‘We’ll See You at Your House:’ How Fear and Menace Are Transforming Politics
‘We’ll See You at Your House:’ How Fear and Menace Are Transforming Politics
Public officials from Congress to City Hall are now regularly subjected to threats of violence. It’s changing how they do their jobs.
There is little research on the political views of those behind the onslaught of abuse. Some surveys show that Republican officeholders are more likely to report being targeted, often from members of their own party. Research does show, however, that recent acts of political violence are more likely to be carried out by perpetrators aligned with right-wing causes and beliefs.
McCarthyism predated social media, and when we fought against rather than for it, it retreated into the shadows - for a time. Now it's back, and it won't take less effort to stop it again.
And imho, coming to the Fediverse is a great step towards that end - stepping out from the direct influence of Zuckerberg, Musk, and Huffman is an enormously crucial component. Thanks so much for the devs (backend, frontend, and apps), instance admins, community mods, and community builders/supporters that make that happen daily! And to the community members that promote kindness and acceptance even of newbie Fediverse converts who may require patience as they catch up.
Maybe with continued efforts - that will be labeled "subversive" by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene - we could vote such people out in local elections, and replace the trash with people willing to stand up for better laws that protect the People rather than enshrine protection for the police to crush moral people under their boot heels.
Someone needs to figure out how to make an open source tiktok. Probably would need to figure out a micro payment ecosystem, because otherwise no one will be able afford to store all that video.
@[email protected] is working on loops, a federated tiktok. According to THIS POST it looks he's going for optimizing the uploaded video format over microtransactions for reducing overhead.
They would need to afford lawyers too, from a constant barrage of frivolous attacks designed to drive the company out of business.
Edit: that is actually how game console emulators written by third parties were driven into the dirt.
The laws around threats and harassment really need to be tightened up. If someone publicly harasses someone else, and they are charged with a crime, one shouldn't need to get a protective order. The protective order should be automatic. A second incident should result in automatic incarceration until the charges from the initial incident are resolved. And it shouldn't matter whether or not the victim is a public figure. We all deserve to be free from harassment and threats of violence.
There are too many people with unmanaged anger issues out there and too many of them are armed.
Left Wing people know that are going against the State when they protest. They leave their phones home.
Right Wing people think they are doing God's work, and expect to be praised for taking the law into their own hands.
I think this take is a few thousand years late. When has fear not been a part of politics?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But experts describe this moment as particularly volatile, thanks in great part to social media platforms that can amplify anonymous outrage, spread misinformation and conspiracy theories and turn a little-known public employee into a target.
Democrats by and large have been the loudest voices in trying to quell political violence, although many on the right have accused them of insufficiently condemning unruly left-wing protesters on college campuses and at the homes of Supreme Court justices.
After he voted in favor of President Biden’s infrastructure bill in late 2021, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a fellow Republican, called him a traitor and posted his office number on her social media accounts.
“Swatting” — making hoax 911 calls designed to set off a police response to a target’s home — has become more common, with a spate of recent incidents involving lawmakers, mayors, judges and the special counsel investigating Mr. Trump.
For federal lawmakers, the prospect of physical harm has long been part of the job — one that was painfully illustrated by the shooting in 2011 that gravely wounded Gabby Giffords, then an Arizona congresswoman, and by the assault on the Republican congressional baseball team in 2017 by a gunman upset by Mr. Trump’s election.
“It’s clear that this was not a true criminal threat, which under California law must be, among other things, credible, specific, immediate and unconditional,” said Peter Kang, the public defender of Kern County, which includes Bakersfield.
The original article contains 2,764 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 91%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
It's a good thing Threatening Lawmakers is ILLEGAL and the Republicans doing are being thrown in Jail for an appropriate amount of time to further deter this behavior!