In a new report, the Anti-Defamation League blasted a “dangerous feedback loop of falsehoods” spread by former President Donald Trump and “his allies and right wing disinformation artists” about the 2020 election.
The ADL’s Center on Extremism report, “A Year After the Insurrection, 2020 Election Lies Continue to Animate the Right,” examined the months since the January 6 Capitol riot, noting that “conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election are alive and well.”
“These lies have the potential to fuel future domestic extremist attacks,” the ADL said in a statement.
In the study, the ADL examined multiple “stolen election” narratives in order to research how “lies about ‘rigged’ elections have spread across mainstream outlets and social media platforms.”
They also took a look at three types of messaging that is flooding the “right wing ecosystem with abject falsehoods about the 2020 election.”
The news media, social media and politicians, “are often synergistic" with each tending to "amplify the other two,” the study explained.
“There’s a dangerous feedback loop of falsehoods, amplified almost daily by the former president, his allies and right-wing disinformation artists, that has created a highly combustible environment that is ripe for political violence,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. “That means there’s a very real danger that the proliferation of this conspiratorial rhetoric could lead to further violence against our nation’s institutions or elected leaders and act as a gateway to extremism that threatens marginalized communities.”
The report stated that of the 727 people arrested for involvement in the January 6 capitol riot, 155 (or 21 percent) “have ties to a wide range of right wing extremist groups and ideologies, including the far right Proud Boys, anti-government Oath Keepers, QAnon and white supremacy.”
However, the ADL noted that it was “even more alarming” that 79 percent of the individuals arrested had no known ties to extremism, “suggesting that a significant number of seemingly ordinary Americans decided that mob violence was an appropriate means of achieving their political objectives.”
“Every American – Democrats, Republicans, independents and unaffiliated voters – should be concerned about the constant stream of misinformation and lies that has the potential to animate the same sort of extremists who stormed the Capitol on January 6, to commit further acts of violence,” Greenblatt.
The report also shed new light on the use of social media to promote the “stop the steal” movement and link President Joe Biden with the phrases “rigged election” and “stolen election.”
“In the aftermath of the 2020 election, social media platforms were inundated with content alleging that the election had been stolen,” Greenblatt said. “The data shows that these conspiracies concerning the elections continue across social media, even more than a year after the presidential election.”