As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.
The New York Times had several interrelated articles over the weekend on the use/ abuse of Twitter by the Twit- in- Chief, Donald "The Dumb Don" Trump. Although we already sense much of what the Times is reporting, there's some exhaustive analysis of Trump's Twitter habits, including what kinds of things the moron is absorbing into his Very Good Brain:
...Mr. Trump, whose own tweets have warned of deep-state plots against him, accused the House speaker of treason and labeled Republican critics “human scum,” has helped spread a culture of suspicion and distrust of facts into the political mainstream.
The president is also awash in an often toxic torrent that sluices into his Twitter account — roughly 1,000 tweets per minute, many intended for his eyes. Tweets that tag his handle, @realDonaldTrump, can be found with hashtags like #HitlerDidNothingWrong, #IslamIsSatanism and #WhiteGenocide. While filters can block offensive material, the president clearly sees some of it, because he dips into the frothing currents and serves up noxious bits to the rest of the world.
By retweeting suspect accounts, seemingly without regard for their identity or motives, he has lent credibility to white nationalists, anti-Muslim bigots and obscure QAnon adherents like VB Nationalist, an anonymous account that has promoted a hoax about top Democrats worshiping the Devil and engaging in child sex trafficking. [snip]
Authentic or not, the most fervent MAGA and QAnon accounts — at least 23,000 of his followers have QAnon references in their profiles — form a dependable Greek chorus that exploits the tricks of the medium to amplify the president’s message. Mr. Trump benefits from the activism of his online supporters and the platform’s algorithms, which tend to reward the most partisan content within digital communities.
It's easy to game a narcissistic moron, it turns out. The other related articles are here and here.But the constant exposure to the worst elements of social media poses risks. Clint Watts, a former F.B.I. agent and a cybersecurity expert who studies propaganda campaigns on social media, said the time Mr. Trump spent on Twitter “gives you an amazing opportunity to game the president.”
Will Bunch has a good read about what's going on with the riots in Chile over it's world- highest level of income inequality (the U.S. is second), and how the decades- long influence of the right- wing economists of the "Chicago school" has brought their economy to this point. He then ties it in to current U.S. politics:
And what about Chile’s rival for income inequality, the United States? While there have been significant protest movements over income inequality (Occupy Wall Street) and its symptoms (the March for Our Lives, climate strikes, the Women’s March), the last few years have shown that Americans remain a people who pin a lot of our hopes, for better or worse, on the ballot box, not on the street. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren rises in the Democratic polls and her ideological cousin Sen. Bernie Sanders enjoys something of a bounce back, the chances are growing in the United States for a political revolution that could undo Chicago Boys-style governance here at home, without damaging any subway stations in the process.
And yet this nonviolent revolution still has America’s billionaire class in a total panic.
In recent weeks, Wall Street and other big-money political funders have run to their favorite journalists -- who’ve responded with headlines like Politico’s “Corporate America freaks out over Elizabeth Warren” -- and floated delusional, desperation theories that some benevolent billionaire like former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg or some other plutocrat could still enter the 2020 race at 11:58 and somehow save their pampered skins.
“Ninety-seven percent of the people I know in my world are really, really fearful of her,” billionaire Michael Novogratz told Bloomberg (heh) News recently of Warren, but the wealthy acknowledge that every time they attack Warren, Sanders, or their proposals such as a wealth tax to fund social programs like universal prekindergarten, eliminating college debt or universal health care, it only makes the chances for their victory stronger.
That’s because you don’t need to fly a helicopter over the streets of Santiago to see that there’s a lot more of us than there are of them. The Milton Friedmans and the James Buchanans of this world were able to get away for decades with their ridiculous theories that freedom for billionaires would eventually trickle down dollars on regular folks -- until the day we woke up and discovered we didn’t even have enough change for the subway. The fires may have started in the shadow of the Andes, but you can already smell the smoke up on Wall Street.
Eric Boehlert explores why Facebook's Mark
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on a GOP charm offensive, and it seems to be working for the social media behemoth as it makes its allegiance to the Republican Party more open. In the days preceding his latest testimony before Congress, Zuckerberg had been "hosting a series of dinners with conservative journalists, right-wing celebrities, and at least one Republican lawmaker, Sen. Lindsey Graham, who grilled Zuckerberg about Facebook’s market dominance when he testified in a Senate hearing last year," Politico reported. Among those who attended the conservative-only dinners at Zuckerberg’s home were Fox News' Tucker Carlson, the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro, radio host Hugh Hewitt, Guy Benson of Townhall, and Byron York of the Washington Examiner. All of them function as public apologists for Donald Trump, who has spent years bullying Facebook for supposedly trying to "censor" conservative voices.
Facebook's reward for that outreach effort came last week when "Republican members of the committee were generally more supportive of Mr. Zuckerberg," when he appeared before Congress, The New York Times reported.
Indeed, Facebook's political transformation from a quasi-progressive outpost that revolutionized information sharing into a bullied GOP lapdog now seems complete, as the company gives Republicans a green light to use the social media platform to lie their way through Trump's re-election campaign next year and create a sea of online disinformation. "Facebook is actively helping Trump spread lies and misinformation," Elizabeth Warren warned this month. "Facebook already helped elect Donald Trump once. They might do it again—and profit off of it."
There's no question about the profit part. "Trump’s reelection campaign is far outspending other candidates on Facebook ads and boosted posts—to the tune of more than $20.7 million between May 2018 and October 2019, more than all the Democratic presidential candidates combined," Slate reports.Zuckerberg is an image- conscious phony, so it's possible the blowback he's getting, including from his own employees, plus Twitter's decision not to have political ads on its platform, will cause him to change course. Recode's Kara Swisher is one who thinks so. The pressure needs to stay on, though.
Our neighbors in Virginia have an important off- year election tomorrow that will determine the composition of the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate. We need three seats in the House and two in the Senate to take control. Here's some of what that would mean:
Democratic takeovers in both legislative chambers would have far-reaching implications for the state’s policies and politics. The party, which also controls the governor’s office, would have the chance to pursue a host of liberal priorities like an increase in the state’s minimum wage, laws protecting LGBTQ rights and abortion rights and tougher gun safety regulations.
Vote!It would also mark the culmination of Virginia’s yearslong transformation from a conservative state ― which once was the seat of the Confederacy ― to a progressive one that is not only reliably Democratic in presidential elections, but whose state politics are heavily influenced by a cohort of liberal Democrats that would have been unrecognizable even a decade ago.
As usual, we are recommending you take time to check out Infidel 753's link round- up (where we found that piece on Facebook/Zuckerberg). His blog is worth bookmarking, if you haven't already done so!
