Wednesday, December 20, 2023

These are his people

And he calls them to action.
In the 24 hours since the Colorado Supreme Court kicked former President Donald Trump off the state's Republican primary ballot, social media outlets have been flooded with threats against the justices who ruled in the case.

Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that conducts public interest research, identified "significant violent rhetoric" against the justices and Democrats, often in direct response to Trump's posts about the ruling on his platform Truth Social. They found that some social media users posted justices' email addresses, phone numbers and office building addresses.

"This ends when we kill these f--kers," a user wrote on a pro-Trump forum that was used by several Jan. 6 rioters.

[...]

The threats fit into a predictable and familiar pattern, seen time and time again after legal developments against Trump. [...] A federal appeals court pointed out the pattern when it upheld a narrowed gag order against Trump in his election interference case this month, noting that those he publicly targets are often threatened and harassed.

[...]

"The normalization of this type of violent rhetoric — and lack of remedial action by social media entities — is cause for significant concern," [a former FBI investigator and staffer for the Senate Intelligence Committee] said. "Trump’s statements, which have sought to delegitimize and politicize the actions of the courts, is serving as a key driver of the violent rhetoric. Political leaders on both sides of the political aisle need to speak out against these calls for violence, and social media platforms need to reassess their role in hosting and promoting this rhetoric.”

  NBC

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