How To Lie About Left-Wing Terrorism Like A Common Axios And/Or Trump Fascist!
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There were several notable mass shootings this weekend.
There was the one in Grand Blanc, Michigan, where a 40-year-old gunman killed four and injured eight at a Mormon church, which he also set on fire. The shooter was a Marine veteran of the war in Iraq. Was the shooter a Trump supporter, or perhaps his wife was? Sure looks like a solid maybe, if the dude’s “Make Liberals Cry Again” Trump T-shirt was any indication. Also the Trump sign in their yard. Regardless, Donald Trump has already claimed, without any basis, that it was part of a pattern of attacks on “Christians” in the US.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is already claiming the perp hated Mormons. Is that true? Could be. Her source? Kash Patel. We’re sure Kash will produce an unspent bullet that says “Magic Underpants” with a line drawn through it by the end of the day.
In Southport, North Carolina, another Marine Iraq War vet, approximately the same age, is accused of opening fire into a waterfront bar. He was on a boat. Three killed, five injured.
In Eagle Pass, Texas, two murdered and five wounded at the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino. Four people shot on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, one dead.
Motives for all remain unclear/not fully answered, though you’ll note that the first two accused perps were military vets and white guys, allegedly. We also note a continued, disturbing pattern, which is that each of these attacks was carried out with guns.
If they had only been armed with thoughts and prayers, nothing would have happened.
Also this weekend, Axios took a break from licking MAGA Nazi ass to focus on the balls for a minute:
WHOA IF TRUE!
Headline on Twitter: Study: Left-wing terrorism climbs to 30-YEAR-HIGH!
The actual headline at Axios, if you bother to click on it: “Study: Left-wing terrorism outpaces far-right attacks for first time in 30 years.” Which is a little bit closer to reflecting what’s really going on, but not very. (Bookmark that, because in a moment we’ll discuss how that headline got changed.)
Maybe we should read the actual study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and see if that enlightens us as to what this is all about?
Nah, fuck it, let’s just keep talking out our asses for a bit longer.
One of the white mouthbreathers in the Trump administration got her ass handed to her when she triumphantly retweeted Axios’s article. It was Abigail Jackson, one of the Sunday School hires who staffs the comms department.
“Democrats, calling your political opponents Nazis has consequences,” she bellyached.
Yeah yeah yeah, we know, Stephen Miller and all the other fascists and Nazis are currently jerking themselves into a rage over people correctly describing members of the Trump administration as fascists and Nazis, just because they have this 24/7 pattern of acting like fascists and Nazis. Miller is even whining about people like Gavin Newsom calling Trump ICE policies “authoritarian actions by an authoritarian government,” claiming it “incites violence and terrorism.”
They’re extremely upset about this one, of course:
It’s utterly unsurprising that they are so mad at left-wing agitators like historians, scholars and other literate people who possess the ability to recognize historical patterns and speeches that sounded like they were copy/pasted directly from Goebbels. We do understand how naming and shining a light upon all the things fascists and Nazis are doing makes it more difficult for fascists and Nazis to implement their fascist and Nazi policy goals.
But back to that study, and why this was such an own-goal for Becky Sunday School and Axios and all the rest. Because the study didn’t actually say any of that, a truth that was revealed if somebody bothered to fucking click on it.
Is left-wing terrorism at a 30-YEAR-HIGH? Ahem.
Maybe we should look at that same chart in the actual study, if that doesn’t interfere with MAGA’s lying too much.
Well dang, that looks different. We see that blue line representing left-wing terrorism, which we guess you could say is “spiking” if you consider the difference between “one incident” and “five incidents” to be “spiking.” Also you might notice that a couple years back it was at what appeared to be its “all-time high.” But again, remember, that’s the blue line.
After Axios was called out as a fucking liar and MAGA-knob-slobber yet again, they fixed their headline and clarified:
“This headline has been corrected to reflect that left-wing terrorism is outpacing far-right terrorism for the first time in 30 years (not that left-wing attacks overall are at a 30-year high),” the note read.
Yeah.
What looks more remarkable to us is — and should have looked remarkable to Becky Sunday School, were she in possession of the ability to read a fucking chart — is that giant red line showing alllll that right-wing terrorism, just towering over left-wing terrorism every single year except the current one, which shows a curious drop to just, allegedly, one incident this year, namely the assassinations of Mark and Melissa Hortman in Minnesota.
(Of course, another thing you learn if you read the study is that left-wing terrorism tends to kill far fewer people on a per-incident basis. Lots of interesting facts to learn when you read the study.)
But does it really feel like there’s only been one incident of right-wing terrorism this year in the US? It sure doesn’t feel that way to us. The study provides a possible reason for the discrepancy:
Trump’s election, however, appears to have changed the threat. Although it is impossible to definitively prove the link between the policies of and positions championed in Trump’s second term and the decline in right-wing terrorism incidents in the United States, it is probable that at least some extremists do not feel the need to act violently if their concerns are being addressed. Most notably, the administration has aggressively targeted immigrants, with high-profile efforts to identify, detain, and deport them. Anti-immigrant sentiment is one of the most important violent extremist motivations in recent years. The Trump administration has also warned of “deep state” abuses, criticized and abolished programs involving diversity, promoted some conspiracy theories, and hired individuals who openly embraced white supremacy. In addition, Trump’s victory temporarily ended many concerns about a Democrat-orchestrated “stolen election,” a leading conspiracy that motivated many extremists in the past Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader and a convicted seditionist whom Trump pardoned, recently summed up the president’s potential psychological effect on the violent far right: “Honestly, what do we have to complain about these days?”
Oh.
We guess reporting on right-wing terrorism changes if you pardon all the terrorists and/or dress them up in an ICE uniform and give them a salary.
But yes, we know Trump is out there HEREBY DECLARING that “Antifa” is a domestic terrorist organization, when all non-dumbass-Americans know that “Antifa” is not even an organization. And he’s issuing fascist national security directives that claim that beliefs held by tens of millions of Americans — including an opposition to right-wing white supremacist fundamentalist Christianity — are a predictor of future acts of violence. And again, we know “Sexual Matador” Goebbels wants to criminalize the very act of speaking out against the Nazis and fascists running the United States, which we guess is a very anti-fascist thing to do, in the true definition of the word.
We would simply suggest that if they are so worried that people correctly and accurately noting the parallels between the Trump administration and Nazis, fascists and authoritarians throughout history — and even labeling them as such directly! — will cause people to hate and oppose them, an obvious fix would be if they tried not being such Nazis, fascists, authoritarians and just generally total fucking shitheads.
It is, after all, a lifestyle choice, and a rather disgusting one at that.
[study / Daily Beast]
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I'll put it quite simply. I will not be lectured to about gun violence by the same people who made it so that my entire career included active shooter drills and having to consider the limits of what I would to do to protect my students.
OT: Dang, I'm already wishing it was Friday.
Here, have some random delivery kid - on a bike - stomping ICE's fat asses in Occupied Chicago...
https://bsky.app/profile/philoof.bsky.social/post/3lzxsmcs4v22a