Matthew Sheffield
@mattsheffield
Followers
47,719
Following
2,528
Media
7,139
Statuses
52,220
Founder: @DiscoverFlux . Podcasting: @TheoryChange , @doomscrollshow , @STJH_pod Subscribe:
Los Angeles
Joined August 2008
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
어린이날
• 504551 Tweets
こどもの日
• 468705 Tweets
子供の日
• 129831 Tweets
#光る君へ
• 96195 Tweets
#鬼滅の刃
• 87124 Tweets
GW最終日
• 66855 Tweets
KRIST SINGTO GOLDENSONG
• 52780 Tweets
Dhoni
• 46129 Tweets
予選突破
• 45928 Tweets
May I Love Patrick🩵
• 25567 Tweets
Thala
• 24716 Tweets
Al Jazeera
• 23873 Tweets
予選通過
• 21237 Tweets
كرم ابو سالم
• 16788 Tweets
連休最終日
• 15880 Tweets
えーりん
• 15699 Tweets
四塩化一黄酸
• 14183 Tweets
GW終わり
• 13778 Tweets
柱稽古編
• 12237 Tweets
Santner
• 11456 Tweets
#アンチヒーロー
• 11395 Tweets
La Salle
• 10048 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
I've never said it publicly, but I personally was caught up in Donald Trump's secret deal with National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.
Telling the story now for the first time
@VanityFair
6
82
176
1/2: In 2020, Trump called Democrats "fascists" in '20 while surrounded by military officials.
No one remembers it bc Dems didn't feel threatened by his false claim.
Today, MAGA Republicans are angry at President Biden for a similar remark. Because they know it's true.
4K
29K
84K
Actually, Susan Collins was half right. Trump did learn a lesson from his impeachment, that GOP elites would tolerate and defend any criminality by a Republican president.
229
6K
33K
BREAKING: Ben Paris, the chair of Florida's Seminole County Republican Party, was convicted of illegally setting up a fake progressive candidate to siphon votes from Democrats in the 2020 election.
499
7K
19K
Texas has so many additional taxes that its burden is actually higher than California's for middle-class people.
California's taxes on rich people are significantly higher than Texas. That's actually why GOP commentators whine about CA taxes
325
5K
16K
As a former conservative activist and journalist, it has been so frustrating to see my former compatriots spreading wild and unchecked claims about "voter fraud."
@jacknicas
of the NYT took a deep look at claims of "dead" people in Michigan voting. Link in next tweet.
509
5K
16K
The New York Times bought Wordle. Here's an exclusive inside look at the gameplay of the first answer they've chosen.
174
2K
14K
Thread: The biggest power that right-wing media has over its audiences is what it doesn't tell them about.
It's a very deliberate strategy that is frequently used to control what the GOP voter knows about.
341
3K
12K
A little known fact about Scott Atlas, Trump's top COVID adviser, is that besides having no credentials in public health or epidemiology, he works for a creationist think tank.
356
5K
11K
Rudy just blew up his entire defense that this was a Biden partisan hit job.
If his timeline is correct, Bill Barr approved the warrant, long before Biden was even the Democratic presidential nominee.
195
3K
11K
NEW: Former Trump official Adam Hageman pleads guilty to possession of child porn, will serve 5½ year prison term.
857
5K
10K
Jack Smith's charging document against Donald Trump systematically dismantles every one of the legal tap dances Trump has trotted out.
-He did not secure the documents
-He didn't declassify them
-He knew he had not declassified them
-He showed them to others
(1/2)
78
2K
11K
2/2: There are 3 main kinds of Trumpers:
❌ Foolish
❌ Evil
❌ In denial
That last group knows Trump is a fascist & wants dictatorship.
When Biden & others call out what the far-right actually wants, this pops the tender bubble of self-delusion. It's why they're so angry.
325
2K
10K
Dan Crenshaw and Mike Pence have had to learn the hard way that fascism cannot be bottled and used without it blowing up in your face. Both have now faced threats from violent assailants to hang them.
Confrontations like this will become a regular feature of Republican politics.
956
2K
9K
Never forget that the person most responsible for Jeffrey Epstein evading capture was Republican US Attorney Alex Acosta.
Acosta parlayed his handling of cases into becoming Donald Trump's Secretary of Labor.
Every right-wing accusation is a confession. Always.
2007: Alex Acosta, later to be Donald Trump's Labor secretary, made a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein that barred even his victims from learning about it.
