls
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@garymauney @matthewjdowd More properly, I should refer to this as the Nassau Straw Market Problem, because it relates to a particularly infamous straw market (which does not exist anymore in its older form) and is an example of how aggressive capitalism and marketing can shit up *everything*
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@garymauney @matthewjdowd Up until 2 yrs ago, the Port of Nassau had its cruise ship terminal (1000s of ppl/day) empty its exit/entry into an outdoor vendor hall/outdoor mall you HAD to pass through to exit the port to get into downtown Nassau (the Straw Market in question)
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And just so people know I don't just look at GOP-friendly polls with a hairy eye, I look at ALL polls with a hairy eye: Big Village CARAVAN, which *is* looking good for Harris but STILL has methodology issues that can skew it rightward
So looking at their polling they appear to gather from "opt-in online panels", which is a real fancy term for "Used paid-survey portals".
Which that introduces a risk of pool-poisoning, as we've seen from sites that use YouGov in particular
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They also use some rather odd weighting for their grouping--in addition to ACS (which weights for population), it weights based on *vote in 2020*, which actually RISKS missing a lot of voters--much of GenZ and Gen Alpha only became registered voters in 2022 or this year
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