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      in US Politics

      Steve Bannon banned by Twitter for calling for Fauci beheading

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      Twitter has banned the account of the former Donald Trump adviser and surrogate Steve Bannon after he called for the beheading of Dr Anthony Fauci and the FBI director, Christopher Wray, and the posting of their heads outside the White House as a “warning”.
      Speaking on his podcast, the War Room, which was distributed in video form on a number of social media outlets, the far-right provocateur appeared to endorse violence against Wray and the US’s most senior infectious diseases expert.
      “Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci … no I actually want to go a step farther but the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man,” Bannon said.
      “I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put their heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats, you either get with the programme or you’re gone.”
      Twitter banned Bannon’s War Room account permanently, saying it had suspended the podcast account for violating its policy on the glorification of violence.
      The same video was on Facebook for about 10 hours before it was also removed.
      Later on Friday, William Burck, an attorney for Bannon in a fraud case in New York City, told a federal judge he was withdrawing. Bannon is accused of misappropriating money from a group which raised $2m from thousands of donors to build a wall on the border with Mexico, and has pleaded not guilty. Burck did not give a reason for his withdrawal.
      There has been mounting concern over the risk of violence following this week’s US elections, amid highly inflammatory rhetoric from Trump and his allies, who have falsely said Democrats are trying to “steal the election”.
      Philadelphia police arrested two men allegedly involved in a plot to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Thursday night. Police were tipped off, possibly from a concerned family member of one of the men, who had driven 300 miles from Virginia.
      The moves against Bannon came hours after Facebook banned “Stop the Steal”, a group involved in organising protests this weekend throughout the US against the presidential vote count.
      One post, shared by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, declared: “Neither side is going to concede. Time to clean the guns, time to hit the streets.”
      The increasingly heated language around the election has also included interventions from more mainstream figures, including the former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich, who appeared to call for election workers in Pennsylvania to be arrested.
      [embedded content]
      Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News, Gingrich amplified Trump’s false complaints of election rigging and mused about what he believed was the solution.
      “My hope is that President Trump will lead the millions of Americans who understand exactly what’s going on,” Gingrich said. “The Philadelphia machine is corrupt. The Atlanta machine is corrupt. The machine in Detroit is corrupt. And they are trying to steal the presidency. And we should not allow them to do that.”
      “First of all, under federal law, we should lock up the people who are breaking the law,” he continued. “You stop somebody from being an observer, you just broke federal law. Do you hide and put up papers so nobody can see what you’re doing? You just broke federal law. You bring in ballots that aren’t real? You just broke federal law.” More

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      in US Politics

      Scholars warn of collapse of democracy as Trump v Biden election looms

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      Dozens of experts on fascism warn of global danger, calling for action from ordinary people: ‘It is not too late’Republicans resemble autocratic parties – studyDozens of historians of fascism and authoritarianism have signed a letter warning that democracy “is either withering or in full-scale collapse globally”, and urging ordinary people to take action. Related: Trump has gone a long way toward hindering democracy in other countries Continue reading… More

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      in US Politics

      I know a marriage killed by QAnon and Trump, with help from alienation | Matt Dooley

