Read on Twitter
A few of my takeaways from this important timeline of the "Stop the Steal" campaign from the @AtlanticCouncil's @DFRLab, published today on @just_security: https://www.justsecurity.org/74622/stopthesteal-timeline-of-social-media-and-extremist-activities-leading-to-1-6-insurrection/
1. The #StopTheSteaI hashtag and movement were being pushed and fueled by a broad spectrum of actors, in coordinated and uncoordinated ways.
Everyone from extremists/white supremacist groups to Trump campaign people/Trump family members/members of Congress.
Everyone from extremists/white supremacist groups to Trump campaign people/Trump family members/members of Congress.
Trump and members of Congress gave it legitimacy. They took the fever dream of conspiracy theories and disinformation and made it real for regular Americans.
This was a parallel world that existed divorced from reality. Reading the timeline, you get swept up in the fervor behind it and key dates -- the Dec. 12 rally, Jan. 6 -- that mean totally different things or nothing at all in the real world.
For example, on Nov. 7 there were widespread public celebrations for Biden's declared victory across the country, but you'd hardly know it in the online MAGA world, where "Stop the Steal" was gathering steam.
Also almost entirely missing: the pandemic.
There is a line about how you need to sign a waiver about COVID liabilities to attend one of these MAGA rallies, but that's about it.
There is a line about how you need to sign a waiver about COVID liabilities to attend one of these MAGA rallies, but that's about it.
The timeline also knocks you over the head with how it was all out there in the open. Being planned and fomented before our eyes, if you knew where to look -- which didn't take much sleuthing.
It also reveals how not spontaneous any of this was.
It was developing for months -- each event and website building off each other.
It was developing for months -- each event and website building off each other.
You also get some sense of the appetite for violence growing. The language gets more violent from key leaders like Lin Wood, Steve Bannon, and the leader of the Oath Keepers.
In the end, it left me with a question: Where does all of that energy and rage go? What happens next? I've listened/read a few things about how Qanon has made sense of the world since, etc. But I don't think we know. Trump is golfing in Florida. What does everyone else do?