149
2K
4K
129
3K
8K
Thread: The booing of Charlie Kirk, Don Jr, and Kimberly Guilfoyle by alt-right activists was the culmination of a month-long campaign that received no press attention.
104
2K
7K
It appears that Donald Trump's NFT image of himself as a cowboy comes from an Amazon image that was slightly altered.
795
2K
7K
Truth for conservative journalists is anything that harms "the left." It doesn't even have to be a fact. Trump's numerous lies about any subject under the sun are thus justified because his deceptions point to a larger truth: that liberals are evil.
49
1K
6K
I'm grateful to Bill Ackman for becoming the latest oligarch to reveal himself as a broken-brained tool who didn't earn his money through intelligence.
He's now inadvertently blown up his entire crusade against Claudine Gay by claiming that everyone is a plagiarist.
121
1K
6K
No surprise: More than half of the main RFK political action committee's revenue came from a Trump mega donor. Kennedy is a Republican stooge.
399
2K
6K
If you wondered how Trump intimidated Ukraine, he just provided a demonstration on live TV when discussing how he won't help Washington and Michigan unless their governors kiss his ample behind.
360
3K
6K
I eventually realized that most people who run right-dominated media outlets see it as their DUTY to be unfair and to favor Republicans because doing so would some how counteract perceived liberal bias.
35
776
5K
This became evident to me as I saw that conservative-dominated media outlets were MUCH more biased than outlets run by liberals. The latter had flaws that arose from a lack of diversities (note plural) but they operated mostly in good faith. That's not how the former operated.
54
707
5K
Just as a for-instance of this point, most people have no idea that the top two Trump White House figures, Mike Pence and Mark Meadows, think that biological evolution is a lie.
90
1K
5K
NEW: Trump supporters increasingly likely to face hundreds of millions in losses as shell company $DWAC trying to acquire Truth Social fails again to stave off mandatory liquidation
353
1K
5K
I also discovered as I rose through the right-wing media ranks that most conservative media figures have no journalism training or desire to fact-check their own side. I also saw so many ppl think that reporting of info negative to GOP pols was biased, even if it was true.
31
709
5K
Jeanine Downie, a Democratic voter from New Jersey, absolutely lacerated Fox host Pete Hegseth about Republican book banning and censorship laws.
We'll likely never see her again on Fox after this. Democratic politicians should watch and learn. Video via
@mmfa
284
1K
5K
Dutch government confirms: Ethical hacker guessed Trump's Twitter password twice, but won't face prosecution.
First time it was "yourefired," second time it was "maga2020!"
Any guesses about what the password is now? Correct answers only.
3K
1K
5K
While I was enmeshed in the conservative media tradition, I viewed lefty media thinkers like
@jayrosen_nyu
as arguing that journalism was supposed to be liberally biased. I was wrong. I realized later that I didn't understand that journalism is supposed to portray reality.
46
633
5K
At the same time, the tens of millions of people who vote Republican are not deplorable. They are misled. And the mocking and tribalistic coverage that lefty media often engage in only makes things worse. Only love can defeat hate.
658
497
5K
This thought was phrased memorably by
@StephenAtHome
as "reality has a well-known liberal bias" which is an oversimplification but is more accurate than the conservative journalist view which is that media should promote and serve conservative politicians.
20
544
5K
The fact that so many people think they're living in a Bible-themed Hunger Games is the reason the rest of us are stuck in an Idiocracy-inflected Handmaid's Tale.
68
1K
5K
Broadcast TV news covered Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" comment 18 times more than Donald Trump's vow to eliminate "vermin" who disagree with him.
This disparity is an example of what I refer to as "right privilege." Republicans get away w/any rhetoric
247
2K
5K
On an hourly basis now outside of the rage-filled lie-fests of primetime, Fox reporters are gently trying to explain to guests that they need actual evidence before accusing people of crimes. The guests, such as Gingrich, have NEVER been challenged like this on Fox.
23
557
5K
This is an extraordinarily dangerous viewpoint in light of the SARS2 coronavirus epidemic because the entirety of virology and epidemiology is based on evolution. If you think it's "fake" then you'll believe ludicrous nonsense like "herd immunity."
40
502
4K
What I did not realize until I began expanding my work into creating actual media and reporting institutions such as the Washington Examiner (I was the founding online editor) was that U.S. conservatives do not understand the purpose of journalism.
36
682
4K
While examining claims made by right-wing activists who are not credible individuals is a thankless task which elite media editors despise, this is vital and important work in this age of fake news. Here's the link:
48
854
4K
There's no such thing as an informed centrist. Most ppl who call themselves such are actually conservatives afraid of that label's (deserved) bad reputation.
