The reposts and expressions of shock from public figures followed quickly after a user on the social platform X who uses a pseudonym claimed that a government website had revealed “skyrocketing” rates of voters registering without a photo ID in three states this year — two of them crucial to the presidential contest.
“Extremely concerning,” X owner Elon Musk replied twice to the post this past week.
“Are migrants registering to vote using SSN?” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an ally of former President Donald Trump, asked on Instagram, using the acronym for Social Security number.
Trump himself posted to his own social platform within hours to ask, “Who are all those voters registering without a Photo ID in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Arizona??? What is going on???”
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Yet by the time they tried to correct the record, the false claim had spread widely. In three days, the pseudonymous user’s claim amassed more than 63 million views on X, according to the platform’s metrics. A thorough explanation from Richer attracted a fraction of that, reaching 2.4 million users.
The incident sheds light on how social media accounts that shield the identities of the people or groups behind them through clever slogans and cartoon avatars have come to dominate right-wing political discussion online even as they spread false information.
It is ‘rational’ attitudes such as this that MLK bemoaned in his Birmingham jail letters. Order above justice. An order in which the boot is not on your neck. So you minimize its dehumanizing brutality in relation to the maintenance of the day-to-day comforts you enjoy.
Hypothetically: if Biden was sending weapons and financial support to Russia in support of their war efforts but mildly denouncing Putin when pressed; and Trump was pledging full throated support of Putin and offering to nuke Kyiv; would you still feel so enthusiastic about voting for Biden or for your moral calculus? Might you lament the electoral system that has put this decision before you. Might you protest this mockery of democratic choice. Even if you internally still cede to moral calculus, might you continue to make your displeasure known and apply whatever pressure was within your purview as a voter to make. Might you be offended by people demanding you not only vote for Biden regardless your rightful concerns about Putin and the sovereignity of Ukrainians but also try to insinuate that you are part of some foreign operation to undermine the election for voicing your concerns?
Much respect to your comment because it remains neutral-toned and raises fair points. I hope I can reflect that in my response.
To me, I feel MLK was wrong, no? 1 year later, those “white moderate” liberals he lambasted in the Birmingham letter voted for the Civil Rights Act merely 1 year later — the most unprecedented step-up for securing equal rights for blacks. Would that change have come if support in the north, the offspring of abolitionists, were abandoned at the polls and every anti-segregationist just stayed at home to protest change that didn’t come soon enough? Do you think Southern offspring of Confederates would have helped blacks more and passed the Civil Rights Act if they had a stranglehold on Congress? Of course not. Liberals were able to be moved; conservatives by comparison could not.
Besides, the two notions — protesting and voting — can exist in tandem: One can demonstrate and protest as MLK and Malcolm X did; but one can also recognize who the bigger threat is and what the rational choice is when it comes time to vote. If, hypothetically, it was a choice between more lynches or less lynches; less rights over more rights — would MLK have chosen the former over the latter? Of course not.
To your hypothetical regarding Russia — No, I wouldn’t feel enthusiastic about voting for Biden, but I’m not asking anyone to feel enthused; I’m asking them to hold their nose as they choose the lesser-evil when one of the two options are guaranteed outcomes. As much as I’d dislike it, I would vote for Biden, but that doesn’t mean I pledge my support for all they do. If I’m told with a gun to my head to choose between my child or my wife, I’d choose the child because that’s what my wife would want and the child has more years to live. I wouldn’t be enthused about choosing.
So I must ask again: if merely one less child dies, then it is clearly worth it to vote, yes?
Change never comes soon enough, but it’s a fact that change did come through one of the two major parties; and in the modern day such change will NEVER come through Republicans. We will only take more steps back; women and trans will only lose more rights; MORE Gazans will suffer; MORE Ukrainians will suffer. And I’d be willing to bet that if one polled any sample of Ukrainians or Gazans, they would be crossing their fingers that Biden stays in office, for that is the only hope for their respective futures.
