"Shoot him dead and figure it out later"
Four years after "Stop the Steal" mobilized to subvert the 2020 election, the movement is more organized and has Elon Musk on its side.
Full story: Four years after ‘Stop the Steal,’ an organized army emerges online
Brandon Matlack, a coordinator for a group boosting former president Donald Trump’s election effort, was camped outside an election office in Pennsylvania’s Northampton County when he posted a video Tuesday on the social network X asking his 3,000 followers for help identifying a “very suspect” man he’d seen just drop off “an insane amount of ballots.”
Within minutes, his video had gone viral — cross-posted to Facebook groups, Rumble videos, Telegram channels and pro-Trump forums as visual evidence of election fraud. On X, the video raced to the top of a special “Election Integrity” feed newly promoted by its billionaire owner Elon Musk, where posts sharing the man’s face and license plate were viewed millions of times.
“A nervous operative of the Dem. cheating machine,” one X user wrote. On the social network Gab, another wrote, “Shoot him dead and figure it out later. Remember 2020 !!!”
But the man Matlack had recorded was actually a longtime U.S. Postal Service worker making a routine delivery, according to Lamont McClure, the county executive. The video ricocheting across X as proof of a conspiracy actually just showed the man doing his job. ...
“I don’t think any one of our supporters would resort to physical violence over something like this,” he said. “Our supporters are very in tune. They’re watching everything that’s going on.”
Thanks for reading. Let's talk: [email protected].
