The AfD has completely polarized a German town where disputes used to be easily resolved over a beer. They take over German villages as a strategy, first just establishing a base in a pub or something, then spreading their message, then polarizing the town by: ending trust, lying about anyone who speaks out, and suing and criminally reporting people who are against them. They also threaten opponents, especially AfD apostates. When dealing with external and internal opponents, the party focuses on threats and insults over discussion of the issues.
A woman gained popularity in the online right-wing space by pushing back hard against Metoo. She then hung out with Andrew Tate and got raped and assaulted.
We’ve got to be able to recognize the excesses of certain movements without championing actual bad guys, or downplaying how bad they actually are.
Tucker Carlson had Andrew Tate on and acted like criticism of him was all about wokeness and people being anti-man and censoring, and Tucker even said that it’s not like he was accused of rape or selling anyone or pimping, when he had been! Tucker didn’t even do basic research on his guest and said false things about him.
Tucker had a soft interview acting like Tate’s message was just about traditional masculinity, when Tate advocated women being simple-minded lesser humans who should be used, and advocated manipulating them into online sexwork where the man keeps most of the money. Tucker didn’t do basic research into what his guest was advocating and mislead his audience about Tate’s message.
Democrats have a difficult media arena because Republicans have a synergistic bullshit ecosystem that globs onto the same messages and is naturally integrated from biased news to biased think tanks to biased pundits and influencers. It even ropes in people whose content isn’t focused on politics, but they fall for the bullshit, and then become bullshit spreaders themselves, like Joe Rogan.
People say don’t clickbait, but they only click the clickbait, so they are voting with their clicks.
Ben Shapiro says that Trump is obviously corrupt, but supports him anyways. He admits that Conservatives are willfully blind and hypocritical on the issue because if Biden did this they would be screaming bloody murder. He defends Trump by stating false things about what Trump has done and by stating false things about the Democrats. Shapiro has been critical of Trump compared to other Trump voters, but he’s still amazingly blind about the truth of what Trump has done and what Democrats have done.
Shapiro acknowledges that Trump was immoral and undemocratic in claiming Biden stole the election and for Trump’s role in the Capitol riot, but because the guard rails held, he’s willing to give Trump another chance. Jessiah makes the analogy that if Shapiro’s kids were in a car with a drunk driver, and that driver crashed but no one was hurt because guard rails stopped the car from going over the side, Shapiro would give the keys of a new car to that driver and allow his kids to ride with him. Of course, Shapiro wouldn’t do that, but he’s willing to do it with US democracy.
The guy who attacked Ilham Omar had a sad life of divorces, estrangement from family members, 10 DUIs, and limited money. He supported Trump and followed right wing podcasts. He posted racist stuff online. It’s possible that he blamed his crappy life on the left and blacks, and that motivated his attack.
“In a recent op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Ohio gubernatorial hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy announced his plans to log off of X, citing its “warped projection of reality.” And Ramaswamy isn’t alone in heading for the digital exits. During a recent appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, the conservative commentator and former Breitbart editor Raheem Kassam bleakly proclaimed that he was deleting the app from his phone.
“X is a post-apocalyptic cesspool of bots, pedophilia and political illiteracy,” Kassam wrote in a text message when asked about his decision. “I deleted it from my phone because it was making me dumber.”
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A new feature rolled out earlier this year displaying the country where an account is based inadvertently revealed that many of the most active pro-Trump and MAGA accounts are based abroad.”
There was real fraud in Minnesota with a lot of it by Somalis, but Shirley’s “investigation” falsely accused day care centers of being fake without proper evidence, resulting in vandalism and threats to apparently innocent people.
He went to these places with a group of men, some of them wearing masks. His group didn’t look like a parent looking to sign up a child, but a group of thugs.
Lots of people got duped by this incompetent investigation, including Elon Musk and JD Vance who shared the video to their huge audiences. And, the administration began withholding all childcare funding to Minnesota.
“The Minnesota Star Tribune also visited all 10 facilities, and found children inside four of them when invited inside. Six other facilities were either closed or employees did not open their doors.
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Osman said the doors are always locked for safety, and the staff was on high alert following the president’s threats to deport Somali people and escalation of federal immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities.
He said Shirley’s unannounced drop-in was “not intended to be a sincere approach.””
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Director Ahmed Hasan said they’ve had similar visits from other “content creators,” but the others didn’t have enough followers to create the kind of chaos that Shirley did.
Hasan said Shirley, a man identified as “David” and a third man came to the front door while five more men waited in a van and car, some of them wearing masks.
Hasan said there were children inside, but they weren’t about to let strangers inside, given the recent immigration crackdown. They thought the masked men in the vehicles might be ICE agents.
Hasan said Shirley left soon after Hasan arrived, entering through a back door.
On Dec. 30, Hasan invited the Star Tribune and other media outlets into the facility, where about 30 children of varying ages were visible.
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A woman from a neighboring home health care agency showed the Star Tribune video footage of children coming and going on Dec. 16.
Kevin Brown, who lives two blocks away and owns a business next door to ABC Learning Center, said he often sees kids at the center.
He saw Shirley’s video and came over to the daycare Dec. 30 when he saw TV cameras there.
“I don’t like the idea of people coming from out of town, coming into our neighborhood and making assumptions without talking to people and getting the facts,” he said. “That’s the definition of fake news.”
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Part-owner Umi Hassan said she lived here right after 9/11 and didn’t feel as marginalized and fearful as she does today. She’s unable to sleep at night and carries her passport everywhere.
Tears running down her face, she asked, “What else can I do to be an American?””