The rest of them are people who don't know much of anything about politics and so drift between whoever has cooler hair…
855
997
4K
The same thing is happening with right-wing media and specious claims of voter fraud. Conservatives are willing to believe them even if there is no evidence, simply because anything negative about liberals is true. This mentality extends to the very highest ranks.
28
673
4K
It's a testament to right-wing message discipline that minor insults like "deplorables" and "you didn't build that" are talked about for years afterward as legendary slights while Trump's immature nicknames and profanities are waved off or even applauded as good politics.
73
799
4K
The
#TexasLawSuit
against 4 other states' election laws is perhaps the best evidence yet American conservatism is about will to power and nothing else. A GOP that actually believed in "states rights" would never embrace states using the feds to force others to change their laws.
217
925
4K
🧵Elon Musk has made it clear that he has no idea what he's doing with Twitter. But there's been so much chaos that I wanted to compile as much of it as I could in a column and thread.
Keep reading here or click through:
134
916
4K
🧵 Talking to Trump super fans about politics is often a surreal experience. And that's because they literally do not understand what you are talking about.
Why is that? Because Trump devotees actually believe that truth derives from authority rather than reality...
93
942
4K
The absolute state of American conservatism: Incite a violent insurrection and then blame the opposition for it.
This is literally what Nazis did with the Reichstag fire.
Rep Mo Brooks claims there was "intelligence" that "antifa was going to try to impersonate Trump supporters and attack the Capitol"
169
37
108
103
1K
4K
Photographic evidence uncovered by extremism researcher Chad Loder indicates that anti-LGBT bigot Chaya Raichik, aka "Libs of Tiktok," may have criminally trespassed on US Capitol grounds on
#January6th
67
1K
4K
Conservatives love to complain that everyone is against them: professors, journalists, intelligence officers, social media companies, and so on.
I used to as well until I considered that maybe having problems with everyone else isn't their fault, it's yours.
97
928
4K
Thread: Liz Cheney, Trump, and the epistemic collapse of fundamentalism
Liz Cheney was expelled today by House Republicans from their leadership. The defenestration has been rightfully construed as a byproduct of Trumpism in the GOP, which is true, but there's much more to it.
77
916
4K
People ask sometimes if conservative media figures like Sean Hannity or anyone associated with the Federalist could actually be so credulous as to believe unfounded and non-specific allegations of "voter fraud." But the reality is that they don't actually even think that far.
19
423
4K
White nationalist and radical militia types are interspersed throughout America's police forces. This is the sleeper story that shouldn't get lost amidst the Trump drama.
NEW: The Houston Police Department says they've identified one of their officers, an 18 year veteran of the department, as having penetrated the Capitol last Wednesday.
Chief Art Acevedo says there is a "high probability" the officer will face federal charges.
758
12K
48K
256
1K
4K
-Trump didn't cooperate & then lied that he had
-Trump lied to his attorneys
-Trump deliberately hid the docs from his attorneys
-Trump repeatedly hid the docs from FBI
I never had any faith in Mueller. If you read the indictment here, you'll see why Trump's attorneys quit. 2/2
19
400
4K
BREAKING: Florida prosecutors arrest/charge 3 more members of elaborate Republican election fraud scheme behind fake "ghost candidates" aimed at siphoning away Democratic voters:
105
2K
4K
This assumption is behind all conservative media output. They never tell you what their actual motives are. Most center-left people don't realize just how radical many conservative elites are, largely because they don't wear it on their sleeves.
18
410
4K
I eventually realized that many conservative activists were committed to identity rather than ideas. One of my friends literally told me in 2016 that he would support Cruz bc "that's what the Christians are doing."
34
385
4K
@reckless
Hanlon’s Razor remains the best heuristic for understanding radicalized libertarian bros like Elon Musk. It was always an immature and simplistic worldview, but because he was born rich, people mistook that for intelligence.
60
257
4K
As the co-creator of NewsBusters, the most prominent anti-media website, I was part of a decades-long tradition of complaining about media elites being "unfair" to conservative views. There is still much to that argument, but eventually I saw that I was missing context.
76
569
4K
Newt Gingrich, William Bennett, and a bevvy of GOP elected officials have no problem parroting unverified rumors as fact because conservative journalism is not about supporting conservatives, not about finding facts.
30
451
3K
@elonmusk
You're insulting the world's most beloved company as you welcome Chinese government spammers and white nationalist trolls into Twitter.
