AMERICAN’S ARE BEING TRICKED INTO DONATING TO A LOST CAUSE

 

              …Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPIllow is promoting Donald Trump’s “big lie”

 

Millions are being spent to support a “lost cause”

 

There is a new film called “The Deep Rig”.  This is a bazaar movie, produced by the former Overstock.com chief executive Patrick Byrne for $750,000.  The movie is set to be released online.  The latest production by a loosely affiliated network of figures who have harnessed right-wing media outlets, podcasts and the social media platform Telegram.  This is all to promote the falsehood that the 2020 election was “rigged.”

The baseless assertion, backed by millions of dollars from wealthy individuals, is reverberating across the alternative media, five months after Trump and many of his backers were pushed off Facebook and Twitter.  The reason is for the spreading of disinformation that inspired a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol.  While largely unnoticed by many Americans who have accepted the fact of President Biden’s victory, the deluge of content has captured the attention of many who think the election was rigged, a belief that is an animating force inside the Republican Party.

The slickly produced movie trailer, set to ominous music, cuts from scenes of the 2020 election to clips of allies of former president Donald Trump describing a vast conspiracy to steal the White House.

In this world, ballot reviews like a Republican-commissioned recount now under way in Arizona are about to begin in other key states. Conspiracy theories that grow more dizzyingly complex by the day will soon be proven, showing that China or other foreign powers secretly flipped votes for Biden, and that Trump will be restored as president in months.

These falsehoods are now seeping into civic life, spurring citizens in multiple states to demand that local officials review the 2020 results.

Kim Wyman, the Republican secretary of state in Washington, said her staff contended with the latest barrage of email and calls just last week. “It told us something had transpired online,” she said, adding: “You can’t disprove the negatives that are being thrown out that are absolutely based on nothing.”

The echo chamber is being sustained by figures such as Mr. Byrne, who says he has spent more than $5.5 million to examine election fraud since November, and Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow, who regularly speaks with Trump and says he has plowed $16 million into the effort. Other untold sums have been donated by ordinary Americans to nonprofit groups that say they are focused on “election integrity” and tout what has been dubbed the “big lie” about the 2020 election.

Their claims have been popularized by a steady stream of attention from far-right media outlets, including a daily podcast hosted by former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon. And they are being reinforced by Trump, through a flurry of statements issued by his Political Action Committee, and at rallies around the country, including one hosted by Lindell this month in Wisconsin that featured a live video appearance by the former president.

“They have their own version of YouTube, their own message groups. They have their own whole set of publications. … You have to wonder what percent of America is even aware of this shadow reality world,” said Harri Hursti.  Harri is a cyber and elections expert who in recent days has devoted his Twitter feed to debunking a stream of falsehoods about a local ballot audit in New Hampshire. “Not only is it organized, but you have to think: How much money is needed to keep it going?”

Byrne characterized the forthcoming “Deep Rig” movie as a weapon in an “information war.”  “Those who don’t understand why this movie is important do not really understand the battlespace in which we fight,” he wrote in response to any skeptics.

The constant stream of purported evidence being cited by pro-Trump allies helps keep true believers engaged.  This is according to University of Washington associate professor Kate Starbird.  Recent polls show that more than 6 in 10 Republicans think Biden won as the result of fraud, a figure that has held steady months after Election Day.

“My worry as a researcher is that this is going to continue to be a prevailing belief system about how democracy works, and that people … will continue to have doubt and grow skeptical of the validity of the elections that we have,” said Starbird, who studied the spread of disinformation after the November election.

Trump won a comfortable 56% of the vote in Houghton County, Mich., a rural area on the northern edge of the state’s Upper Peninsula, bordering Lake Superior.

But then a film produced by Lindell called “Absolute Proof” that aired on the pro-Trump One America News cable television network falsely claimed that 1,143 of the roughly 18,500 presidential votes cast in Houghton County had been switched for Biden via remote manipulation.  This is part of what the film asserted was a broad plot to hack into the election.

What happened next was a vivid demonstration of the influence of those promoting the “big lie.”

Although there had been no indication of any problems with the county’s voting systems, the board of commissioners began facing pressure from local residents to launch a new audit of the 2020 vote.

