Ever since convicted felon Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president in June 2015, there has been a lot of violence in the United States thanks to Trump himself sharing blatant lies. Then Trump refuses to denounce the violence he incited and the perpetrators feel vindicated so there's more violence again and again. So, today we're looking at his audience and the lies they believe so much, they commit felonies to support their orange leader.
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This past week was the first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and convicted felon Donald Trump. And while I'll leave a link below to our full episode fact-checking the entire debate, one moment from that night stood out to everyone. For those of us with more than two brain cells, it was an insane moment and to the MAGA supporters, it stood out to them as something they need to help stop when he said:
Fiscal conservatives and democrats alike were all shocked by this wild story that many of us were hearing for the first time during that debate. It was so wild that even the moderators had to step in to fact-check it in real-time.
But where did this wild story begin? Well, in Springfield, Ohio a 35-year-old woman by the name of Erika Lee posted on social media a chilling story, warning others to look out for their pets in the Springfield area. In that post on social media, Erika says that someone stole her daughter's friend's cat and she later found it "strung up 'from a branch' outside the home of a Haitian family".
It read as if Erika herself saw all of this happen from a first-person perspective. The original post said that she saw the cat hanging from a tree "...from a branch like you'd do a deer for butchering, and they were carving it up to eat." And that's pretty vivid detail to add to a story but Erika later admitted that she only heard the story from a friend of a friend of a friend. However, she decided to tell the story on social media from a first-person perspective to add validity to the story. But then social media started blowing up on right-wing sites like Twitter, Rumble, and 4chan, dumbfounded that this Erika woman saw it all happen in person and the cops aren't doing anything to stop it.
So, who is this friend of a friend of a friend? Well, it turns out that friend was a member of a neo-Nazi hate group called the Blood Tribe. They were the earliest known writers of this false story shared on neo-Nazi websites. Their story made its way to Erika Lee and later to Donald Trump. In fact, when Trump mentioned it on the debate stage last week, they posted "The president is talking about it now...This is what real power looks like."
But when friends of hers started sharing the story and Erika was asked about it, she doubled down and told local media that "I've been told they are doing this to dogs; they've been doing it at Snyder Park with the ducks and geese" and claimed she was told that by the park rangers and the Springfield police department.
But you should know the Springfield, Ohio city officials have said there is "no evidence of this happening." And the Springfield Police Department who allegedly told Erika Lee about the ducks in Snyder Park, say there "have been ZERO reports of animal killings and consumption" in the Springfield area.
But after Tuesday night's debate, Trump supporters who blindly believed him called the city of Springfield to complain. They called the police station hundreds and hundreds of times asking for more information on what they're doing to prevent it from happening again.
When that didn't work to stop a crime that already wasn't happening, Trump supporters then called in bomb threats to the Springfield City Hall and the city hospital, causing them to evacuate the building. And when that didn't work, Trump supporters then called in bomb threats to the Snowhill Elementary School in Springfield, Ohio causing them to shut down school for two consecutive days so far at the time of this recording.
Some of the MAGA followers have even gotten the city wrong entirely and started harassing the Springfield, Missouri city council, asking them to do something immediately to stop Haitian immigrants from eating their pets, even though nothing in this story is connected to Missouri at all and Trump never mentioned Missouri.
Following the threats, Trump was asked if he denounced these violent threats against the Springfield city hall, their hospital, and their school. He responded by dodging the question and saying "I don't know what happened with the bomb threats...Springfield was this beautiful town and now they're going through hell. It's a sad thing. Not going to happen with me, I can tell you right now."
But Springfield is only going through this because of Trump's words and actions. The mayor of Springfield says "Federal politicians are negatively spinning our city. They need to know they are hurting our city. It was their words that did it." referring to Trump and his VP pick, JD Vance. And even JD Vance says they know they've brought this negative attention to such a small town.
But for once, Trump is actually right. It is in fact a sad thing because, from the looks of it, Springfield was and still is a beautiful town, now overrun with MAGA fans trying to stop a crime from happening that never happened in the first place. And anyone who looks like an immigrant in that area is now a target for attack from the MAGA followers, a group of followers who have repeatedly taken Trump's words and acted in a vigilante manner because in their opinion, local cops didn't do anything to stop something that already wasn't happening in the first place.
