Conspiracy Theorists R Usby digby
People think this is benign but it isn’t. He has 40 million followers and people all over the world read every word he tweets and follow every link. He is the fucking president of the United States and this is his chosen method of communicating to the world:
In a Saturday night tweet, Trump attacked CNN, saying the network’s international division “represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly.” A few minutes later, Trump tweeted an alternative: MagaPill.com.
The name MagaPill is a riff on “red pill,” a term popular with white nationalists and others on the far right. A metaphor based on a plot line from The Matrix, it refers to the process of normalizing extreme views. MagaPill is also active on Gab, a social network favored by white nationalist and banned from the Google app store violating its hate speech policy.
But while Trump presents MagaPill as the antidote to “fake news,” the site regularly traffics in unhinged conspiracy theories. Just a few hours before being endorsed by Trump, MagaPill posted a video from Liz Crokin, a fringe figure best known for pushing the Pizzagate conspiracy. In the video, Crokin claims there is a sex tape of Hillary Clinton with an underage girl on Anthony Weiner’s laptop.
.@LizCrokin is #WOKEAF
Hidden Files on Anthony Wiener's laptop to bring down the Cabal.Watch Full Vid: https://t.co/Aw4AKPgxRM pic.twitter.com/QHk66zYoOf— MAGA PILL 🏵️ (@MAGAPILL) November 25, 2017
[…]
Another recent MagaPill post features an “interesting flow chart” which combines nearly every conspiracy theory imaginable: “false flag terrorism,” “organ harvesting,” “child/human sacrifice,” “weaponize forced vaccination,” “earthquake machines.” [That’s the image up top — ed]Shortly after Trump tweeted a link to the MagaPill website, it went offline. On Twitter, the MagaPill site immediately alleged there was a conspiracy to suppress information about Trump’s accomplishments.
During the presidential campaign and as president, Trump has repeatedly retweeted accounts linked to white nationalism and conspiracy theories.
This isn’t fine. It’s not normal. And it shouldn’t be dismissed as harmless fun. This right wing lunacy is being mainstreamed faster than ever before largely because the most powerful man in the world is propagating it. Why do we shrug it off like it’s nothing?
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