Recognizing all this, please understand the frustrations of people like me who feel they see the writing on the wall; that one may be able to pat themselves on the back for not voting for anyone — and yet the ultimate outcome is more people suffer. Respectfully, if I have to choose between fighting for Gazans and Ukrainians or women’s rights, I’m going to choose to fight for them over hurting the feelings of anonymous users grandstanding from the comforts of their safe homes. At the same time, look at the subject-line of this very submission. We know right-wingers are doing this; so it’s very hard to be patient with people when they quack like the right-wing duck and you recognize that literally the only people to benefit from this divisive wedge-driving is none other than fascist right-wing Republicans. So in the end, whether it’s intentional astroturfing or it’s naivety, the outcome remains the same and so that’s why people like me tend to identify these two groups as one. For the record, again, I’m not really a liberal; while I’m not full-blown socialist/commie I’m closer to a Social Democrat Bernie Sanders type who endorses something akin to the Nordic Model of a well-regulated market system backed by strong social safety nets and select-nationalized industries with strong labor unions.
And I appreciate your civil attempts at clarifying your stance too. To the degree that I think we’re both talking past each other.
On my part, even as an outsider to US politics, I have been getting more and more frustrated with a lot of the bullying rhetoric I see on this platform directed towards potential voters that are very concerned about the US’s current complicity in the ongoing genocide. I see them getting talked down to with utter contempt. Being berated by people who insouciantly weigh a potential loss of comforts at home against the real and current killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and the forced famine of hundreds of thousands.
Now is the only time that they can apply pressure on Biden. Now that he actually needs something from them. But (like MLK’s white moderates) people here are telling them that “now is not the time” and a whole spectrum of worse accusations too. But if the civil rights movement hadn’t agitated and pressed for change decades would have passed before the moderates would have opened their eyes and acted beyond the pale.
Personally, I agree ostensibly with your calculus (though not with your particular framing of it but it is still a very, very tight call) but if I was a US voter I would be vocally holding my vote hostage until the last moment to make sure that my discontent was given the greatest chance of not being ignored.
More importantly (and central to this whole discussion) i still believe that people have a right to respectful discourse if they can’t morally make it over the sizable hurdles.
Which brings me round back to you. You’ve been very patient and civil throughout this discourse even though we have different perspectives. So my ‘beef’ ain’t wit you my friend. Though I do wonder what is your line in the ground that if both of the two main candidates were guilty of something that you’d drop the lesser of two evils calculus and vote for a third party. For me both are terrible choices but the potential for long term democratic, human rights, and environmental protection regression under Trump cannot be underestimated
Thanks for the cordial response. At the end of the day, this is why my number one issue in America is pushing for Campaign Finance / Election Reform, so that anyone can vote for whom they like without necessarily compromising the “back-up plan” while getting ensnared in the Spoiler Effect of our terrible system. The electoral college system sucks; the FPTP system sucks. So much is on the line that stress is high. We are faced between pressuring the Democratic president too much and risking forfeiting the election to the guy with zero moral decency and who wants to level Gaza and will be stuck there for 4 years without. In a properly-running system, these things can occur in tandem without necessarily risking a loss to the greater of two evils, but alas…
In the meantime, my suggestion for everyone is to focus not so much criticizing Biden directly, but I think it would be more fruitful to hold discussions with Pro-Israeli crowds and those who in polling show undecided on Israel’s actions. E.g.,:
Because at the end of the day, the President during an election year is going to mirror the polls and not risk trying to influence or get ahead of them — especially when he’s already at best matching Trump’s polling. The more the polls shift, the more Biden will shift. It’s win-win because it doesn’t target Biden himself and cause resentment to the individual, risking people to not vote for him — but it also targets those who actually hold the views that are slowing Biden’s departure from Israeli ass-kissing. Otherwise it puts Biden in a bind because both polarized groups are effectively threatening to cease support to Biden; thus the bigger group will win that risk-assessment.
I anticipate Biden to continue distancing himself from Israel; and hopefully that comes with a ceasefire and conditional aid to Israel, which should hopefully satisfy many.