It should be noted here that every Haitian and other ethnic minority in the city of Springfield is there legally. So, while Trump might disagree on policy, he can't just call someone 'illegal' if they're here under a federal law. Secondly, Ohio is the state Senator JD Vance represents. So, if something bad is happening in Springfield, why has JD not done anything to solve it in the past two years since he was elected their senator?
That's not to mention shortly after Trump and Vance brought Springfield to the national spotlight, a group of more than a dozen Proud Boys showed up and marched in the street. The Proud Boys are a known hate group to the FBI and incite violence almost everywhere they go. But Trump once told them to "Stand back and stand by." And JD Vance says, we shouldn't care about the hate group in the streets in Springfield. We should care more about Kamala Harris.
But you should know, this isn't even the first time Trump and Vance sent their mob after Springfield, Ohio. Some of those residents are the Clark family whose eleven-year-old son, Aiden was killed in a freak car accident last year. The Trump campaign recently took that story and changed the narrative to now say the boy was murdered in cold blood by an imigrant and they keep spreading that lie even though the Clark family and the boy's father have repeatedly asked Trump to stop mentioning their son and lying about his death.
But JD Vance and Trump don't have an apology for them. All he says is:
And in my opinion, anyone who lies about the death of an eleven-year-old boy just to score some political points is not fit to be in office. Again JD Vance is the senator from Ohio so if there is a problem, why isn't he working to solve it? But I'm sure that reason has nothing to do with the election coming up and the fact that all the states that surround Ohio are key battleground states for Trump. And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that JD Vance admitted on camera this week that they made the whole story of the dogs and cats up just to gain some attention in the media.
JD Vance: "Yes."
JD Vance: "We are creating...we are creating..."
The story being made up is kind of par for the course from the Trump campaign at this point. After all, they lie a lot. But you might ask, why would the MAGA crowd that proclaims to be working to protect kids from drag queens suddenly start calling in bomb threats to elementary schools over a crime that never happened? The truth is, this is far from the first time they've committed terrorism against schools, hospitals, libraries, and city offices. In fact, this immediate violence has been one of the few things that you can count on from MAGA supporters over the past few years.
It's happened literally hundreds and hundreds of times before where a terrorist group like Libs of TikTok, Moms for Liberty, or the Proud Boys posted on social media a blatant lie about some city, school, library, hospital, or event. Then, their audience sends bomb threats and death threats to anyone and everything they can just to scare people and stop whatever it is they think is happening from taking place. From a medical clinic in Oregon, to a Planet Fitness in Oklahoma, to a children's hospital in Washington, DC. It happens all the time. In fact, USA Today even describes it as, "When Libs of TikTok tweets, threats increasingly follow."
But Libs of TikTok being a terrorist group is not surprising to any of us who actually follow politics or news. What's shocking is how many times Donald Trump has shared their posts as the truth. How many times Fox 'News' hosts like Tucker Carlson invited her on his show to talk about the terrible things happening in our schools that aren't really happening. And other billionaires like Elon Musk have shared her posts and donated to her cause.
Just as one example, back in April 2022, Libs of TikTok posted a wild claim about an elementary school in Syracuse, New York installing litter boxes in their restrooms to accommodate kids who identify as furries. Immediately, the school started receiving bomb threats and death threats for allowing such actions. But the principal and the school board were shocked by the threats because they had no idea what these people were talking about.
Police and local press came in and found there were no litter boxes in the school and the whole story was made up by Libs of TikTok. But no one that called in a threat was ever charged or convicted of sending a terroristic threat against an elementary school.
Just like when Libs of TikTok posted a supposed undercover phone call where the founder of the hate group posed as a parent and called a children's hospital asking them to perform gender-affirming surgery on her child. And the hospital - sight unseen - set up an appointment for the surgery. Later it was revealed that the hospital staff member the Libs of TikTok founder was actually talking to in that undercover call reportedly never worked at the hospital or any hospital for that matter. Because it was her friend and they were just faking the whole story.