This will surely work out for you!
908
117
3K
Ted Cruz offering to plead the ludicrous & dangerous case at SCOTUS for Trump, a man he called "utterly amoral" & a "pathological liar, " shows that there is nothing he won't do in service to his political career.
Cruz is the paragon of conservatism's putrescence.
150
445
3K
Conservatives: Participation trophies for kids are stupid and wrong.
Also conservatives: Show respect for the made-up "Office of the Former President" to help Trump feel better.
68
771
3K
We're at a critical moment in U.S. politics right now because the Christian identity politics that is the edifice of Republican electioneering is teetering. Millions of Americans have for decades thought that their countrymen are evil.
27
463
3K
According to Politico, Claudine Gay faced "plagiarism accusations" while Neil Gorsuch merely "borrowed" from other authors.
I guess this is what "liberal media bias" looks like?
50
1K
3K
How American conservatism dies is the most important story, by far, of this moment. Conventional media will never tell this story because their business is built on the lie that Trump is an aberration rather than apotheosis. That NeverTrump is righteous rather than venal.
38
430
3K
I tried for over a decade to inculcate some standards of independence and professionalism among conservative writers but my efforts made me enemies, especially when I argued that the GOP should be neutral on religion instead of biased toward Christians.
16
311
3K
Fox is the opposite of news. Here is the story they just put out after the Senate GOP blocked debate on commonsense gun safety laws.
When you watch Fox, they actively tell you the opposite of reality. It's a huge reason so many people are deluded.
122
1K
3K
Bret Baier, Chris Wallace, Martha MacCallum, and others are trying to save conservatism from itself. It's like watching a modern-day adaptation of Aeschylus or Sophocles. Sadly, the rest of us are not just spectators in this tragedy.
19
257
3K
Jack Smith's indictment of Donald Trump is so incredibly detailed that even Fox has had to admit it. 99% of the time, Fox lies for Republicans. This is a 1% time.
"It is an extremely damning indictment... It’s overwhelming in details..."
25
481
3K
Thanks for reading my rant.
If you would to see some of my writing that explores this topic at greater length, here is an older piece I wrote about the vulnerability of "own the libs" conservatism to reaction.
229
276
3K
So it appears that
@maggieNYT
&
@nytmike
wrote a profile of John Eastman, Trump's coup lawyer, but didn't recount his long record of extremist activity.
Since they omitted this crucial information, here's a short thread of what's missing in this article
117
2K
3K
PS: Here's the full Trump speech in case you'd like the context
97
670
3K
And just to clarify my point about people who are "misled."
It's the people that Trump referred to when he said "I love the poorly educated." They are the people who work hard, go to church, and feel they have no future in a secular America.
Not the leaders but the led.
126
272
3K
It's not a sexy scandal story, but the new Republican blueprint to destroy the civil service is going to create unprecedented levels of corruption in government
138
1K
3K
If you would like to get a great look at the tensions and origins of conservative journalism, there is a wonderful, fabulous book by my friend
@pastpunditry
which I cannot commend enough. My career was an updated version of what she chronicled.
12
274
3K
People who don't monitor right-wing media really have no idea about how extreme the US right's elites are.
Occasionally though, they'll admit the larger goals. In this clip, a Fox host implies that so-called "parental rights" groups are really about destroying public schools:
Fox News host Kennedy just casually suggests that public schools should be eliminated.
"A great time in our country’s history where we rethink whether or not we have public schools. Maybe we should not have the government involved in education at all."
3K
1K
7K
100
1K
3K
You can watch this play out right now on a television stage when you tune into Fox News as they cover the election. Fact-based journalists have finally realized that the identity rage of the GOP is going into a raging crescendo.
7
263
3K
This is what Christofascism looks like: Audience cheers after "Moms for Liberty" co-founder Tiffany Justice noted that a member had quoted Hitler in a newsletter. "I stand with that mom," she bragged to applause.
From this must-read
@OliviaLittle
report:
717
1K
3K
Trump's phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" is an unattributed quote of Walter Headley, Miami's police chief in 1967. It was a threat to citizens who were upset that police had terrorized a black teenager by holding him over a bridge:
86
2K
3K
🧵 Rep. Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, just became the Speaker of the House. He’ll be the most inexperienced speaker in American history. But he’ll also be the most far-right one in a long time as well.
He's an extremist in a tweed suit. Here's how...