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      Everyone remembers where they were when Trump won the election. Alex and Mary* remember it especially well. It was the night their relationship fell apart.
      Alex and I first met in 2012. I went to dinner one night with him and his fiancee, Mary. I remember her as a bright, intelligent woman with a passionate interest in animal rights. Fast forward to the evening of 8 November 2016, and a gaudy reality TV star was on the verge of being elected president of the most powerful country on Earth. As Alex and Mary watched state after state fall for Donald Trump, it became clear that the beginning of this new chapter in American history would mark the end of their marriage.
      During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mary had become a dedicated conspiracy theorist, paving the way for her embrace of a bizarre conspiracy theory known as QAnon. “I had a nervous breakdown,” says Alex. “I couldn’t wrap my mind around the whole Trump thing and all the weird stuff Mary was getting into. I just fell apart.” Mary is unambiguous about the reason their marriage ended. “It is 100% my fault. I came in as one person and left as another.”
      Alex and Mary moved from Australia to California in early 2014. Alex had a job offer and they decided to take the plunge. From day one, Alex was pulling long days at the office and Mary passed a lot of her time online, frequenting a huge message board community called 4chan. A naturally inquisitive person, Mary enjoyed reading about fringe opinions with a specific focus on alternative medicine. After a series of bungled health diagnoses, Mary had lost faith in the authorities. She viewed the entire medical system as a web of malevolent conspiracies. 4chan had vibrant communities for discussing these issues and more. At the darker end of the 4chan spectrum there lurked several large groups dedicated to white supremacist hate speech, antisemitism and Holocaust denial.
      Mary’s network of 4chan friends became an increasingly important antidote to the sense of alienation she experienced in her new town. While Alex jeered Trump’s orange skin and ridiculous hair, an avid following was growing across America and the world.
      In Trump, Mary saw someone who was finally going to shake up the establishment and put an end to the hegemony of the political elite. “I was praying and meditating for Trump to win,” she says. “That is where all of my consciousness was”. Alex admits he didn’t take it seriously. “If she brought up Trump, I just tried to shut it down,” he sighs. “ I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to seriously believe in that guy’s bullshit.”
      One day in the autumn of 2016, Alex drove Mary out past the used car yards and fast-food joints to a convention centre near the airport. “I knew she had been doing some chanting or something with the Hare Krishnas and dabbling in Scientology,” says Alex. “It was her thing and I respected that. I just didn’t want to know about it”.
      Mary wasn’t on her way to a Hare Krishna meeting. She was going to a presentation by David Icke, an English conspiracy theorist whose ravings include: the existence of a nefarious reptilian race invading Earth from a parallel universe; various antisemitic nonsense; the obligatory UFO fare; and a cabal of deep state villains.
      Icke has attempted to foretell the end of the world several times (incorrectly, thus far). His predictions imagine absurd cataclysmic showdowns between good and evil. In 2019, the Australian government rejected Icke’s visa application on grounds of character. While an army of multi-dimensional lizard people may seem far-fetched, Public Policy Polling released a study in April 2013, which showed that 4% of Americans believed lizard creatures control the world. That is more than 12 million people.
      Mary describes how she felt after seeing Icke speak: “I came away smiling. I felt like everything was clear, like it all made sense”. In October 2017, an anonymous blog post turned up on the message boards. It was posted by a mysterious member, named “Q”, who claimed to be a high-level US government whistleblower with secrets to share. Again, Mary felt like puzzle pieces were falling into place. “I had been waiting for this. I knew Q was coming,” she says.
      David Singh Grewal, professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law, has published research on the dynamics of conspiracy theory. He explains how the over-simplification of a perceived enemy allows the conspiracy theorist to role-play “the one good cop that takes down the bad guys and makes America great again”. “The conspiracy theory gives the believer a feeling of empowerment,” he says. “They feel as though they have all the answers.”
      Rather than being one specific conspiracy theory, QAnon is better thought of as a constellation of conspiracy theories. At the core of this ever expanding galaxy of conspiratorial solar systems is the idea that a shady cabal of cannibalistic pedophiles are working in the shadows to bring down Trump’s presidency.
      The genius of Q is that it remains non-specific. Just about anyone can find a version of truth that suits their palate. For Mary, it was distrust in the medical system and disgust at child abuse. Others have been motivated by changing racial demographics, feminism, gun rights, Covid, 5G towers – you name it. BYO fears and grievances.
      Three years and five thousand odd messages after the original post, Q content is a rambling mishmash of obtuse clues and inane conjecture. Every post is a regurgitation of publicly available information organised into a dramatic narrative, concocted to keep millions of followers coming back for more. And Mary is all in.
      Alex and Mary’s relationship ended in divorce over their fundamental disagreements. Alex says he doesn’t think he could have changed Mary’s mind, but he is philosophical about the way society mocks conspiracy theorists. “I just couldn’t get past taking the piss out of it,” he says. “But I think that is the problem with QAnon and this whole Trump thing. Everyone on the left spends too much time making jokes.”
      Asked if she thinks the wild web of QAnon conspiracies might be bullshit, Mary pauses for a moment. “Well, I guess it could be. But it’s a great story if it is”.
      * Alex and Mary’s names have been changed for the purpose of this article.
      • Matt Dooley is an Australian writer and journalist More