In a May 19 letter to Republican state Sen. Ed McBroom, who chairs a legislative oversight committee investigating the election, county Administrator Ben Larson wrote the board “has continued to receive requests to have this matter looked at … since the Lindell documentary aired.  Sen. This claim has led to an overall questioning of election integrity,” Larson added.

In response, Sen. McBroom appeared by Zoom at a commissioners’ meeting earlier this month, attempting to puncture Lindell’s theories. “We are finding zero evidence to support that,” he said. “What keeps on being postulated is something that is just not possible.”

Nevertheless, as the meeting ended, a member of the audience spoke up. Would the commissioners still consider a local audit, he asked, if members of the public funded it through donations? A board member responded that although legislative input was likely to be needed, the board might consider the idea.  Houghton is one of several Michigan counties where residents continue to push for ballot reviews, citing Lindell’s claims.

“I don’t know if the November 2020 election will ever be gone,” said Houghton County Clerk Jennifer Kelly, who said she has offered to allow commissioners to examine voting machines to demonstrate they are not connected to the Internet, as Lindell has falsely claimed, but to no avail.

The state Senate committee chaired by McBroom released the results of a seven-month-long investigation of Michigan’s election results, which included testimony from 90 witnesses. The report concluded there was “no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud” and warned of “those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain.”

Lindell, who touts his improbable journey from crack addict to wealthy pillow entrepreneur, emerged immediately after the election as a leading disseminator of false allegations about the vote. He funded a bus tour in November and December to spread his theories, appearing frequently on pro-Trump cable networks. In January, days before Biden’s inauguration, he was photographed entering the White House with a document that referred to “martial law if necessary.” Twitter has permanently suspended him for amplifying misinformation.

Lindell’s claims have been repeatedly rejected by independent experts and investigators and by Democratic and Republican election officials in multiple states. He faces a $1.3 billion defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems, a company that manufactures the machines at the heart of his allegations.  He was also barred from attending a recent meeting of the Republican Governors Association after he vowed to confront officials there with his false claims.

But none of that has quieted him. Lindell believes that the evidence he and his experts have collected is overwhelming and will convince any reasonable person who takes the time to review it. He said in an interview that he persists “so there’s no more of this craziness going on in our country.”

He waves away those who dispute his claims, saying critics are not sufficiently knowledgeable about the data he has obtained. “The people you have asked haven’t a clue,” he told The Washington Post in a text message.

Lindell says “white hat hackers” slipped him vague information on Jan. 9 that he claims proves the election was manipulated. “People were in the twilight zone about what happened,” he said. “And then what a Godsend: people had this evidence.”

On June 3, Lindell released a new film online called “Absolute 9-0,” which argues that soon-to-be-revealed information will be so compelling that the Supreme Court will be forced to unanimously reinstate Trump as president.  Of the $16 million that Lindell said he has spent so far, he said $10 million has gone into “Frank”.  This is an online video and social network channel that got off to a glitchy start last April, but that Lindell predicted would “put both Twitter and YouTube out of business.”  It is doubtful that will happen.

“I will spend every dime I have, if I have to, to get the truth out because I love this country,” he told The Post. Lindell acknowledged that he has established a legal defense fund so that “all those people who say they want to help” can put their money somewhere, but added, “I’m not looking for any money.”

Lindell is now on a “big lie” speaking circuit of sorts, appearing at rallies and public festivals sponsored by Frank and other similar entities in swing states such as Michigan and Wisconsin. He says he will hold a major rally in July in Pennsylvania to push for an audit there. And, he says, he is planning a three-day national seminar to reveal his findings later this summer.  This is one he hopes will be covered live by major news organizations.

Lindell said that he speaks to Trump every few weeks. “He is so much interested in Maricopa, in all the audits going on in the states,” Lindell said, referring to the recount of presidential election ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest jurisdiction.

Trump advisers confirmed that he is in regular contact with Lindell. The former president likes that Lindell is “out there fighting for him, throwing bombs and keeping hope alive,” according to a person close to him, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Earlier this month, Trump appeared by video at a Frank-sponsored rally in New Richmond, Wis., that drew thousands to a riverside fairground where they listened to speakers against the integrity of the election. Amid the booths for ice cream, hot dogs and face-painting was one for Lindell’s company MyPillow.

