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Cult deprogrammers overwhelmed with requests to help de-radicalize pro-Trump conspiracy theorists: NPR
March 03, 2021
Many of former President Donald Trump's supporters have fallen into a web of disinformation surrounding the 2020 presidential election, as well as the infamous QAnon conspiracy theory.
NPR reports that professional exit counselors, who are brought in to help deprogram cult members, are being overwhelmed with requests for help in bringing Trump-supporting conspiracy theorists back to reality.
<p>"I've probably got almost a hundred requests in my inbox," explains Diane Benscoter, an exit counselor who has been helping people leave cults after she herself spent years in the Unification Church cult.</p><p>Joan Donovan, who leads the study of online disinformation at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, similarly tells NPR that the current social media environment is a "free for all" that is producing an "unfathomable" amount of disinformation for Americans to consume.</p><p>Pat Ryan, a cult interventionist, tells NPR that QAnon is deliberately designed to draw people in by asking them leading questions and pointing them to "answers" that are actually pieces of the conspiracy theory.</p><p>Benscoter tells NPR that she knows from personal experience what draws people into political cults such as QAnon.</p><p>"It establishes this camaraderie and this feeling of righteousness and this cause for your life, and that feels very invigorating and almost addictive," she says. "You feel like you are fighting the battle for goodness, and all of a sudden you are the hero."</p>
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‘Stop telling the Big Lie!’ MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle erupts over Mike Pence’s latest op-ed
March 03, 2021
On MSNBC Wednesday, Stephanie Ruhle tore into former Vice President Mike Pence for once again promoting lies about the integrity of the 2020 election in his op-ed opposing Democrats' landmark voting rights legislation.
"This week the former president again pushed voter fraud claims and then this morning Vice President Pence, who, let's remind our audience, January 6th was an assassination attempt on his life, he wrote an op-ed with this in it, quote, after an election marked by significant voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law, I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of the 2020 election. What in the world is going on here? How can we possibly stop these divisions and this threat of extremism when the root of all of it keeps getting churned up and inflamed by our own former vice president?"
<p>"Yeah, Stephanie," said former CIA official Jeremy Bash. "Christopher Wray was very clear yesterday when asked by senators, do you believe that there was widespread voter fraud? And he said, not only was there no widespread voter fraud, but there was certainly nothing that would have changed the outcome of the election. I think the — the Big Lie, as you termed it, I think that's exactly right."</p><p>"I think the bigger issue that a national commission has to study is not so much how to prevent another January 6th, because it can be prevented through better collection of information, better sharing, better coordination and better preparation, but the larger, the national strategic question is, what do we do about the Big Lie? How do we deprogram people that have been programmed to believe in something that's absolutely not true? How do we rebuild confidence in our election system and rebuild confidence in our democracy? That's the bigger harder question facing our country."</p><p>"A good way to start addressing it is stop telling the Big Lie, especially those who know better," said Ruhle.</p><p>
Watch below:
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Republicans get called out for attempting to 'whitewash' the racist terror threat America is facing
March 03, 2021
When FBI Director Christopher A. Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, March 2, he offered his insights on the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building. Wray made it abundantly clear that those who carried out that attack were far-right "racially motivated extremists" and "militia violent extremists" — not antifa or anarchists as many Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump have been claiming. But Washington Post opinion writer Dana Milbank, in his March 2 column, warns that Trumpist Republicans will continue to distort the January 6 attack and promote their "antifa fantasies."
"On January 6 came the White supremacists," Milbank explains. "Now comes the whitewash….. In general, the Trump-appointed Wray testified, White supremacists are the 'biggest chunk' of the domestic terrorism threat and 'the most lethal.' But to hear the Republicans tell it, the country is besieged by left-wing anarchists."
<iframe src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1366909040685682692&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternet.org%2F2021%2F03%2Fcapitol-riot%2F&partner=rebelmouse&theme=light&widgetsVersion=889aa01%3A1612811843556&width=550px" style="vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%; position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 581px; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe><p>Wray, Milbank notes, testified that there is no evidence of "fake Trump supporters" or antifa attacking the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6. But that didn't stop pro-Trump GOP senators from carrying on about antifa during the hearing. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee asked if the FBI was "tracking extremist groups like antifa or other radicalism that are connected to violence in cities across the country." And Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas referenced "massive rioting and violence as extremists, many of them leftist extremists, took to the streets" during the 2020 protests.<br/></p><p>"Even after Wray said the FBI had found no sign of antifa or anarchist involvement in the January 6 insurrection, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) took issue with 'the narrative' of who was involved on January 6 — and again suggested that anarchists played a role," Milbank observes. "The attempt to muddy the waters with the largely imaginary threat of antifa serves to shift the focus from the real and present danger of White supremacist violence."</p><p>Wray himself is a Republican.</p><p>Many pro-Trump Republicans, Milbank laments, have been trying to "derail plans for a 9/11-style commission to probe the January 6 attacks."</p><p>"In short," Milbank writes, "Republicans want to turn the Capitol insurrection commission into an antifa commission — and to paint over the events of January 6 with a coat of false equivalencies."</p>
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