“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Trump said toward the end of his speech, repeating his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.”
“The language is the language that dictators use to instill fear,” said Timothy Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “When you dehumanize an opponent, you strip them of their constitutional rights to participate securely in a democracy because you’re saying they’re not human. That’s what dictators do.”
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, told The Post “those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”
(emphasis added)
Though he did clarify:
Cheung later clarified that he meant to say their “sad, miserable existence" instead of their “entire existence.”
Yeah. That’s clearly better. Not something an authoritarian dictator would say at all.
(The hearing has ended now… Hampton’s lawyer, Miller, admits to releasing the videos starting at about 20:35 and goes on to argue vaguely that not releasing all pre-trial evidence immediately to the public somehow “misleads the public about what’s going on”. Also, lots of talk about how his client “wants to be totally transparent”, which, well… that’s kind of what got your client in trouble to start with.)
At trial, though, DePape went into more detail about how researching Sarkeesian online moved him away from self-described left-leaning views and “deeper and deeper and deeper” into the conspiratorial views of far-right podcasters and YouTubers including James Lindsay, Jimmy Dore, and Glenn Beck. DePape said he would listen to these voices for hours a day while playing muted video games, absorbing wide-ranging conspiracy theories involving figures from actor Tom Hanks to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and California governor Gavin Newsom.
“At that time, I was biased against Trump,” DePape said according to a BBC report, “but there’s, like, truth there. So if there’s truth out there that I don’t know, I want to know it.”
DePape’s defense team argues these online influences were responsible for his bizarre plan to invade the Pelosi home and confront Nancy Pelosi on Russia’s alleged involvement in the 2016 election, all while wearing an inflatable unicorn costume and livestreaming the conversation. DePape said he only attacked Pelosi’s husband when it was clear that plan was falling apart, an argument which could mitigate against the legally important charge that the attack was retaliation “against the official for performance of their duties.”
After his arrest, DePape, 43, allegedly told a San Francisco detective that he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage. He said that if she told him the truth, he would let her go and if she lied, he was going to “break her kneecaps” to show other members of Congress there were “consequences to actions”
Barely an hour after a gag order prohibiting Donald Trump from commenting about court staff at his civil fraud trial in New York was temporarily lifted, he was at it again – unleashing a blitzkrieg of social media outrage at a clerk who has become the lightning rod for the former president’s rage.
So if this poor clerk is “rubbed out” (as gangsters like Trump prefer to say), will the Don be indicted for accessory to murder?
I hope that fuckwit scumbag has a terminal stroke during his sentencing and blames his legal team on his old Xitter account before foaming at the mouth and shitting his pants noisily.
That pro-Trump agenda is all the more jarring when contrasted against American Compass’ top supporters.
The Hewlett Foundation and the Omidyar Network are heavyweight philanthropic organizations that have long been considered bastions of liberalism. The Omidyar Network—founded by former tech mogul Pierre Omidyar—has poured money into Democratic dark money groups and spends enormous resources promoting pluralism and fighting racism globally. (Omidyar founded eBay in 1995, and provided the original funding for the news site The Intercept.)
The Hewlett Foundation likewise invests in left-leaning causes, promoting women’s rights, environmental reform, and the arts around the world—though Hewlett has also passed some money on to more typically conservative economic groups.
