On October 16, Twitter user @randygdub posted this:
The next day, Gateway Pundits blogger Jim Hoft posted screenshots of the satire tweet with the headline: “POSTAL WORKER Brags Online About Destroying Trump Ballots”.
The fact that @randygdub’s profile says he’s California-based, thus unlikely to work in an Ohio post office, was not mentioned. In fact, a quick scroll of @randygdub’s tweets show plenty of tongue-in-cheek political humor. Why would a person admit to a federal offense like vote tampering on Twitter?
Nontheless, major right wing media rushed to spread the “news”. The Drudge Report linked to Hoft’s post on the front page. Rush Limbaugh’s radio show coverage of @randygdub’s tweet included accusations about the liberal media ignoring the story and the Democrats looking the other way.
The Ohio Secretary of State even asked the United States Postal Service to investigate the matter. The USPS had already been contacted by Trump supporters demanding an inquiry. As late as October 19, the Postal Service was still responding to their requests.
Donald Trump’s remarks at a Colorado rally on Saturday continued to reflect his theme of “vote rigging” by casting doubt on the state’s mail-in ballots.
“Like people say, ‘Oh here’s a ballot. Here’s another ballot, throw it away. Oh, here’s one I like. We’ll keep that one.’ I have real problems.”
Trump then intoned,
“We have a lot of people watching you people that collect the ballots.”
At this writing, Hoft’s blog post still hasn’t been retracted. There’s an addendum at the bottom:
“UPDATE: So this Twitter user now says his tweet was a joke.
Because voter fraud is funny?
I’ve seen people get banned from Twitter for less than this.“
It’s possible that neither Hoft, Drudge, or Limbaugh didn’t investigate the tweet before publicizing it. Trump and his mouthpieces may have chosen to ignore the possibility that the debunked tweet was a joke. The story fits with Trump’s claims that the election is “rigged”. It certainly helped to further inflame his base, so maybe they just went with it anyway.
Don’t the American people deserve honest media?
Here are Donald Trump’s comments about mail ballots, the media (“dishonest people in the back”), and poll monitoring from his 10/29/16 rally in Golden, Colorado.
Image is a YouTube screengrab.
