Fringe Groups and Movements
Trump Rally Plays Music Resembling QAnon Song, and Crowds React
Former President Donald J. Trump appeared to more fully embrace QAnon on Saturday, playing a song at a political rally in Ohio that prompted attendees to respond with a salute in reference to the cultlike conspiracy theory’s theme song. While speaking in Youngstown in support of J.D. Vance, whom he has endorsed as Ohio’s Republican […]
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Why Alex Jones’s Trial Won’t Stop the Spread of Lies
If it hadn’t been so excruciatingly sad, Alex Jones’s defamation trial might have been cathartic. Mr. Jones, the supplement-slinging conspiracy theorist, was ordered to pay more than $45 million in damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of a 6-year-old who was murdered in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School […]
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Draghi’s Fall Reverberates Beyond Italy
ROME — Just over a month ago, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy boarded an overnight train with the leaders of France and Germany bound for Kyiv. During the 10-hour trip, they joked about how the French president had the nicest accommodations. But, more important, they asserted their resolute support for Ukraine in the face […]
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‘It’s Just Been Hell’: Life as the Victim of a Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” [cheering] They came from all 50 states out of some sense of patriotic duty … “It’s so much more than just rallying for President […]
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Why Did Republicans Become So Extreme?
Many political analysts have spent years warning that the G.O.P. was becoming an extremist, anti-democratic party. Long before Republicans nominated Donald Trump for president, let alone before Trump refused to acknowledge electoral defeat, the congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein declared that the party had become “an insurgent outlier” that rejected “facts, evidence and […]
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The Leader of the QAnon Conspiracy Theory Returns
After more than a year of silence, the mysterious figure behind the QAnon conspiracy theory has reappeared. The figure, who is known only as Q, posted for the first time in over a year on Friday on 8kun, the anonymous message board where the account last appeared. “Shall we play the game again?” a post […]
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‘So the Traitors Know the Stakes’: The Meaning of the Jan. 6 Gallows
WASHINGTON — Hours after President Donald J. Trump announced a “wild” rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, his supporters began discussing building a gallows in front of the Capitol. “Could be built very quickly with the right plan and the right people bringing pre-cut materials to the site!” a user wrote on a pro-Trump […]
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Jan. 6: The Story So Far
At 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2021, Jeffrey Clark, the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division and an expert in environmental law, strode into the conference room of his boss, the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, who had taken over weeks earlier from Mr. Barr. Mr. Clark was there with some […]
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Racist and Violent Ideas Jump From Web’s Fringes to Mainstream Sites
“The fact that this act of barbarism, this execution of innocent human beings, could be livestreamed on social media platforms and not taken down within a second says to me that there is a responsibility out there,” Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said after the shooting in Buffalo. Four days later the state’s attorney […]
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