105
843
3K
Florida Republican consultants have been exposed in court documents & guilty pleas for creating many fake candidates in order to siphon votes from Democrats. It's a much bigger story with far more people involved in whatever Matt Gaetz is accused of doing
90
2K
3K
I began work on a manuscript in 2012 fearing that Mitt Romney would lose his election because conservatives had not learned how politics actually works and that we should adapt to serve public needs and make peace with secular people.
6
161
3K
While there are many true extremists who vote Republican, many of the party's voters are low-information people who actually think that Democrats are more extreme.
This position is nonsensical given that Democrats never sent a mob to kill the vice president. But...
28
391
3K
NEW: Documents show Trump admin almost offered temporary immunity deal to
@JuIianAssagne
but negotiations stalled after
@Comey
intervened:
#infosec
#CyberSecurity
122
2K
2K
Thread: Joe Rogan fans often whine about criticism he receives as being "out of context," as in the recent controversy over him saying a racial slur repeatedly.
But the context of who he's hosted as guests is much worse. Let's take a look...
878
923
2K
Thread: Election fraud is real and Republicans keep getting arrested for it
This is a summary of my latest
@DiscoverFlux
essay:
55
1K
2K
Twitter's recommendation AI has some suggestions for me after I followed Elon Musk.
It really shows how he's gone off the deep end:
-Matt Gaetz
-Marge Greene
-Ron DeSanctimonious
-Donald Trump Jr.
-Kyle Rittenhouse
-A Fox contributor
-Miscellaneous crypto accounts
-Tesla
119
602
2K
I showed my manuscript to several people who I thought were my friends because I wanted to get the perspective of religious conservatives. Instead of helping me, some of them began trying to expel me from the conservative movement.
15
164
2K
This was an essential thing to say. Republican voters don't realize that their elites are vaccinated but have been lying to them in order to monetize ignorance.
Biden: Some of the biggest companies are already requiring this… even Fox News
258
2K
13K
31
595
2K
Rasmussen Reports is telling Mike Pence to take some tips from Josef Stalin on how to steal an election. This is the absolute state of American conservatism.
161
900
2K
Trump gave a mumbling, slurred speech claiming he's concerned about "cognitively impaired" presidents while also claiming he'd prevent "World War 2."
He did it all while speaking over relaxation music designed to lull his audience via fascistic ASMR.
Yes, it is a cult.
138
652
2K
Mini-thread: When Republicans speak of a "weaponized" DOJ or a "two-tiered system of justice," they are really describing what they want to create and what already exists--in their favor.
The record shows that Republicans like Donald Trump & Roger Stone get favorable treatment.
129
761
2K
People ask me sometimes why I bother fact-checking false claims made by people like Dinesh D'Souza.
I'm not giving it a platform. He claims to have grossed $1mil in 12 hrs so many ppl are watching
He also fears debating his ideas. So they have to be confronted publicly. 1/n
112
477
2K
I will be undertaking several projects address these and other large subjects including: a memoir of my youth in a fundamentalist Mormon household and a new magazine called Flux that will cover politics, data, sociology, and religion. Please follow to join me!
52
106
2K
@elonmusk
@SenSanders
Your entire business is built on government subsidies. And then you want to pay lower taxes than a minimum wage barista
32
313
2K
The Trump fighter jet pilot NFT seems to be a Shutterstock image. Did they license it?
93
544
2K
If you are just a regular Republican who thinks the media are hopelessly liberally biased, you know almost nothing about 1/6. You don't know that it was filled with violent gang members, that many people had weapons, and that many have been charged with sedition.
20
350
2K
You certainly don't know that literally every single one of the right-wing conspiracy theories about supposed voter fraud in 2020 have been totally debunked, or that the Trump campaign people didn't believe them either.
13
304
2K
Republicans in many states boosted numerous third-party candidates. Here's my earlier report on this epidemic of unreported election fraud
33
800
2K
🧵 American politics is severely distorted by an extremist form of reactionary Christianity which originated in the former Confederacy.
And yet this fact is almost never mentioned by mainstream media journalists, even when they are covering the events these people host. 🧵
49
628
2K
Thread: Who is funding the
#CARecall
effort to get rid of Gavin Newsom? Luxury real estate developers, radical Christian supremacists, and hedge fund fat cats.
Please join me down the rabbit hole and share, if you wouldn't mind.
64
1K
2K
The far-right group that provided the basis of Dinesh D’Souza’s pathetic fantasy film “2000 Miles” admitted in court that it has no evidence of actual crimes in the 2020 Georgia election.
Every allegation of “large scale voter” fraud has been disproven
41
896
2K