America This Week: January 16, 2022
How Disinformation Spreads, The Global Threat to Democracy, Seditious Conspiracy
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Dispatches from the front lines of the Disinformation War: A weekly news roundup for people fighting for the right to be self-governed.
How Disinformation Spreads: Two Examples
GOP legislatures have introduced more than 425 bills that would restrict voting access in 49 states. 19 states have already enacted these changes. These bills also include changes in who is authorized to count our votes, making it much easier for individual states to corruptly ignore the will of the people. In a press conference this week, President Biden specifically called out these changes and emphasized how important it is to address. Multiple far right social media accounts immediately shared the video, telling their followers that Biden himself wanted to change who counts the votes, rather than restore order and democracy.
Trump said OUT LOUD he is focusing on Supervisor of Elections races in 2022 because: “We have to be a lot sharper the next time when it comes to counting the vote .. Sometimes the vote counter is more important than the candidate. They have to get a lot tougher and smarter.”
In another example, the House Judiciary GOP’s twitter account tweeted this on December 30th:
This tweet, from an official GOP twitter account, is a blatant lie. Right now, you are 17 times more likely to go to the hospital if you’re not vaccinated, and 20 times more likely to die. This does not even take into account long-COVID, which affects more than 40% of survivors, according to this study. We should be asking ourselves why the GOP is so content to let their constituents die from a preventable disease. They are behaving as if they do not need to win votes to take power.