“The election was rigged,” the former president told the crowd. “The election was rigged like never before.”

Lori Brown, 52, whose children were volunteering at the event, said she believes the 2020 election was stolen. “I say that a little cautiously,” said Brown, who lives in Somerset, Wis. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I’m not a crazy, as a lot of us are called. But I definitely am a conservative Christian and believe in standing up for our rights as Americans.”

The New Richmond crowd was full of devotees decked out in Trump gear who said they had converted their media habits away from mainstream sources, including Fox News.  They are ditching YouTube for Rumble, an alternative video site that has become popular with conservatives, and they are trading in Twitter for Telegram.

“We all love Mike Lindell,” said Marianne Norris, who drove six hours to the event from the western suburbs of Chicago.

She said she follows Frank, as well as One America News and sometimes Newsmax, and watched all four of Lindell’s films about the 2020 election, including the most recent, “Absolute 9-0.”

“That one will just blow your mind,” she said. “There’s nothing subjective. It’s based on irrefutable data by high levels, they call them, computer hackers.”

Experts who have reviewed the material have called it “technical nonsense”, featuring anonymous self-proclaimed computer experts who claim that spreadsheets of indecipherable numbers that scroll quickly on the screen prove their hacking theory.  But they do not detail how. (Lindell says the footage is intended as an illustration and that the data itself will be revealed later.)

“It’s the utmost hogwash,” said Hursti, a computer programmer who has worked to make voting machines more secure. “But it doesn’t have to make sense — for some people, that makes it more believable.”

Overstock.com chief executive Patrick Byrne, the producer of “The Deep Rig” movie — posted a note to his 126,000 followers on the social media app Telegram revealing that Lindell would soon be filing a new lawsuit.

The suit, Byrne promised, would put forward fresh evidence of fraud in the election — part of an intentional strategy, he told followers, to keep them hopeful and engaged.

“Mike Lindell and I agreed a month ago that I would keep you folks in a state of informed anticipation, and as information gets released I would amplify and provide color,” he wrote. “So I have tried to do that, letting people know that they should not give up hope, the things were in progress, but without overstating or giving too much away.”

After the November election, dozens of judges,appointed by both Republicans and Democrats.  But Byrne and his allies note that some courts did not engage the substance of the fraud claims. And they point to what they say are suspicious patterns, such as spikes for Biden as ballots were being tallied in key states. Elections experts say such patterns can be easily explained, but Byrne called such dismissals “facile bromides” that are not reassuring to him or millions of other Americans.

“Let’s just open the boxes and find out,” Byrne said, adding that there should be more ballot reviews like the one in Arizona.

“Every day it’s going to continue, as we pound through Georgia, as we pound through Arizona. We’re going to start pounding through Pennsylvania,” Steve Bannon said as he opened a recent show, arguing that the continued focus on the election and the origins of the coronavirus have dented Biden’s approval ratings in a way that will hamper his ability to enact his agenda. “We can stop the program by focusing on 3 November. … Get to the bottom of 3 November.”

The Arizona state Senate spent $150,000 to pay for the audit, but organizers have said that figure is a fraction of the full cost of the operation. So private donors are helping finance the effort through nonprofit groups that have promoted the false claims about the 2020 election.

Chief among them is the America Project, which Byrne said he and Michael Flynn co-founded and now employs Flynn as a paid “special adviser.” Byrne told The Post that the nonprofit group raised $1.2 million for the recount and that he gave another $500,000 directly to the audit effort.

“I don’t have the money to stop this by myself. This is going to take tens of millions of dollars, this whole effort….maybe hundreds of millions,” Byrne wrote on his Locals.com channel.

Byrne said any money left over after Arizona will be used to fund audits elsewhere. But because the group is not required to disclose information about its donors or spending, his assertions are impossible to corroborate.

Let’s face it, thousands of Americans are going to be dupped into spending millions of dollars to trying to make the “big lie” into the truth, which will never happen.  But these efforts will hurt this nation’s democracy much more than anyone can imagine.

Copyright G. Ater 2021