When supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, they were white-hot by the claim, repeatedly repeated but without any basis, that widespread electoral fraud deprived the Republican of victory in the 2020 presidential election. A year later, this lie continues.
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Donald Trump, then one of Twitter’s most powerful users, had months during and long before the election instilled the idea among his tens of millions of followers that the election could be rigged. On January 6, just before the murderous assault, he blasted an alleged electoral fraud during a meeting in front of the White House.
Twitter and Facebook suspended his accounts after the violence, and his claims have since been refuted by electoral process officials including Republicans and dozens of courts.
But opinion polls show that many Americans continue to adhere to the “big lie” that the Republican billionaire has repeatedly hammered and whose consequences go beyond January 6, 2021.
“These repeated allegations threaten the integrity and confidence in our democratic system,” warns Nina Jankowicz, a researcher with the Wilson Center think tank.
“Born on social networks”
The false information about the elections is not new. Donald Trump himself had spread it in 2016 before beating Hillary Clinton. But social networks, which take advantage of the polarization of society, facilitate their spread and allow those who believe in it to organize themselves to carry out violent actions.
“The January 6 attack was born on social media,” said Emerson Brooking, a researcher at the Digital Forensic Research Lab, a Washington-based research center specializing in the analysis of disinformation.
“The Stop the Steal movement has locked millions of people in an alternate reality and led them from mass illusion to hysteria, then to collective violence against the US Congress” .
This movement, he continues, “has become the most important thing in the world for tens of thousands of Americans.”
Social media platforms have cracked down on those who spread false information and conspiracy theories, with Facebook notably removing content with the words “Stop the steal”, and Twitter suspending tens of thousands of accounts linked to the QAnon conspiracy nebula, including adherents played an important role in the assault on Capitol Hill.
Social networks “have generally succeeded in effectively banning election-related lies,” said Brooking.
But those who believe the election was stolen are still active on both sites, and “electoral denial relies more on coded language and closed communities,” he continues.
In addition, even sidelined from Twitter and Facebook, Donald Trump maintains an online presence, including through an email distribution list that has many subscribers, and continues to maintain in press releases that the election was “rigged.”
“Winning strategy”
He also benefits from the help of eminent supporters who relay his word.
“Trump continues to make people talk about him, not on Twitter or Facebook, but via several right-wing media figures like Dan Bongino (presenter of the conservative Fox News channel, editor’s note), Bill O’Reilly (host of a conservative podcast, editor’s note) ) and Candace Owens (who hosts a talk show on the conservative site The Daily Wire, editor’s note), ”explains Yunkang Yang, a researcher at George Washington University.
And mistrust of the mainstream media means that those who think the election was stolen give no credit to journalists who prove it is not.
“Even though most of the mainstream media spent a lot of time demonstrating that the allegations of electoral fraud were false, their message no longer reaches Republican voters with the same force as before,” added Mr. Yang.
“A lot of right-wing media have fueled doubt about the 2020 election, with some bluntly claiming that it was stolen,” thus providing “an alternative space for Republican voters who have abandoned mainstream media,” he says.
And despite the fact that Joe Bien does occupy the White House, those who believe in the fraud allegations can strengthen their views on independent sites and social media platforms that thrive on the polarization of the American political landscape.
With the midterm elections approaching this year and the 2024 presidential poll in which Donald Trump could stand, no sign of improvement is in sight.
“The disinformation and electoral denial of 2020 nearly succeeded in overthrowing a democratic election,” recalls Emerson Brooking. “There is no reason to change a winning strategy.”