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      in US Politics

      Gretchen Whitmer accuses Donald Trump of inciting domestic terror

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      The Michigan governor who was the target of a foiled rightwing kidnapping plot said on Friday that Donald Trump’s rhetoric “incites more domestic terror”, after the president posted a series of aggressive tweets overnight that sought to shame the victim of the plot.Thirteen men have been charged over a plan to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, whom Joe Biden considered naming as his running mate for the November election before picking Kamala Harris.The men, some of whom were members of a rightwing, self-styled militia group, discussed blowing up a bridge and bundling Whitmer into a boat. Another plan involved killing Whitmer on her doorstep, according to the authorities.The fallout from the thwarted kidnapping – which was set to take place before the 3 November election – has further pulled back the curtain on the ideological polarization in US society, and descended into a growing political row.On Friday Biden accused Trump of “giving oxygen to the bigotry and hate we see on the march in our country”, as Trump attacked Whitmer hours after the plotters were named.Trump, who has spent months criticizing Whitmer and other Democratic governors over measures to try to control the coronavirus pandemic as it surged across America, on Thursday said Whitmer had “done a terrible job” in Michigan, and complained that she was yet to thank him for the FBI stopping the plot.Speaking on Friday morning, Whitmer said Trump was “creating a very dangerous situation”.“Each time he has tweeted about me, each time that he has said ‘liberate Michigan’ and said I should negotiate with the very people who are arrested because they’re ‘good people’, that incites more domestic terror,” Whitmer told ABC News.“And I am not the only governor going through this. Certainly it’s been worse for me than most, but it is not unique to me, it is not even unique to Democrats. This White House has a duty to call it out and they won’t do it – in fact, they encourage it.”Meanwhile, it was disclosed that Whitmer and her family were at times moved around by authorities as law enforcement tracked the men who allegedly plotted for months to kidnap her, the state’s attorney general said Friday.Dana Nessel disclosed the detail to CBS This Morning. She said the Democratic governor was consistently updated about the investigation over the past couple months.“She was aware of things that were happening,” Nessel said. “At times, she and her family had been moved around as a result of activities that law enforcement was aware of.”Whitmer became a hate figure for rightwingers throughout the spring, when she was among a number of state governors to issue stay-at-home orders in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19.In April, thousands of protesters, many armed, besieged the Michigan state capitol, in Lansing, to demonstrate against Whitmer’s order.From the White House, Trump cheered the mostly white protesters, tweeting: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” as he repeatedly attacked Whitmer.The FBI said on Thursday that the plan to kidnap Whitmer began around the time of those demonstrations, and was months in the making.“Snatch and grab, man,” Adam Fox, one of the conspirators, unwittingly told an FBI informant in July.“Grab the fuckin’ governor. Just grab the bitch. Because at that point, we do that, dude – it’s over.”Plotters twice surveilled Whitmer’s vacation home, including in mid-September, as they developed plans to take her hostage.The men attempted to construct explosive devices and held combat drills, and planned to blow up a bridge to Whitmer’s home to slow down police.Seven of those arrested are backers of the so-called boogaloo movement, NBC News reported. Experts say boogaloo is a far-right, violent anti-government movement, and some adherents are also tied to neo-Nazi groups.Of the president’s response to the revelations, Whitmer said on Friday: “A decent human being would pick up the phone and say, ‘Are you OK? How’s your family doing?’“That’s what Joe Biden did. And I think it tells you everything you need to know about the character of the two people that are vying to lead our country for the next four years.”Biden, who is leading Trump in opinion polls in several key swing states – including Michigan – criticized the president in the early hours of Friday morning.“When Governor Whitmer worked to protect her state from a deadly pandemic, President Trump issued a call to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Biden said in a tweet.“That call was heard. He’s giving oxygen to the bigotry and hate we see on the march in our country – and we have to stop it.”Pro-Whitmer demonstrators held a gathering of support for the governor outside the state capitol building in Lansing on Thursday evening.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      in US Politics

      'Our worst nightmare': Will militias heed Trump's call to watch the polls?

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      In the final minutes of last week’s televised presidential debate, a few days before he tested positive for Covid-19, Donald Trump was asked by the moderator, Chris Wallace, whether he would call on his supporters to stay calm and desist from civil unrest in the immediate aftermath of next month’s election.Trump pointedly declined the invitation. Instead, he replied: “I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen. I’m urging them to do it.”For those who monitor the activities of far-right militia groups and white-supremacist paramilitaries, Trump’s remarks were as welcome as jet fuel being used to quell a wildfire. Indeed, since they were made the FBI launched a series of arrests of militia members and others plotting to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and attack law enforcement, adding to a sense of a nation spiraling out of control as November’s election approaches.“The militias will absolutely seize on [Trump’s comments],” said Steven Gardiner, who tracks militias at the progressive thinktank Political Research Associates. “The possibility of armed factions with military-style rifles showing up at polling places is very troubling.”Devin Burghart, the director of the anti-bigotry organization the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, had a similar sinking sensation when he heard Trump’s words. “My first thought was ‘Here we go’. This is the stuff of our worst nightmares.”The US president’s clarion call to his supporters to intervene at polling places on election day comes at a perilous moment. As the country is battered by the combined winds of the pandemic and Trump’s personal battle against the virus, the Black Lives Matter reckoning over racial injustice, and the pending turbulent election, the US is not only more virulently divided than at any time in decades, it is also more heavily armed.FBI background checks – a direct indicator of gun sales – almost doubled year-on-year this summer, a reflection of the jitters that abound. As America arms itself, deadly weaponry is increasingly finding its way on to the streets, borne by self-styled private militias and culminating in violent clashes that have caused bloodshed in several US cities. More

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      in Elections

      Biden blasts Trump for not condemning Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plot – video

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      Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has slammed Donald Trump for not condemning right-wing militias following the foiled kidnapping plot against Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Speaking from his campaign in Arizona, Biden criticised the president for not watching his words after Trump previously tweeted ‘Liberate Michigan’ in response to the state’s Covid restrictions. ‘You saw what the head of the FBI said a couple of days ago. He said the greatest terrorist threat in America is from white supremacists,’ Biden said. ‘Why can’t the president just say, stop, stop, stop, stop, and we will pursue you if you don’t”
      Six people charged in plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer

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      US politics

      US elections 2020

      Joe Biden

      Michigan

      The far right

      Donald Trump More