But that didn't stop her audience from sending dozens of bomb threats to the hospital anyway. The truth of those stories also didn't stop Donald Trump from sharing them as the truth with his audience and keeping the threats coming to the school and the hospital for weeks to come.
In fact, in the weeks after this false claim was made on the Libs of TikTok account, dozens of school districts from Michigan to Texas to Wisconsin and other parts of New York all had bomb threats called in to stop them from having litter boxes in their school restrooms. Right-wing radio hosts, politicians, and news anchors kept stoking the fire of terrorism over schools across the country - none of which ever had any litter boxes in their restrooms.
For years now, Trump has been stoking the fires of hate against the drag, gay, and transgender communities. His supporters follow his directions and show up to drag story hours with AK-47's and other guns to stop drag queens, dressed in appropriate outfits from reading a book to kids with their parents and legal guardians right behind them. Keep in mind, kids cannot get to these events on their own and their parents are the ones who take them there and supervise the whole thing so if anything inappropriate was happening, the parents would get their kids out of there. The only scary part about those events is the Proud Boys with AK-47's in the back row who say they're only there to protect the kids.
When I put out my second children's book earlier this year, "Shadow's First Pride Event", I got dozens of death threats from these MAGA followers who said my book was 'grooming kids'. But not only does my book not include any of that, otherwise Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers would have flagged the book as for adults only - which they did NOT do, it's a family-friendly kids book - but kids don't have credit cards. So, only parents or schools could buy the book for their kids; and therefore, a legal guardian is signing off that their kids can read it. And in no way should one person get to decide what is right or wrong for everyone else to read.
Other times, Trump just makes up his own lies and others blindly support him and cause terrorism across the country. For example, a few weeks ago you might have heard Trump saying:
No, Trump. I can't imagine that because you know what? It's a complete lie. He's been spreading this lie for weeks now that your child can go to school and come back another gender, even going so far as to claim the school nurse, who already has an overworked and thankless job in many schools, is performing these gender-affirming surgeries on any kid who wants it on the teacher's desk in the front of the classroom with all the other kids watching. And without any parental consent, your child can come home from school with completely different genitals.
I want to be very clear, this is not happening in any school in the United States and legally speaking, no child can get gender-affirming surgery until they are 18 years old because of federal laws that already exist. School nurses are also not surgeons and a teacher's desk in front of a classroom is not a sterile environment for surgery. So, why spread this lie and what harm does it really do?
Well, Tiffany Justice who is a cofounder of the hate group Moms for Liberty says "Are kids getting surgery in school? No they're not." however she mentioned how "thankful" she was that Trump made the false claim since it brought attention to the "issue" of children being allowed to use their preferred name and pronouns at school.
The senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the organization responsible for writing Trump's Project 2025 plans, named Thomas Jipping said that "Trump's point is completely valid." But he admitted even he is "not aware of a specific incident yet where it has gone that far, where it has gone from social to medical transition" in school.
So, everyone, even on the far-right knows it's a lie and schools are not performing surgeries on kids in the classroom. But Trump's audience doesn't care and is now looking at hundreds of schools across the country to find the evidence of such classroom surgeries - evidence that does not exist but his audience will no doubt make up and believe is real anyway.
But even MAGA followers are legally entitled to their own stupidity and freedom of speech. That doesn't mean it will turn from threats to actual violence, right? Well, I would argue it already has.
Back at the start of the civil rights movement in 1963, plenty of threats were being sent to anyone supportive of civil rights. When those threats didn't stop people from supporting equal rights, the leaders of the KKK decided to bomb the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15th, 1963. An anniversary of which was just earlier this week. Bombings kept happening across the city so much that the city was nicknamed Bombingham, Alabama and many people lost their lives.
For years, abortion clinics across the country have been targets of bombings, shootings, and other violence thanks to political leaders making them the target of discussion and making up wild lies about what goes on inside of their clinics.
It's heartbreaking to hear a story of someone killed but always interesting how someone showing up to stop abortion has no problem shooting or bombing a clinic full of people to murder them. It's almost as if their 'All Lives Matter' motto only applies if you're a republican and not some teenage girl who was raped by her step-father who voted republican.
