Stop the normalization of blatant lies and anti-Muslim rhetoric by radicalized legislators.
- Action #1: Flood House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s phone lines
- Action #2: Email/Call your legislators and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to censure Reps. Boebert and Greene.
- Action #3: Email Parag Agrawal of Twitter.
- NEW – Action #4: Tell your senators to pass H.R.5665 – Combating International Islamophobia.
Update: More than 400 Hill staffers demand House leaders act after Boebert’s anti-Muslim remarks
Why is this taking so long? We’ve seen the damage that Trump’s toxic rhetoric has caused. We rushed in to tell Congress that Gosar’s taxpayer-funded snuff film featuring AOC and President Biden wasn’t acceptable.
Now we need to stand behind Rep. Omar (D-MN) who is the target of Rep. Lauren Boebert’s repeated racist and anti-Muslim lies. Boebert, a serial liar and possesor of a surprisingly long rap sheet, joins Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in the bloodsport of smearing progressive lawmakers of color with derogatory and dangerously inflammatory terms like “Jihad squad” and “terrorist.”
What Boebert and Greene are doing is the essence of stochastic terrorism – “the use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.” The stochastic terrorist may deliberately incite violence or simply be indifferent to its possibility. In either case, the danger posed is very real, if somewhat intangible (until it is too late).”
Psychologist Valerie Tarico provides a succinct formula for stochastic terrorism, a pattern we are already well acquainted with by having a practitioner as our last president:
- Demonization – a figure with a platform targets a person or group to be blamed for real or imagined ills.
- Dehumanization – with repetition of the demonisation, the target loses their personhood in the eyes of the audience, becoming a monster or symbol of evil and depravity.
- Desensitization – violent language and imagery is used in discussion of the target, and while no direct calls to use violence are issued, violent speech becomes an accepted part of the discourse.
- Denial – when violence occurs, the stochastic terrorist denies any responsibility, pointing to their lack of direct involvement or instruction.
(Watch the video at the bottom for an example of how the rhetoric of Trump and his right-wing media pets created a terrifying reality for a temporary election worker in Georgia.)
INDIVISIBLE VENTURA 