Lying for Social Media Engagement
An assassination in Minnesota shows how far politicians will go to mislead their followers
“When you let your news feed become inundated by grifters and charlatans, don't be surprised when what you think reality is doesn't match reality.” Jack V. Lloyd
Over the weekend, Vance Boelter, allegedly impersonated a police officer to assassinate a Minnesota State Representative and seriously wound a State Senator.
Almost immediately after the news broke, social media pundits and influencers started promoting the narrative they wanted to tell devoid of any facts on the ground.
Even though the two officials targeted were Democrats and police said that the Democrat Governor Tim Walz, Planned Parenthood, and other Democrats were on his hit list of seventy targets, it didn’t stop the lies that this was committed by someone on the far left from spreading like wildfire in the fever swamps online.
Most concerning is that the accounts spreading it weren’t random accounts. They were spread by two United States Senators, Bernie Moreno of Ohio, and Mike Lee of Utah.
Of course, the fliers didn’t mean he was a supporter of the No Kings Day protests. In fact, they jumped by providing their political advantageous talking points before they had hardly any facts.
“Mike Lee has pinned this tweet claiming that the Trump voting assassin of Democrats was in fact a "Marxist." This is less of a political matter than a sign of deep mental illness.” Tim Miller
The facts later came out as to extent of the assassination lists and that the alleged shooter was a Trump supporter and not a close ally of the Governor.
We have U.S. Senators who are more concerned about social media engagement than they are for the truth. They obviously have no shame in blaming potential victims in assassination plots and then have the audacity to make jokes about assassination attempts when they could potentially be targeted themselves as we head down the dangerous and violent path for the country.
By spreading lies about opponents, we make it more likely that violence will be committed against them.
Charlie Sykes had the following to say in his To the Contrary newsletter.
As hard as it may be to believe now, Mike Lee was not always the depraved asshole on display this weekend.
Last year, The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta wrote a lengthy profile that chronicled how Lee had descended from a respected constitutionalist to a “based” internet troll. Lee, who was once openly worried about Trump’s autocratic tendencies, transformed himself into something almost unrecognizable: an eager confederate of Trump’s attacks on democracy, and a cringey lickspittle for the convicted felon in the Oval Office.
People are pushing back on Senator Lee such as Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota who confronted Lee in person.
“I wanted him to know how much pain that caused me and the other people in my state and I think around the country, who think that this was a brutal attack,” Smith told reporters in the Capitol.
She added that Lee needed to hear from her “directly” and think about the “impact his actions had.”
“I don’t know whether Sen. Lee thought fully through what it was, you’d have to ask him, but I needed him to hear from me directly what impact I think his cruel statement had on me, his colleague,” Smith said.
And we can watch Senator Lee hide from answering questions about his love for social media engagement.
I’m not blaming the Republicans or Democrats for the shooter’s actions, but I do believe it is best to tell the truth instead of jumping out in front of news with known lies to make yourself look better and to get your social media engagement fix.
U.S. Senators should know better.