The US sent Hamas $50 million condoms. The diversity program caused a crash on the plane. China controls the Panama Canal. Ukraine began a war with Russia.
However, no. That’s not true. It’s not stopping President Trump. In the first month after he returned to power, he once again demonstrated his brave willingness to boast of distortion, conspiracy theory, and complete lies.
Trump has long been unsure of the truth when it comes to bragging about his records and tearing his enemies apart. However, what was called “alternative facts” in his first term was to lay the foundation for the fundamental change he moved around to reconstruct America and the world actively. His second soon became an overall alternative reality.
If the US International Development Agency is foolish enough to send prevention to Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, he insists, and it deserves to be dismantled. Such programs should be excluded when recruiting non-white men to work in the airline sector. If China manages strategic transits through the continent, the US should regain it. If Ukraine is an invader, they should make concessions to Moscow.
“One of the biggest presidential forces that Trump has unfolded is his ability to shape his own story,” says Julian E., Princeton history professor and editor of an essay book about Trump’s first term of office. Zeliser said. “We’ve seen repeatedly how President Trump justifies his actions and at the same time creates his own reality that he doesn’t trust the warnings about his decision.”
Trump has successfully sold his version of events over the years, bringing his real estate hackstelism and reality show storytelling into politics. According to Trump, he is a master of all challenges and failings are someone else’s fault.
He claimed that he built the biggest economy in history many times during his first term, so even some of his critics began to accept that it was better than it actually was. Ta. He rejected the Intelligence News report that Russia had intervened in the 2016 election on his behalf, and many supporters accepted his denial.
Most importantly, Trump has launched a four-year campaign to convince Americans that he will not lose the 2020 election when he actually does, denies one after another false allegations of fraud. But it’s all rocking, but it convinces most Republicans. According to the poll, it was stolen.
At the same time, he originally attempted to attack the Capitol on “Love Day” on January 6, 2021 by supporters who were trying to stop the transfer of power from the “vicious attack.” He’s calling it now. This revised interpretation helped him streamline the pardon for nearly 1,600 people charged, including many who beat police officers.
“Trump is a very skilled narrator and propaganda,” said Ruth Bengiatt, author of Strongman: Mussolini to the present and historian at New York University who specializes in fascism and authoritarianism. . “In fact, he is one of the most skilled propaganda in history.”
Dr. Bengiatt said that Trump’s “easy to counterarguable lies” about the 2020 election was not in the “one-party state or authoritarian context with the controlled media, but in full. He worked in an open society.” Free Press. ”
But she and other scholars said some of Trump’s themes are similar to those found in authoritarian states. “The propaganda and disinformation we see right now are not particularly new and we don’t rely on the internet,” said Benjamin Carter Hett, a World War II historian at Hunter College. “The exact same thing happened in the very diverse and vibrant German press of the 1920s and 1930s.”
Trump’s aides have long been aware of his intake trends, either adjusted or ultimately broke him. John F. Kelly is the longest serving White House chief of his first term, but when Trump told his press to publicly repeat what he just created, I said. When Kelly says, “But that’s not true,” Trump will say, “But that’s good.”
Stephanie Grisham, who served as White House press secretary in her first term, recalled that Trump would tell his aides, “As long as he keeps doing something and keeps repeating it, it doesn’t matter.” And it was fooled by the staff. “Casual dishonesty was filtered out as if it were in the air conditioning system through the White House,” she wrote in her memoir.
Anthony Scarumucci, a former Trump alliance who briefly served as his White House communications director, said Friday that Trump believes fraud will be in effect. “It’s been 50 years since he’s been skewing things and distorting lies, and he’s been running away for 50 years, so why is he making lies bigger and less impactful in this last stretch?” Trump said. ?”
Exaggeration and falsehood serve strategic purposes. Trump won a clean victory in November, including a popularity vote that lost in 2016, but he didn’t win a majority and his 1.5% point margin was one of the lowest since the 19th century. . However, he says he regularly won a “landslide victory.” This helps to assert the vast popular mandate to his agenda as well as stroke his ego.
