Tag: Trump continuing to grift his supporters

Trump accelerates his effort to wring power from the Republican Party

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In the weeks after President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he and his team flooded email and text-message inboxes with false claims that the results of the contest were illegitimate. The messages were almost panicky: The Democrats were committing a crime on a historic scale and the guileless victim of that dishonesty — your favorite president — needed every able-bodied American to take to the ramparts.

But in this case, the “ramparts” were a fundraising webpage and “able-bodied” meant anyone with some cash to pass along. There were three components to nearly every one of these messages: a falsehood about the election, a mention of Trump and a request for money.

As a legal effort, it was a complete failure, with Trump’s claims only sporadically making it to court and then lawyers almost always being asked to leave while laughter hung in the air. As a political effort, it was actually worse, yielding no result other than the disgrace of an insurrection. But as a cash grab? Boffo. Continue reading.

Trump’s DC Hotel Is Jacking Up Rates For QAnon’s Next Special Date

For some QAnon conspiracy theorists, March 4, 2021 is a date circled in red Sharpie on the calendar. The truly devoted believe that, on this special date, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 19th president of the United States.

The theory borrows from the sovereign citizens movement, which espouses that a law enacted in 1871 secretly turned the U.S. into a corporation and ended the American government put in place by the founding fathers. Accordingly, the true inauguration date was not January 20, as the rest of the world believes. The conspiracy theorists contend that the real inauguration will happen on March 4, the date on which presidents were sworn in prior to the 1933 passage of the 20th amendment. Still following? QAnon followers believe that Trump will return to power on March 4 as the 19th president of the United States. The last true president, the theory goes, was Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president, who was in office in 1871 when the United States turned into a corporation. Got it?

“Some QAnon followers are borrowing discredited arguments from sovereign citizens in order to yet again move the goalposts,” Travis Week, co-host of the conspiracy-debunking podcast QAnon Anonymous, explained via tweet, “They’re absurdly claiming Trump will be inaugurated on March 4, because the U.S. was ‘incorporated’ in 1871 and all Amendments passed after that are invalid.” Continue reading.