Remember Trump has national emergency powers that includes the ability to send a national security alert to the phone of every American.

Also all broadcast networks, radio stations, most digital devices.

1. Thurs. 7 Jan. Reader Post By Sabre

Yesterday the same group of ANTIFA instigators (not Trump supporters) that have been rioting around the nation the past 2 months, freely walked into the Capital building. This was unopposed and allowed with capital police holding the...

1/ The past 48 hours may come to be known as The Great Cancellation of 2021, as Silicon Valley companies remove or limit Trump’s access to a host of services following the violent insurrection against democracy he incited on Capitol Hill.

2/ Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit Twitch, Apple, Discord, and even Shopify are among the platforms banning or restricting access to the President's accounts.

3/ Reddit banned the subreddit forum r/DonaldTrump, as @sarafischer reported, “one of the company’s largest political communities dedicated to support for President Trump.” Twitch also disabled Trump’s channel following the insurrection.

4/ Snapchat locked the President’s account indefinitely.
Apple and Google told Parler, the social media network favored by far right extremists and other supporters of the President, that it must start moderating its content.

5/ Discord banned TheDonald server “due to its overt connection to an online forum used to incite violence, plan an armed insurrection in the United States, and spread harmful misinformation related to 2020 U.S. election fraud."

(thread)

As a) a highly trained movement organizer and b) a professional researcher of the violent far right, I cannot roll my eyes enough at everyone from law enforcement to CNN personalities being like "we're trying to figure out who organized this."

I get that there are good and important libertarian arguments against the tech companies’ Trumper ban. But here’s a thread in its defense … 1/14

It’s a thread on why conservatives and liberals (as opposed to insurrectionists who would topple American democracy if they could) should favor banning speech that encouraged or cheered on Wednesday’s obscene events. 2/14

They should favor the ban because the lunatic agitator ranting on the street corner has no *right* to be given a megaphone that enables him to be heard by every potential lunatic follower of his cause in the country. 3/14

This isn’t a goddamn game. It’s not a reality show. And neither is it an Oxford debating society event. 4/14

This week the virtual world of combat many of us marinade in online burst into the real world. 5/14

As Parler disappears from the Android and Ios app stores and faces being kicked off of Amazon's (and other) clouds, people who worry about monopolized corporate control over speech are divided over What It Means.

1/

There's an obvious, trivial point to be made here: Twitter, Apple and Google are private companies. When they remove speech on the basis of its content, it's censorship, but it's not GOVERNMENT censorship. It doesn't violate the First Amendment.

2/

And yes, of course it's censorship. They have made a decision about the type and quality of speech they'll permit, and they enforce that decision using the economic, legal and technical tools at their disposal.

3/

If I invited you to my house for dinner and said, "Just so you know, no one is allowed to talk about racism at the table," it would be censorship. If I said "no one is allowed to say racist things at the table," it would also be censorship.

4/

I censor my daughter when I tell her not to swear. I censor other Twitter users when I hide their replies to my posts. I censor commenters on my blog when I delete their replies.

Dress is up as "content removal" or "moderation" if you'd like, but it's obviously censorship.

5/

The Threat of Authoritarianism in the U.S. is Very Real, and Has Nothing To Do With Trump

The COVID-driven centralization of economic power and information control in the hands of a few corporate monopolies poses enduring threats to political

Asserting that Trump is a fascist-like dictator threatening the foundations of US democracy has been a virtual requirement over the last 4 years to obtain entrance to cable news Green Rooms, sinecures as mainstream newspaper columnists, and popularity in faculty lounges.

Yet it has proven to be a preposterous farce.

In 2020 alone, Trump had 2 perfectly crafted opportunities to seize authoritarian power—a global health pandemic and protests and sustained riots throughout American cities—yet he did virtually nothing to exploit those opportunities.

Early in the pandemic, Trump was criticized, especially by Democrats, for failing to assert the powers he had, such as commandeering the means of industrial production under the Defense Production Act, invoked by Truman to force industry to produce materials for the Korean War.

In March, The Washington Post reported that “Governors, Democrats in Congress and some Senate Republicans have been urging Trump for at least a week to invoke the act, and... Joe Biden came out in favor of it, too,” yet “Trump [gave] a variety of reasons for not doing so.”

