| Each day onf the 2020 campaign, Trump bacame more untethered from reality. |
| During and interview with {Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday night - 8/31/20}, Mr. Trump claimed that “we had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs, wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms, with gear and this and that.”
Mr. Trump then alleged that the people were headed to Washington, D.C., to disrupt the Republican National Convention. There is no evidence of a flight matching Mr. Trump’s description. But the claim is similar to a baseless allegation that appeared online as early as June, when a wave of cities and towns became alarmed by unsubstantiated rumors that the loose collective of anti-fascist activists known as antifa was being sent into their communities to disrupt the peace. On June 1, a man from Emmett, Idaho, posted on Facebook: “Be ready for attacks downtown and residential areas. At least a dozen males got off the plane in Boise from Seattle, dressed head to toe in black.” He claimed, “One had a tattoo that said ‘Antifa America’ on his arm.” The post was shared nearly 4,000 times. That same day, the local sheriff’s office posted that there was no merit to the rumor. In the same Fox News interview, Mr. Trump said he believed “some very stupid rich people” had been financing the racial justice protests that took place in Washington last week and around the country in recent months. The unsupported idea echoes claims spread online for months that George Soros, the billionaire investor and Democratic donor, was funding protests against police brutality. Mr. Soros has for years been cast as an anti-conservative villain by a loose network of activists and political figures on the right and has become a convenient boogeyman for many different conspiracies, including that he “owns” antifa and Black Lives Matter groups. The false notion that a shadowy cabal of Democratic elites like Mr. Soros pulls strings behind the scenes and controls the world with money is a main pillar of the far-right extremist conspiracy theory QAnon. This rumor, too, is a pillar of the baseless internet conspiracy QAnon. The theory states, falsely, that the world is run by a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles that is plotting against Mr. Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring. Source: "Trump Spread Multiple Conspiracy Theories on Monday. Here Are Their Roots." By Davey Alba and Ben Decker - NY Times - Sept. 1, 2020 {Attorney General William P. Barr's} response distanced himself from the specific claim made by Mr. Trump — one that is similar to an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that has spread on Facebook and that senior administration officials say caught the White House off guard and forced aides to seek evidence that such a plane existed. While Mr. Barr skirted Mr. Trump’s claim about a planeload of rioters, made during a Fox News interview on Monday night, White House aides have scrambled to reverse engineer what he must have meant, senior administration officials said. Officials pointed to briefings the president has received about agitators who traveled to different cities to take advantage of protests to create unrest, but no one could identify what airplane episode Mr. Trump was talking about. Source: "Planeload of ‘Thugs’? Barr Skirts Trump’s Claim but Suggests Rioters Targeted D.C." By Katie Benner - NY Times - Sept. 2, 2020 President Trump on Wednesday suggested that people in North Carolina stress-test the security of their elections systems by voting twice — an act that constitutes the kind of voter fraud the president has railed against. Mr. Trump encouraged people to send in an absentee ballot and then go vote in person on Election Day. {H}e has continued to float wild theories about extensive voter fraud that are not backed up by evidence. He has repeatedly detailed far-fetched, seemingly manufactured stories about ballots being forged. Voting twice in the same election is illegal. Source: "Trump Encourages People in North Carolina to Vote Twice, Which Is Illegal" By Maggie Haberman and Stephanie Saul - NY Times - Sept. 2, 2020 In October 2017, a user of the notoriously foul online message board 4chan, known as “Q,” posted a conspiracy theory that would change the future of American politics. Among the theory’s ever-metastasizing catalog of claims: A cabal of Satan-worshiping, child-trafficking pedophiles and cannibals seeking to dominate the world are plotting against President Trump, who at some appointed time called “The Storm” will expose these criminals and restore America to greatness. Source: "We Are Not Going to Fact-Check Our Way Out of Qanon" By Spencer Bokat-Lindell - NY Times - Sept. 3, 2020 Mr. Trump {has} embraced a small but growing segment of the Republican base by praising proponents of QAnon, a wide-ranging online conspiracy movement that has claimed that the president is on a crusade to rid the world of satanic pedophiles organized by the Democratic Party and Hollywood celebrities. “I’ve heard these are people that love our country,” Mr. Trump said last week during a White House news conference, speaking of QAnon followers. “So I don’t know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me.” Source: "Trump’s Tactic: Sowing Distrust in Whatever Gets in His Way" By Maggie Haberman and Katie Rogers - NY Times - 9/3/20 The president elevated the issue this week by taking the bait of a critic’s tweet and denying that he had “mini-strokes” last year around the time of a mysterious trip to the hospital. The matter comes up a couple of months after Mr. Trump’s appearance at a commencement ceremony at the United States Military Academy at West Point provoked speculation because he had trouble lifting a water glass to his lips, requiring him to use two hands, and he seemed especially tentative walking down a ramp as if afraid he might fall. Joe Lockhart, a White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, [posed} a question this week on Twitter: “Did @realDonaldTrump have a stroke which he is hiding from the American public?” {Mr. Trump] blasted out a tweet denying that he had “a series of mini-strokes” — oddly disputing something a little different from the stroke Mr. Lockhart asked about — and instructed the White House physician to follow with a statement confirming it. Source: "As He Questions His Opponent’s Health, Trump Finds His Own Under Scrutiny" By Peter Baker - NY Times - Sept. 2, 2020 |
No one has submitted a comment on this statement yet.
Be the first and submit your feedback below.
Submit your comment below |