On MSNBC's The Weekend, Angelo Carusone discusses racist MAGA conspiracy theories: “This is how you help organize power on the fringes”
Carusone: “This manufactured thing gets ginned up, juiced up by extremist organizations, then gets amplified and picked up by the candidate himself because he knows that this is how you help organize power on the fringes and that then feeds the story”
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From the September 14, 2024, edition of MSNBC's The Weekend
MICHAEL STEELE (CO-HOST): Trump's embrace of a racist conspiracy has many of the more than one million Haitian Americans in this country now afraid for their safety, and has wrecked havoc on Springfield, Ohio. Since Trump lied about this community of Haitian immigrants who are in the country legally, folks, several buildings in Springfield, including two elementary schools, have been the target of bomb threats. The lie appears to have originated from a thirdhand anecdote posted on a private Facebook group chat. The woman who made that post now tells NBC News she never meant to spread false rumors, but it only took a matter of days for that lie to go from the darkest corners of the Internet to the office of the former president of the United States. DNC chair Jamie Harrison is back with us. Also joining the conversation, president of Media Matters, Angelo Carusone.
ALICIA MENENDEZ (CO-HOST): You know, Angelo, after the debate, me, Symone, and Michael were all on set together, and we said this is what's gonna happen. Right? This rhetoric, it is incendiary. It is dangerous. We have seen this pattern before. This is one of those times where there's no joy in being right. I want you to talk us through that graphic that we pulled up on the screen. How does something go from a made-up story on a private Facebook page to being amplified by the ex-president of the United States?
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS): Yeah. I think that's the part about this that's even more disturbing. Right? Because you sort of — you saw that sort of seed get sewn in that random Facebook post. That then gets picked up by a bunch of Neo-Nazi groups, on Telegram and Gab and some other places, and they start to churn out and push this story over and over again.
And it sort of you sort of lose the original threat, and now they're just conjuring up other pieces to this story to help reinforce it and buttress it. And then it starts to make its way over to X, and that's where it starts to pick up traction. And, really, it begins to take off in early September in the days leading up to the debate, which I don't think is a coincidence, where there's more and more chatter about it.
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And then you have somebody like Laura Loomer, who is a creature of the right-wing media fever swamp. So either Trump is getting it directly through his feed. Certainly, I mean, he's reposted Qanon accounts more than 800 times, alone onto social, or he's getting it directly from Laura Loomer as they're chatting on the way over to the debate. Either way, you sort of — this manufactured thing gets ginned up, juiced up by extremist organizations, then gets amplified and picked up by the candidate himself because he knows that this is how you help organize power on the fringes and that then feeds the story. They're not backing away from it even though it's widely debunked.
They're now citing other random things as somehow evidence. They're legitimizing and validating what was a bogus smear smear to begin with that was propped up by violent organizations. And this is the pattern and the cycle that we're likely to face in the coming weeks as we get closer and closer to Election Day.
SYMONE SANDERS (CO-HOST): This is — it's just so dangerous because it is elect — other elected officials. Like, JD Vance is a sitting United States senator. He's not some, like, random man in the basement with a microphone that can't get accurate information. Right? He knows better.
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STEELE: So, Angelo, I wanna run by — I won't get into the fact that Laura Loomer is spending more time with the president than the president's wife. But, you have this list of conspiracy theories that she has advanced, including Haitian immigrants eat pets and humans. Kamala Harris lied about being Black. 2020 election was stolen. Ukrainian spies infiltrated capitol on January 6th. School shootings were staged or allowed to occur. Casey DeSantis exaggerated breast cancer diagnosis. The deep state manipulated weather ahead of Iowa's caucuses to benefit, Nikki Haley. Yes. It's the manipulation of the weather that I found the most, the easiest of all of these things to do.
What is it about us that make us so stupid that we believe this crap, and that we push it out, and we elevate it up? And as you noted in your last answer, we actually go and try to find corroborating evidence that the deep state manipulated the weather ahead of the Iowa caucuses. I don't understand it. Are we so desperate and alone and forgotten that this is the playground that where we feel accepted and believed? What what's going on? Because, you know, the Loomers of the world will do — she's grifting. She's making her money. She's got access. She's all up on the president. We've seen the photo. Right? She's all up on his chest. Right? So we know what her thing is. But why are we, the people, so stupid — yeah, that photo. That photo. That's — I'm like, where's Melania? Okay? Melania, check your man.
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STEELE: What is it about us on this? I don't understand. I don't get why we are so susceptible to this kind of BS.
CARUSONE: I mean, I think it's a couple of things. One, the answer to your question starts thirty years ago with Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Right? I mean, they started to sort of reorient a lot of what's acceptable in political discourse and ends justify the means mentality and really started to sow the seeds of this kind of distrust and sort of conspiracy-minded thinking at scale. I mean, we've always had sort of fringes in this country. That's a part of being American, you know, but what's different now is that, you know, fifty years ago, they all existed in their own little pockets. Maybe they would turn out newsletters to 3 or 4 people or scream on the street. Now you have powerful social media tools that are connecting otherwise disconnected audiences. And that's why this strategy that Trump is deploying, that Republicans are legitimizing right now, of organizing power on what used to be considered the fringes is so dangerous as you all have talked about. Because you actually are then — these people are being connected already through social media. It's getting amplified through these political figures, and the purpose is actually to create the conditions for violence or the potential for violence as an instrument for getting political power. And that's ultimately what it's about. There are people that really believe it. They're the stupid ones. They're the ones that are hopped up on misinformation.
And then in some ways, there are people that don't believe it but don't care either. Like the Ted Cruzes of the world, right, that are doing it solely because they think this is a political strategy to get power. And that is just as disgusting and more dangerous. And there's all — they're either doing because they believe it or they're doing it for power, but that should scare all of us because this model we see — we just saw this play out of the UK where there was all those violent riots. And so they exploited these extremists. They exploited this sort of disinformation online, and then they went after and targeted Muslims and violent and violent attacks. And so I think we have to be really concerned about what's in front of us right now. There's no antibodies in the system, and what we've just seen over the last week is just a small taste of what we have in front of us for the next few weeks. So we need to gird ourselves, and we need to stay laser-focused on the fact that the only real way to sort of deal with this long term is to get over the first challenge in front of us — is we gotta win this election.