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from the why-do-we-let-him-get-away-wiht-this-behavior dept.
Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman write in The New York Times that, with his enormous online platform of six million followers, Donald Trump has used Twitter to badger and humiliate those who have dared cross him during the presidential race, latching on to their vulnerabilities, mocking their physical characteristics, personality quirks and, sometimes, their professional setbacks. Trump has made statements that have later been exposed as false or deceptive — only after they have ricocheted across the Internet.
For example, Cheri Jacobus, a Republican political strategist, did not think she had done anything out of the ordinary: On a cable television show, she criticized Donald J. Trump for skipping a debate in Iowa in late January and described him as a "bad debater." Trump took to Twitter, repeatedly branding Jacobus as a disappointed job seeker who had begged to work for his campaign and had been rejected. "We said no and she went hostile," Trump wrote. "A real dummy!" Trump's campaign manager told the same story on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." For days, Trump's followers replied to his posts with demeaning, often sexually charged insults aimed at Jacobus, including several with altered, vulgar photographs of her face.
It is not just that Trump has a skill for zeroing in on an individual's soft spot and hammering at it. It is that he sets a tone of aggression against the person, and his supporters echo and amplify it. Jacobus sent a cease-and-desist letter to Trump and his top aide, citing electronic messages that showed the Trump campaign had courted her and not the other way around. "I have been trashed and ruined on Twitter," Jacobus says adding that Trump's lawyers had responded to her letter, but that they had not yet reached a resolution.
This week, Trump sent out a menacing message on Twitter about the Ricketts family, a wealthy clan of Republican political donors, after it was reported that Marlene Ricketts donated $3 million to a group opposed to Trump's candidacy. "They better be careful," Trump wrote of the family, "they have a lot to hide!" "It's a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom," Marlene Ricketts's son, Tom, later told reporters.
"At what point does it cross the line into something that's defamatory and might be actionable?" says Parry Aftab, a lawyer who leads the Internet safety group WiredSafety. "At what point does it cross the line into encouraging violence against groups and individuals?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2016, @11:41PM
Ok, name a victim of a right wing ragemob.
Obama.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Monday February 29 2016, @12:00AM
Forgot that one, we certainly No Platformed that loser. We even cost him his career. Poor bastard was forced to live in a sleeping bag under an overpass. Yup, we are so proud of that action, some of our very best work.
[/sarcasm]
Spin again AC.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @12:28AM
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Monday February 29 2016, @12:48AM
The first 'birther' came from the Clinton camp. I know she was a "Goldwater Girl" but are you really tainting her for life on that one?
Seriously, the birther thing was a red herring thrown to mislead the more gullible into missing the elephant in the room. Just from Mr. Obama's (ghostwritten) sorta autobiography we know his Father was never an American citizen and never entertained the notion. Meaning that on the day Obama Jr. was born he had Kenyan and by extension UK citizenship to go with American through his mother. Adopted by his Indonesian stepfather (again, just relying on Mr. Obama's own account) he acquired Indonesian citizenship. Upon exit from the White House next January he could walk to any of those nation's embassy and ask for papers; by the laws of all three of those nations, fully recognized by our own laws, he would be cheerfully served and welcomed home. The Natural Born Citizen clause was clearly intended to prevent those with divided loyalty from assuming our most important office. If a quad nationality citizen of the world like Obama qualifies the clause clearly has no discernible meaning. But everybody ignored the obvious and went off chasing phantom rabbits of a miracle Kenyan birth. No, all the evidence points to the Seattle area and that is the U.S. last I checked.
his religion
Where is the evidence that he is a Christian? We know he was raised Muslim for several years by his stepfather and he won't stop telling us about the Dreams from his Father, who was a Muslim into converting to Communism. Reverend Wright certainly isn't one, he is a Communist pretending to be a Protestant minister and part of an unholy Trinity including Phflager pretending to be a Catholic Priest and Farrakan pretending to be an Islamic cleric.
As for Obama's ties to terror, the LA Times to this day admits it is sitting on video of Obama attending a dinner to honor one.
In short, the case against Mr. Obama was and is strong and mostly incontrovertible. His voters are like Trump's though and do not care.
But forget all that, attacking a legitimate political figure is not a twitter ragemob action. Ragemobs are when some poor bastard nobody has ever heard of says or does something that is suddenly deemed the crimethink of the day and destroyed.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @01:03AM
we know his Father was never an American citizen and never entertained the notion.
Trump's mother was not an American citizen. There are serious questions about Trump's eligibility [redstate.com] to be President.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @02:14AM
But forget all that, attacking a legitimate political figure is not a twitter ragemob action.
Wait... I don't understand. A group of people spend years repeatedly making assertions of questionable truthiness about Barak Obama with the express intent of making him lose his job, how does that not fit your definition of a rage-mob? Did you just put the "some poor bastard noone has heard of" as a technicality to cover your butt?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @02:40AM
some poor bastard noone has heard of
I don't know what Peter Noone [wikipedia.org] has to do with any of this!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @02:44AM
;)