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Showing posts with label US 2020 Election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US 2020 Election. Show all posts
The Hill ✒ Even as the Electoral College affirmed Joe Biden’s victory, President Trump and his allies continue to push unfounded claims that the election was stolen.

Oumou Ly
19-December-2020  

While their disinformation campaign didn’t overturn the results, it has sown distrust among voters. A recent poll found that only one in five Trump supporters believe the election is settled and Biden is the legitimate winner.

When elected officials use disinformation as a political weapon, our society’s information intermediaries – primarily news media outlets and social media platforms – are one of the first lines of defense. Here’s what my colleagues and I who study disinformation at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society have learned about how they can respond effectively.

Disinformation as political strategy

Our research at the Berkman Klein Center finds that disinformation is increasingly being used by political leaders as a calculated strategy to shape public narratives and manipulate voters. A recent study by my colleagues, led by Yochai Benkler, found that the myth of mail-in voting fraud was disseminated from the top down, starting with President Trump and GOP leaders and trickling through established media outlets. 

Continue reading @ The Hill.

When Disinformation Becomes A Political Strategy, Who Holds The Line?

Right Wing Watch ✒ Eric Metaxas Will Emcee National Right-Wing Prayer Rally to Overturn Presidential Election

Peter Montgomery

Right-wing author and pundit Eric Metaxas announced on his radio show Tuesday that he will emcee “Let the Church ROAR,” the Dec. 12 prayer rally on the National Mall that is bringing together religious-right leaders, “Stop the Steal” activists, and right-wing public officials.

Metaxas is an author who postures as a public intellectual; he has gone fully down the right-wing conspiracy theory rabbit hole this year. Metaxas made news in August when he punched a protester after attending an RNC event at the White House. Metaxas has taken part in some of the many prayer calls held by religious-right activists since the election to ask God to intervene to give President Donald Trump a second term.

Rob Weaver, a Pentecostal organizer of the so-called Jericho Marches that have been taking place at state capitols, was a guest on Metaxas’ show along with his organizing partner Arina Grossu, who is Catholic.  

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

Prayer Rally For Diaper Don

Right Wing Watch ✒ George Pearsons Says People in Heaven and Even ‘The Ballot Itself’ Are Crying Out About Voter Fraud.

Kyle Mantyla
 
Right-wing pastor George Pearsons dedicated his Sunday sermon to railing against the supposedly rampant voter fraud that has prevented President Donald Trump from winning reelection, claiming that people in Heaven and even the ballots themselves are crying out against the alleged fraud.

Pearsons, the son-in-law of televangelist Kenneth Copeland and senior pastor at Copeland’s Eagle Mountain International Church in Texas, has claimed that God is “not happy” with what happened during the election and he has therefore been using his church services and television programs to endlessly rail against the results.

During his sermon, Pearsons took a passage from the book of James that says ‘the wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty” and rewrote it to make it about the election.

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

The Opinion Of People In Heaven

Information Clearing House ✒ Standing on line Friday in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Aviv Gimel to pick up the weekend edition of Israel Hayom, affluent residents discussed the likely defeat ...

Gideon Levy

It’s a dark day for Israel: Donald Trump has lost the election.

No other country in the world, with the possible exception of the Philippines or Nebraska, was as saddened by his fall. A poll by Israel’s Mitvim think tank found that 70 percent of Israelis support Trump. A survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center had similar findings. Whereas 75 percent of West Europeans are fed up with the U.S. president, in Israel a large majority – including centrists and some leftists – admires him.

It can be argued, of course, that this support is a way of saying thanks for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights and withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear deal. But these events caused little excitement in Israel. No one jumped into a fountain in a city square to celebrate the recognition of Majdal Shams as an Israeli town, and only a few people were moved by Ambassador David Friedman’s change of address.

Continue reading @ Information Clearing House.

Look At Trump And You'll See The Israelis

Washington Post ✒ As partisans and analysts puzzle over the higher-than-expected turnout for President Trump (nearly 6 million fewer votes than for President-elect Joe Biden, but still high), they are poring over groups and subgroups: White, non-college-educated men. Suburban women. Young Black men.
 

But much of the Trump 2020 phenomenon can be explained by a far simpler way of looking at the electorate: There are White evangelical Christians — and there is everybody else.