Donald Trump is no different. He's spreading wild lies about things that never happened and sharing them with an audience who hangs onto every word he says like it's not only the truth, but it's their gospel according to Trump. We've seen his lies about a stolen election result in his audience making bomb threats and assassination plans against anyone who dared say Biden won a free and fair election in 2020. Ultimately, Trump's calls for violence pushed his audience to commit treason against their own country and storm the Capital on January 6th, 2021.
On that day, over 2,500 people stormed the US Capital to hang members of congress and their own Vice-President, Mike Pence for not overturning the election that Donald Trump told them was robbed from him. To this day, only 1,069 of them have been charged with any crime for their actions on that day. It resulted in the American taxpayers paying $2,881,360 in repair costs for their damages and 9 deaths including 5 police officers.
According to Trump in last week's debate, only one person died as a result of that day. I guess his 'Blue Lives Matter' attitude forgets the five officers who died defending the capital against his mob. But to be fair the 4 rioters died from their own actions. One of them tried breaking into a closed area to murder a member of congress, was shot by the police, and bled out because the rioting crowd behind her didn't care.
So, Trump's words and actions have already caused lots of violence across the country. His audience is emboldened to continue committing violence until they get the country back from whoever they think stole it from them. Back to a time when they believed it was better - when women had no rights, gays were imprisoned, and people of color were slaves.
You might look at what's happening and think to yourself 'how could this happen in such a great country?' or 'how could so many people fall for this lunatic?' but historically speaking, many people have fallen for crazy dictators. Germans fell for every lie Hitler made up so they helped him put Jews and gay people in camps and they helped him build showers for them to be slaughtered in. Russians helped Gorbachev commit atrocities and are currently helping Putin with an un-winable war against Ukraine. History is filled with stories just like Trump and his MAGA supporters.
The fact is, we're all living through a chapter in history that will someday be written. The terrifying part is, the FBI and the military are watching it all happen and they're not charging Trump, Libs of TikTok, Moms for Liberty, Heritage Foundation, or anyone with these crimes. And until they do, this chapter won't be over.
The scary part for me is thinking 'what if it was my city?' Springfield was a quiet little town that was overall quite happy to live in. Sad things happened a year ago with a child dying in a car accident and other small-town stories but the city didn't do anything wrong. All of a sudden, Trump makes up wild lies of a boy being murdered and spreads wild lies about cats and dogs being eaten and overnight, the town is overrun with hate groups and media.
The city shuts down their schools, city hall, and hospitals because of bomb threats. But they didn't do anything wrong to deserve it.
I honestly don't know what's worse. The fact that these lies spread so rampantly on social media or the fact that someone who was president at one time, is asking to be President of the United States again, and is asking to be trusted with the nuclear codes fell for the lies and keeps spreading them no matter the evidence in front of him.
What I can almost guarantee is, one of these days, these threats are going to turn into actual violence from a crowd that is already loaded with guns and ammo. Then we'll ask Trump to denounce the violence and much like he did on January 6th, he'll say he was just there to give a speech and had nothing to do with the treason that followed. Because dictators never, ever admit they did anything wrong.
Luckily for us, this chapter is not over. We can choose a new way forward on November 5th by voting for Kamala Harris and we can have a prosecutor take on these criminals and charge each and every one of them with the terroristic threats, violence, and treason they committed. Anything less means our Constitution is meaningless and if we elect a man who already committed treason, is a known asset of the Russian government, and a convict with 34 felonies, then I wish everyone luck in the inevitable civil war when Trump starts implementing his Project 2025 and putting us all in camps and deporting everyone that's not a Christian Nationalist.
You might say 'he wouldn't do that' or 'they can't throw all of us in camps'. But in World War II, there were camps for Japanese Americans in the U.S. And remember, Trump owns the Supreme Court and republicans in congress so there's no one to stop him from becoming a dictator except for us on November 5th by the power of our votes.
So, please use the unbiased link in the description of this video to register to vote, check your registration to make sure it's valid, and make a plan to vote on November 5th, 2024 for Kamala Harris.
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