American Thinker

American Thinker is a daily online magazine dealing with American politics from a politically conservative viewpoint.[1][2] It was founded in 2003 by attorney Ed Lasky, health-care consultant Richard Baehr, and sociologist Thomas Lifson, and initially became prominent in the lead-up to the 2008 U.S. presidential election for its attacks on then-candidate Barack Obama.[3] The magazine has been described as a conservative blog.[4][5] The Southern Poverty Law Center has called the site "a not so thoughtful far-right online publication".[6]

American Thinker
Type of businessPrivate
Type of site
News, commentary
Available inEnglish
FoundedMarch 2005 (2005-03)
HeadquartersEl Cerrito, California, United States
Founder(s)Ed Lasky, Richard Baehr, Thomas Lifson
Key peopleThomas Lifson, editor-in-chief
Ed Lasky, news editor
URLamericanthinker.com
LaunchedNovember 2003
Current statusActive

In the aftermath of Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the American Thinker published a variety of articles that had claims of election fraud.[7] Faced with a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, Lifson acknowledged that the site had relied upon "discredited sources who have peddled debunked theories".[8] The American Thinker likewise admitted that its election claims were "completely false and have no basis in fact" and that "it was wrong for us to publish these false statements."[9]

Contributors

One of the American Thinker's most prolific contributors, Raymond Ibrahim, has written over 100 articles extremely critical of Islam.[10] Another, David Solway, in the months following the 2020 presidential election, contributed seven articles perpetuating the myth of a stolen election based on evidence such as "Biden's rallies routinely featured twenty or so vehicles in a car park. That alone tells us that Biden was never in the game."[11][12] The site has been described as sympathetic to the counter-jihad movement, having published writers such as Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Paul Weston.[13]

Coverage

In 2009, in the wake of the election of Barack Obama, the American Thinker joined a wave of conservative media publications discussing the possibility of a second Civil War. They forecast the possibility of "several regional republics" emerging following the "overbearing, oppressive leviathan" of Obama's presidency.[14]

A 2008 column in the American Thinker drew attention to a California plan to require programmable thermostats that could be controlled by officials in the event of power-supply difficulties. According to The New York Times, the column was "by turns populist..., free-market..., and civil libertarian".[15]

Right Wing Watch has written about American Thinker, including that the site had in 2014 published a complimentary piece on white nationalist Jared Taylor and in 2015 asserted that rainbow-colored Doritos are a "gateway snack to introduce children to the joys of homosexuality".[16] In a 2020 blog post on the site, Thomas Lifson referenced a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters to claim that sea level rise has been slow and constant, and that this rise pre-dated industrialization.[17] This claim went viral over social media in March 2020.[18] The author of the paper describes this interpretation as factually incorrect, constituting climate misinformation.[18]

Under threat of litigation, in January 2021 American Thinker published a retraction of unsupported stories it published asserting that Dominion Voting Systems engaged in a conspiracy to rig the 2020 presidential election against President Donald Trump, acknowledging, "These statements are completely false and have no basis in fact."[19][20][21]

References
  1. "About Us". American Thinker. Archived from the original on 23 June 2010. Retrieved 2010-06-22.
  2. Groner, Danny (December 30, 2010). "The Politics of Mayor Bloomberg's Snow Removal Response". The Huffington Post.
  3. Libit, Daniel (February 18, 2010). "For the Tea Party Movement, Sturdy Roots in the Chicago Area". The New York Times. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  4. Stolberg, Sheryl Gay (March 29, 2011). "Still Crusading, but Now on the Inside". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  5. McKinley, Jesse (2007-09-13). "University Fences In a Berkeley Protest, and a New One Arises". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  6. "American Thinker Needs to Start Thinking". splcenter.org. April 24, 2014. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  7. "Conservative website apologizes to Dominion voting system after defamation letter from attorneys". WKBN-TV. January 15, 2021.
  8. Wang, Amy (May 1, 2021). "Newsmax apologizes to Dominion employee for falsely alleging he manipulated votes against Trump". The Washington Post.
  9. Corasaniti, Nick (January 25, 2021). "Rudy Giuliani Sued by Dominion Voting Systems Over False Election Claims". The New York Times.
  10. "Articles: Raymond Ibrahim Archives – American Thinker". American Thinker.
  11. "Articles: David Solway Archives – American Thinker". American Thinker.
  12. Solway, David (November 15, 2020). "Donald Trump is the only legitimate 'President-Elect'". American Thinker. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  13. Pertwee, Ed (October 2017). 'Green Crescent, Crimson Cross': The Transatlantic 'Counterjihad' and the New Political Theology (PDF). London School of Economics. p. 135.
  14. Avlon, John P. (2014). Wingnuts: extremism in the age of Obama (2nd ed.). New York. pp. 224–227. ISBN 9780991247608.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  15. Barringer, Felicity (2008-01-11). "California Seeks Thermostat Control". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 13, 2012. Retrieved 2008-10-13.
  16. "All Posts About American Thinker". Right Wing Watch.
  17. Lifson, Thomas (March 7, 2020). "New study shows sea level rise has been slow and a constant, pre-dating industrialization". American Thinker.
  18. "Sea levels rose faster in the past century than in previous time periods". Climate Feedback. March 12, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  19. Corasaniti, Nick (January 25, 2021). "Rudy Giuliani Sued by Dominion Voting Systems Over False Election Claims". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 25, 2021. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  20. Lifson, Thomas (January 15, 2021). "Statement". American Thinker. Retrieved 2021-01-15.
  21. Evon, Dan (January 15, 2021). "Did a Conservative News Site Admit Its Voter-Fraud Claims Were False?". Snopes. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
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