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Tom Streeter's avatar

Violent insurrections historically often begin with almost comically ragtag efforts: e.g., Castro, the Beer Hall Putsch. Some eventually succeed, some go nowhere (e.g., the attack by Francoists on the Spanish Parliament in the early 1980s). (I'll leave it to better historians than I to categorize John Brown at Harper's Ferry.) But my point is that I hope that journalists and law enforcement alike approach this as a broad movement with anti-democratic intent, and see the problem as snuffing out possibilities before they get one inch further down the road.

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Kathy Roberts Forde's avatar

Agreed. It will take time, resolve, and coordinated effort--and it must be done.

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Josh Braun's avatar

There are reports of additional coordinated activity around inauguration day (e.g., https://twitter.com/hungrybowtie/status/1348007779064139776). I'm very hopeful that these things will be investigated thoroughly prior to January 20th. Bellingcat specializes in just the sort of online muckraking necessary for something like this, so I'm hopeful they'll take it up.

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Kathy Roberts Forde's avatar

Bellingcat is new to me. Thanks for introducing it to me, Josh. I've been following little threads about coordinated activity, and Twitter's statement last night about shutting down Tump's account indicated extremists understood his last two tweets as a signal to organize against the inauguration. Just so disturbing.

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Josh Braun's avatar

It’s incredibly disturbing. Also deeply saddened to still see Trump flags flying from people’s homes in western New England.

Bellingcat is amazing. They were the outfit that was able to prove that it was Russia that was responsible for downing the airliner over Ukraine. Their reporting is central to the case against Russia in international courts. https://bellingcat.libsyn.com/the-murder-weapon

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Kathy Roberts Forde's avatar

I hope folk are investigating whether Trump campaign allies/cut-outs communicated directly with any of the extremist/Qanon/fringe leaders.

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