White evangelicals are only 15 percent of the population, but their share of the electorate was 28 percent, according to Edison Research exit polling, and 23 percent, according to the Associated Press version. Though exit polls are imprecise, it seems clear that White evangelicals maintained the roughly 26 percent proportion of the electorate they’ve occupied since 2008, even though their proportion of the population has steadily shrunk from 21 percent in 2008.

This means White evangelicals turned out in mind-boggling numbers. Because they maintained their roughly 80 percent support for Republicans (76 percent and 81 percent in the two exit polls) of recent years, it also means some 40 percent of Trump voters came from a group that is only 15 percent of America.

Continue reading @ Washington Post.

Trump’s Racist Appeals Powered A White Evangelical Tsunami

‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden may be shuffling his way into the Oval Office come January, but as contentious political commentator Dr John Coulter contends, the real winner in America’s elections was the ideology of Trumpism. 

In late January 2021, while US President-elect ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden will again perform his Democratic Dander as he is handed the keys of the Oval Office, folks would be very wrong to believe his inauguration marks the death knell for The Donald’s legacy.
  
More than 70 million Americans voted for Trump. By late January, he personally may be ‘political toast’, but the ideological legacy of Trumpism could already be earmarking the Biden Presidency - like a Democratic predecessor Jimmy Carter - as a political one-term wonder.

The one element about ideological legacies is that their impacts can be felt long after their creators have left the political scene. Karl Marx is long since dead, but Marxism is still thriving in various parts of the globe.

It’s been 75 years since Hitler topped himself in the Berlin bunker, yet the racism of National Socialism and Neo-Nazism is still alive and kicking.

In Ireland, Arthur Griffith founded Sinn Fein in 1905. His movement caused one of the biggest upsets almost a year ago in the Dail General Election.

Fine Gael is still thriving years after the passing of its influential ideological founder Eoin O’Duffy of Blueshirt notoriety. The same could also be said of Eamon de Valera and Fianna Fail.

‘Sleepy Joe’ may have notched up more popular votes than any previous Democratic Presidential candidate in the history of American democracy, but that will not guarantee him an easy four-year term in the White House, or even re-election in 2024.

While ‘Sleepy Joe’ can rightly boast of his Irish roots, and maybe even his determination to ensure Brexit does not damage the Southern Irish economy, he is no JFK or Obama. Why? Because neither of those Presidents had to contend with the radicalisation of the American Republican Party under Trumpism.

‘Sleepy Joe’s Democrats may still retain control of the House of Representatives, but the real power in US politics lies with the Senate - not the White House itself. And the Senate is still under Republican control, and the Republican Party is still under the ideological control of Trumpism - no matter how many of its senators may ‘publicly’ seek to distance themselves from The Donald personally.

Radical Right-wing Trumpism grips the modern-day Republican Party in a way only the Right-wing lobby group, the Tea Party, could only dream off.

Trumpism has become the most powerful and influential lobby in American politics, making the National Rifle Association’s sway look like a blunt pea-shooter.

Trumpism pulls the strings of the American Republican Party in the same way that the Right-wing Monday Club pressure group pulled strings inside Maggie Thatcher’s Tory Party.

At this point in time, there is much talk among the Democratic Party faithful as to how ‘Sleepy Joe’ will undo the policies of The Donald’s past four years in the White House.

Indeed, given the scale of the internal American crisis which will shortly land on ‘Sleepy Joe’s lap, the terms ‘foreign policy’, ‘combating the British Brexit’ and ‘assisting the Southern Irish economy’ will be dumped at the bottom of his ‘to do’ list - in fact, they may not even be on the list at all if Trumpism-inspired Republicans have their way.

Trumpism in practice during a Biden Presidency could have two very serious consequences. Given the radical nature of the Republican Party under Trumpism, ‘Sleepy Joe’ will be so tied down politically in the United States, he will have little time or finances to prevent Southern Ireland taking a massive hit economically under Brexit, especially if the UK leaves the EU in a ‘no deal’ scenario.

And secondly in true Democratic Party style, what is the best way to divert public attention away from an internal crisis? Simple, start a war with someone!

Even if ‘Sleepy Joe’ manages to get the pandemic stemmed and under control, that’s only one policy achieved. What if Trumpism blocks his reforms on health, education, job creation? What if he cannot heal America from the inside?

