Let’s Go Washington (LGW) got great publicity about last Saturday’s signature-gathering rally for a ballot initiative restricting trans students’ rights.
How?
LGW claimed that the FBI had contacted the Tumwater police, saying that “Antifa-affiliated groups” were planning to disrupt their rally with acts of violence.
Just one problem: the Tumwater Police Department said that they had not received any credible threat assessment from the FBI. You can find this statement on their website: “To dispel a rumor circulating in the region, we have received no specific, actionable threat reporting from the FBI related to the event.”
So, if the FBI contacted the Tumwater police at all, they had nothing “specific” or “actionable” to share.
Did the FBI really take the time to call a local police department with nothing significant to report? Given that Kash Patel is running the FBI, and that he was unable to provide Congress with any evidence that “antifa” exists at a hearing last week, I suppose it’s possible.
But there’s a much more obvious answer: someone made up this story to get publicity for the event. It might have been the conservative influencer, Brandi Kruse, who ran the false story on her Facebook page. Perhaps LGW spokespeople ran with it to get publicity for their event, or perhaps, they made it up themselves.
LGW has a record of twisting the truth. For example, their spokesman claimed that there had been “50 documented physical assaults” against their signature-gatherers in the months leading up to the rally (you can find that on their website). However, when you click on their own link to the police reports, you find that only one of those so-called assaults resulted in charges being filed.
Here are things LGW claims are “physical assaults”: getting flipped off; someone saying a mean thing or a curse word; someone taking a flier and crumpling it up.
“50 documented physical assaults?” That’s “pants on fire” level lying.
Of course, “Antifa” didn’t show up at LGW’s rally, since Antifa does not exist. Yet the story went viral: newspapers across the country, including The Chronicle, ran it online. Kruse even came to speak at the rally.
And LGW got more publicity, a much bigger crowd, and more signatures than they otherwise would have.
Tactics like this work — especially when newspapers fail to fact check before they print. Not one smidgen of evidence that “antifa” ever made threats against LGW has emerged. So-called “Antifa-affiliated groups”? Never named. And The Chronicle has not shared the Tumwater police announcement that this was only a rumor.
Rather, the paper has doubled down, publishing a followup to the false report that the FBI called about “antifa.” I guess the Tumwater Police Department’s denial was not considered newsworthy.
If your ideas are so repellent that you can only get support by demonizing your opposition, inventing stories about fake terrorist groups threatening “real Americans” works very well — especially if you can count on newspapers to lap up the lies and regurgitate them.
Susanne Weil
Onalaska
