How the far-right group behind AFPAC is using Twitter to grow its movement
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A group of far-right youth activists looking to capitalize on a recent conference it held in Orlando, Florida, that promoted white nationalistic rhetoric, is recruiting a new round of interns into the movement by turning to one of the last major social media platforms that has yet to ban them: Twitter.
Nicholas Fuentes, a far-right online streamer who founded the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) and the Groyper movement a loose coalition of mostly young far-right extremists has been banned from nearly all major social media platforms, including YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and most recently the new voice chat app Clubhouse, which last weekend suspended Fuentes account for hate speech.
After a mob of Donald Trump supporters infamously stormed the Capitol on January 6 , Republican Arizona Congressman David Schweikert made some seemingly contradictory decisions. He voted to both affirm Arizona s election results in the 2020 presidential race and to challenge the results in Pennsylvania, two states that Democratic President Joe Biden won.
On the same day of the attack on the Capitol, Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, who represents Arizona s 4th Congressional District, and Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, both formally objected to Arizona s electoral college votes for President Joe Biden. An objection was also filed by Congressional Republicans against the electoral college votes from Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state that Biden also won. Both objections were voted down, but the process served as a litmus test of loyalty to Trump after his supporters caused a riot and disrupted Congress s certification of the 2020 election results.
Yesterday, shortly after the breach occurred, Chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party Kelli Ward didn t condemn the mob s actions, instead accusing Democrats of not properly auditing the election results. Today, in a video posted by the Arizona GOP s official twitter account, Ward blamed leftist agitators and not the attending Trump supporters for the violence. Barbarians stormed the gate. And my opinion, I think that some of those were agitators that were brought in, whether they were Antifa or BLM [Black Lives Matter] or just outright anarchists, I don t know, she said. But unfortunately, there were some foolish Trump supporters and MAGA supporters who followed along like little sheep. The people that perpetrated that violence and broke our laws have got to be prosecuted full to the full extent of the law.
A bid to recall Doug Ducey has come up short.
Adam Halleck, chairman of the group dubbed Accountable Arizona, told Capitol Media Services on Tuesday that circulators have collected only about 150,000 signatures in the effort that began in September. That is far short of the 594,111 valid signatures needed on petitions by Jan. 16 to force a special election.
Halleck said the campaign was in some ways a victim of the very thing that triggered the recall: Ducey s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said people were fearful about risking infection to go out to the places where petitions were available for signing. And Halleck said more aggressive approaches to get names on petitions made no sense.
Bid to recall Gov Ducey comes up short yumasun.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from yumasun.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.