I live in a community that never took their Trump signs down.

The kind of place where they hope Trump starts a second government.

I need you to hear me when I say this—these people believe the assault on the Capitol was a great victory for

Early polling after the terrorist attack shows that 45% of Republicans approved of it.

2/

More alarming is that nearly 70% of Republicans don’t think a terrorist attack at the US Capitol is a threat to democracy.

3/

And more Republicans would call those who stormed the Capitol “patriots” than “terrorists.”

4/

For those holding your breath, thinking Trump or Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz will resign—don’t.

There is no incentive for them to do so.

If they manage to stay in power after an attempted coup—they win.

If they are forced out by the “elite Washington establishment”—they win.

5/

Thread: THIS IS THE SILENCING MOMENT BETWEEN THE
LIGHTNING.....AND THE THUNDER!
The Left is trying to silence & isolate Trump & his key supporters in a massive purge on Big Tech Platforms.
Americans are justifiably outraged as unelected Silicon Valley Oligarchs DECLARE DOMINION.

Some sanity:

In the last 120 days I've noted several places within the constitutional process of a change in power where Trump could have properly, appropriately, and without resistance progressed towards seizing power Hitler-style.

All passed without incident.

I've also noted, which is supported by folks far more learned that myself, that the legal shenanigans were just theater.

There is no real path to seizing power at this point and having any excuse to do so.

But... there could be something behind how the 6th is being sold.

Trump could be ... maybe ... a slim chance ... cleaning up his own mess to some degree and we're about to witness state security forces cracking down on far right activists while they are all gathered in one place.

Other than that possibility, it's just more performance.

Without physically seizing and holding the places where power resides in DC, which is improbable at best, there is absolutely no chance at this time for anything other than Biden being sworn in at the end of the month.

The panic is purely for clicks and ratings.

Seriously think about it.

What are the chances of the Proud Boys invading and then holding Longworth in order to prevent elected officials from conducting the business of government?

If you've ever actually been there you know how ludicrous the suggestion is.

All right.

We need to talk about how Trump and the GOP are marketing themselves as the Southern Fire-Eaters who spurred secession and the Civil War and how that time bizarrely mirrors our own.

Here's a taste of what I write about in AMERICAN

This ad that's making the rounds by Lauren Boebert, in which she brags about taking her gun to Congress, is not just empty posturing. It reflects a growing tension in our government that seems to be trending toward the societal discord and violence of the Civil War.

2/

The way our history is taught, the Civil War just...kind of happened. Out of nowhere. But there were many forces involved and they reflect what we're going through now.

To understand, we need to look at those forces and the people who benefited and cultivated them.

3/

Prior to the Civil War, Congress erupted into violent chaos. There were massive brawls, duels, assaults, all of it arising from the South's refusal to accept any legislation or development that didn't reflect their desires or empowerment.

4/

Members of the southern Democrats would come armed to sessions to intimidate their rivals, flashed knives and clubs and, if the process got out of control, would use them.

These threats we're seeing now have a very, very similar flavor and should concern people.

5/

1. - Meat Loaf comms

01/04/2021 Ivanka Trump causes confusion by mistakenly tagging Meat Loaf instead of her Father in

Remember, the left believes Trump was the result of rightwing hate being allowed to share platforms with civil, good and decent truth-telling people (them)

Since Fox News started they have wailed at the existence of conservative media as dangerous to the country.

So, uh, the Trump rally in DC is off to a good start

We're already at the anti-Semitic dogwhistle portion of the Trump rally

these people are out of their minds

"The Covid-19 PCR tests are fake ... the models were fake" -- Now a coronavirus truther/grifter is speaking at the Trump rally

"Who here is up to the task of not wearing a mask? ... Jesus is king and it's time to let freedom ring"

Trump can’t win a primary.

Trump was the catalyst.

He represented to many people a key figure in an historic narrative and that created a massive divide with passions running high.

He exaggerated this due to his nature.
We can't escape that.

But without him, the hysteria will continue.

Its not Trump.

I want you to understand something:

Twitter didn't just nuke @realdonaldtrump today

They nuked the top 35% of his most influential users/followers/thought-leaders.

Why did they take the dramatic and unprecedented step of doing this so suddenly, to perfectly rule-abiding users?