An ominous disinformation attack
Using threats of personal violence to derail efforts at national security is a deliberate strategy to make the U.S. into a single-party non-democracy.
Dear friends:
Of all the news surfacing, one item is ominous: the “suspension” of the Department of Homeland Security’s governance board on disinformation. (See sources after the photo.)
DHS formed the board just a few weeks ago, in recognition of the serious threat to our communities’ safety from coordinated disinformation campaigns and misinformation spread easily via online platforms. Yet despite the evidence that disinformation and misinformation already cost lives, far-right pundits, media outlets, and political leaders immediately attacked the board, its work, and its director.
These attacks were not simply misinformation themselves (and they were). They were personal, misogynistic, with the director receiving near-daily threats of death and violence against herself and her family. She was doxxed: personal details, address, etc. shared online, amping up the seriousness of the threats.
It took about three weeks for the far right to overwhelm the legitimate effort of the Department of Homeland Security to combat mis- and disinformation. DHS suspended the board in the face of this coordinated right-wing attack, and the director resigned.
You read that correctly: the federal agency created in the wake of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in 2001, problematic since its inception, but one of the most powerful agencies involved in protecting the nation, capitulated in a matter of weeks to the very kind of attack it was trying to understand, contain, and prevent.
What is perhaps even more distressing is the willingness of right-wing politicians and power brokers to tolerate and even encourage the vicious online attacks on one individual, and on our nation’s security. If we needed any more evidence that the Republican party is no longer invested in the well-being of the country, is instead a barely disguised engine of totalitarianism, this bit of news provides it.
The strategy of personal attacks and threats of violence is serving the far-right in taking over school boards and election boards across the country. It is quite openly planting the seeds of a totalitarian takeover, ensuring single-party rule, while the powerful Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) celebrates exactly such a government by meeting in Hungary.
Folks, criticizing Russian aggression while celebrating white Christian nationalism in Hungary is hypocrisy. Using threats of personal violence to derail efforts at national security is a deliberate strategy to make the U.S. into a single-party non-democracy.
Attacks on civil rights, bodily autonomy, and the freedom to vote are multiplying. Our generation is called, for better or worse, to uphold the struggle for inclusion and human rights here at home. Let’s join hands and march forward, as our ancestors did, as our elders have done, as our children and grandchildren need us to do.
Be safe and well, and let your voice be heard.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/18/disinformation-board-dhs-nina-jankowicz/
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099848240/dhs-disinformation-group-pause
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/05/19/bringing-cpac-hungary-betrays-origins-conservative-movement/