Biden Takes Georgia; Violence on Horizon

[canpakes]

Meanwhile, from that one side that never calls for violence:

Facebook banned a pro-Trump group after posts suggesting "worrying calls for violence" surrounding the highly contentious results of the 2020 election.

"Stop the Steal" had a following of more than 35,000 people and were using their platform on social media to unite protesters behind President Trump's baseless claims of election fraud in certain battleground states where votes were still being counted even four days after Election Day.

Trump has filed lawsuits in states such as Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, alleging illegal ballots cast after Election Day was being counted towards the final tally, and that poll watchers weren't being allowed to oversee the count. His campaign has not produced any evidence to prove this is true but says that they will forge ahead in prosecuting these cases come Monday.

"In line with the exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension, we have removed the Group 'Stop the Steal,' which was creating real-world events," Facebook said in a statement to The Associated Press. "The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group."

Several groups appear to be calling for a civil war, inciting violence against journalists and demanding the redo the election entirely.

Numerous pro-Trump protests have taken place at ballot counting venues in battleground states, where demonstrators, some carrying guns, have hollered mixed messages-- in some cases chanting to "Stop the count" while in others shouting "Count the votes!"

Despite the "Stop the Steal" group being shut down on Facebook, several other groups rallying support behind Trump's lawsuits have cropped up on other social media platforms.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pro-tr ... r-violence

[Jersey Girl]

His campaign has not produced any evidence to prove this is true but says that they will forge ahead in prosecuting these cases come Monday.

His supporters don't require proof. His sheep know his voice. I mean, his gaslighting.

[Moksha]

Even if Facebook and Twitter refused to be conduits of information for violent protests, couldn't Fox News help with organizing such efforts?

[Moksha]

(CNN)An Arkansas police chief who posted calls for violence against Democrats on social media resigned from his job on Saturday.

Lang Holland, who was police chief of the roughly 1,300-person city of Marshall, Arkansas, drew outrage from both local residents and people around the country after making ominous comments online in recent days. In addition to repeatedly saying Democrats should be killed, he shared memes from conspiracy theory QAnon and claimed that the election was being stolen.
"Death to all Marxist Democrats," Holland posted on Parler, a new social media site popular with conservatives and used as an alternative to Twitter. "Take no prisoners leave no survivors!!"
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/08/us/arkan ... index.html

[Res Ipsa]

I just listened to an episode of Hidden Brain that explores the role of "hate radio" in the Rwandan genocide and attempts to use radio to change people's attitudes and behaviors in its aftermath. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/13/89053948 ... e-a-nation Both a little scary and a little hopeful.

[canpakes]

Meanwhile, from that one side that never makes death threats:

The Republican City Commissioner of Philadelphia said his office is receiving death threats for counting votes during a "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday.

"From the inside looking out, it feels all very deranged," Al Schmidt said in an interview with Bill Whitaker in reference to unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the city.

"At the end of the day, we are counting eligible votes cast by voters," Schmidt, whose office oversees vote counting, said. "It's people making accusations that we wouldn't count those votes or people are adding fraudulent votes or just, coming up with, just, all sorts of crazy stuff."

"Or calls to our offices reminding us that 'This is what the Second Amendment is for, people like us.'"

Whitaker says that sounds like a death threat, to which Schmidt replies, "Yes, for counting votes in a democracy."

- Business Insider

[Res Ipsa]

Meanwhile, from that one side that never makes death threats:

The Republican City Commissioner of Philadelphia said his office is receiving death threats for counting votes during a "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday.

"From the inside looking out, it feels all very deranged," Al Schmidt said in an interview with Bill Whitaker in reference to unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the city.

"At the end of the day, we are counting eligible votes cast by voters," Schmidt, whose office oversees vote counting, said. "It's people making accusations that we wouldn't count those votes or people are adding fraudulent votes or just, coming up with, just, all sorts of crazy stuff."

"Or calls to our offices reminding us that 'This is what the Second Amendment is for, people like us.'"

Whitaker says that sounds like a death threat, to which Schmidt replies, "Yes, for counting votes in a democracy."

- Business Insider

I've seen lots of tweets from Trump posters smugly congratulating themselves for not rioting and burning buildings. in my opinion, what they are doing is much worse. They are burning down the institutions that separate us from dictatorships or, even worse, Rwanda in the past. Trump began attacking our democratic elections before he was ever elected to office. And he has lied to the country for over a year, claiming that the only way he could lose is by fraud. And now he and elected officials that we should be able to rely on to support and protect our democratic institutions are just slinging BS at the public and judges, further undermining public trust in our democracy.

I mentioned one example in Nevada. A group of Trump supporting politicians scheduled a news conference to dramatically announced evidence of widespread fraud in Nevada. Only their widespread fraud was one blind woman who said someone had stolen her mail-in ballot, filled it out, and cast her ballot without her knowledge. Except, the signature on her ballot matched her signature on file. And on the day of the election, when they offered to disregard the mail-in ballot and cast a new ballot, she declined. Apparently she didn't want to sign an affidavit under oath swearing that she hadn't filled out and cast the "fraudulent" ballot.

Then there were all the claims that GOP poll watchers were being excluded from the counting process. Except, when they got that in front of a judge, the GOP lawyer sheepishly admitted that there were a "non-zero number" of GOP poll watchers in the room. It was all a lie.

Sub repeated one of these BS claims a couple of days ago. He posted a claim that voting software in Michigan had flipped Trump votes to Biden in one county and that the same software was used in many counties in the state. Except that that claim had been investigated and determined that the "flipped votes" were due to a human error and the software was properly tabulating votes in other counties.

Given how human brains work, the strategy is completely understandable. Our brains want to believe that where there's smoke, there's fire. As a consequence, you can make people believe there is a fire by blowing large quantities of smoke. Second, our brains tend to remember spectacular claims, but not the generally prosaic facts. That's why this stuff works -- strategies our brains have developed over thousands and thousands of years make us extremely vulnerable to intentional campaigns of misinformation.

But the real target is American democracy itself. A burned building can be rebuilt. Looted inventory can be replaced. Trust, once broken, is incredibly difficult to replace.

[subgenius]

Yes, because the evidence has been overwhelming for one political group to mostly talk, protest, and go to court - while the ither political group mostly whines, protests, burns cities, loots community businesses, attacks people, and are mostly cowardly to the same level as the OP.

Time to put your big boy pants on Subgenius, the war against American and our free press is over. It's time to be a real American again. We have a lot of work to do together to actually and honestly Make America Great Again, something Trump had no intention of doing.

At least I have big boy pants, tou giys have been pouting for 48 months. you're in no position to lecture about moving on.

[subgenius]

Yes, because the evidence has been overwhelming for one political group to mostly talk, protest, and go to court - while the ither political group mostly whines, protests, burns cities, loots community businesses, attacks people, and are mostly cowardly to the same level as the OP.

Time to put your big boy pants on Subgenius, the war against American and our free press is over. It's time to be a real American again. We have a lot of work to do together to actually and honestly Make America Great Again, something Trump had no intention of doing.

At least I have big boy pants, tou giys have been pouting for 48 months. you're in no position to lecture about moving on.

[Gunnar]

It still astounds me that subby either can't see or doesn't care how openly corrupt and pathologically dishonest Trump and his enablers are.