That leaves ‘Sleepy Joe’ with only one diversionary tactic - pick a fight, and instigate another Gulf War, Afghanistan, or Vietnam. Yes, like all those conflicts, it will cost American lives, but if it diverts attention away from ‘Sleepy Joe’s inability to get internal legislation through the Senate, so what the heck if it costs the lives of a couple of thousand grunts!

Maybe the only way to bolster up ‘Sleepy Joe’s Presidency is to encourage the National Rifle Association (NRA) to look well on his ‘foreign policy’ of battering some wee insignificant nation over ‘human rights abuses’, but not enough to spark a Cuban missile-style brinkmanship which JFK had to deal with.

In short, ‘Sleepy Joe’ must ask himself the serious question: forget the well-meaning spin about healing America, what is the real Achilles heel in Trumpism? The answer is guns!

Americans love their guns and ‘gun control’ is one of the huge debates within the United States. The NRA is at the heart of Trumpism in terms of political clout.

The NRA is naturally suspicious of a Biden Presidency because of the Hard Left leaning of ‘Sleepy Joe’. For us non-Yanks looking at American political terminology, we think when we hear ‘Sleepy Joe’ being described as a ‘progressive liberal’ that his Democratic Party Presidency will resemble an American version of Northern Ireland’s middle of the road Alliance Party.

But in reality, ‘progressive liberalism’ in America is Hard Left socialism. In short, is ‘Sleepy Joe’ America’s version of Jeremy Corbyn? If this is the case, he will have an uphill task in trying to get the NRA to break ranks with Republican Party Trumpism.

And what ‘Sleepy Joe’ also has to contend with is his age. By the time re-election comes around in 2024, he’ll be pushing 81. Are there young bloods within the Democratic Party who are now jockeying for position to pip Biden for the Presidential nomination that year.

Given the volatile nature of American politics, could we be preparing ourselves for another Trumpism upset in 2024? Is there a young Republican Trumpite planning to do what The Donald did to Clinton in 2016 - or indeed, would The Donald himself plan a comeback? Seventy million Americans might think so. 

 Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter

 Listen to Dr John Coulter’s religious show, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning   around 9.30 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM, or listen online   at www.thisissunshine.com

Trump 0, Trumpism 1 ➖ The Real Victor In America

UnHerd ✒ It's not just Trump: the Democrats also have form when it comes to questioning an election's legitimacy.

Paul Collier 

“I Won This Election, By A Lot!”, tweeted President Trump on Saturday. Then, on Sunday: “This was a stolen election.”

Many were shocked to hear him speak in such terms. But in Africa, this sort of language is commonplace, and disputed elections are routine. I remember one presidential ballot in Togo, during which the incumbent stopped the count and declared himself the winner. I quipped that his was “le vote d’or”, and an African friend just reminded me of this, seeing sharp parallels with Trump’s behaviour.

As a society polarises, so questions of legitimacy surround elections. In the past few months alone there have been allegations of voting irregularities, fraud and cheating in Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania and Guinea — the losers crying foul, and calling for civil disobedience, supporters being beaten to death. This isn’t just a question of bad losers; this is about the destruction of democracy. Indeed, in many places in Africa, such as Tanzania, it seems close to death.

Many Americans, not least Trump himself, will doubtless find this comparison demeaning.  

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

How To Destroy Democracy

Information Clearing House ✒ Oligarchs and social media giants are now claiming a monopoly on “the truth”, that should worry everyone

Kit Knightly

November 09, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - The media have called the election for Biden, but the counting goes on and there is a legal case in the offing. But whoever emerges from this deluge of sludge, fraud and propaganda to become president of the United States, there has undoubtedly already been one big loser – freedom of speech.

Late on Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning, Donald Trump – the elected President of the United States – emerged from the White House to make a speech.

He accused the Democratic party, the political establishment, the media and tech giants/social media companies of working together to steal the election and put Biden in the Whitehouse.

You likely didn’t see all of it, because most of the mainstream news channels simply refused to broadcast it. Watch this clip: 

 
Earlier that night, MSNBC had cut away from Trump’s first speech claiming victory, with anchor Brian Williams claiming it was “not rooted in reality” and “dangerous”.

Continue reading @ Information Clearing House.

Censoring Donald Trump Is More “Dangerous To Democracy” Than Anything He Could Ever Say

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