Trump, who repeatedly scammed media fact-checks during last year’s campaign, does not retreat after misleading statements and lies were revealed. Instead, he tends to double down and repeat them even after they are reported not true.
After reporters decided that the $50 million in the condom story was not true, Trump not only repeated that, but increased the total to $100 million. He also did not return after the mistaken claim that USAID provided grants to media organizations. “The “in return” to create a good story about the Democrats.” Even after learning, the money was simply for subscriptions.
Similarly, Trump never followed up with anyone without 1 ounce of evidence the day after an airborne collision between a Washington passenger jet and an Army helicopter. The Hong Kong company also operates two of the five ports adjacent to the Panama Canal, but continues to say that the passage is managed by China when it is actually operated by Panama. .
And despite repeated reports in order to support efforts to rescind the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, the United States is “the only country in the world that does this.” I keep saying that there is. Over 30 countries do that.
“Opposites will be discussing his story, regardless of how much evidence they actually have,” Dr. Zelizer said. “This puts President Trump in a permanent position of superiority as he decided the terms of the debate, not the person trying to stop him.”
Because Trump’s facts are an easy world, conspiracy theories are given as much weight as concrete evidence, and those traffic jams are allowed access that other presidents do not give. He spoke just this past week Go to Fort Knox To see if the country’s money is really there, we indulge in fringe’s suspicion that it is somehow missing.
Invited to Europe to accompany Defense Secretary Pete Hegses was Jack Posviek, a far-right influencer who promoted the lie that Democrats were running pedophile rings from a pizza parlor in Washington. . Save the expected victim. Posobiec did not go, but later accompanied Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent to Ukraine.
Trump’s recent revisionism of Ukraine’s condemnation is one of the most prominent efforts to translate his alternative reality into policies. Over the course of recent days, he said that Ukraine “started” a war with Russia in 2022, exempting Russian President Putin, a “no-election dictator” and is the country’s president. He said he called Voldimie Zelensky, the “no-election dictator.” The person who invaded his neighbor. He went further on Friday, saying, “It’s not Russia’s fault.”
By giving public sympathy for Ukraine, Trump has made a peace agreement with Putin, which gives Russia much of what he wants to do, even against the opposition by Zelensky and European leaders. It may make it easier. This reasoning is made because Zelensky is the person in charge of the war, but he is not worthy of much consideration.
One of Trump’s claims about Ukraine provides a case study in his mythology. He said that the US provides $350 billion in aid to Ukraine with three times more aid than Europe, but much of the money is “missing,” and Zelensky said, “the money we sent him.” He said he admits that half is missing.”
In fact, the US is allocated About a third of what Trump claimedfewer and less than in Europe, it is known to be missing.
The dollar figures cited for US aid to Ukraine may vary depending on how government officials present, which periods they cover, and whether they include humanitarian and economic support. .
How did Trump arrive at his claim? The White House did not respond to requests for elaboration. But Trump appears to have mentioned a recent interview with Zelensky that the president or his staff had misunderstood or distorted.
In an interview, Zelensky was asked by the Associated Press about the exaggerated numbers and he corrected them. “When Ukraine was told it received $200 billion to support the Army during the war, that’s not true,” Zelensky said. Translation by Ukrainska PravdaUkrainian news outlet. “I don’t know where that money went.”
Zelensky had not said there was $200 billion. He said there wasn’t $200 billion in the first place. Even Keith Kellogg, Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, has expressed no concern about the lack of money.We have pretty good accounting as to where it is heading. ” Certainly, the majority of US aid approved for Ukraine is in the form of weapons rather than cash.
But that’s not on par with the official White House line. When Trump makes the case, those who work for him and want to continue working for him are forced to adjust their version of reality. Even if it demands that they abandon their previous understanding of the facts.
So, former Republican MP Michael Waltz, from Florida, was now Trump’s national security adviser, but last week he was in the past about whether his boss’s current position is responsible for the war in Ukraine. urged to soften comments.
Reporters read aloud A column of opinions written by Mr. Waltz In 2023, “Putin must certainly be held responsible, as al-Qaeda blamed on 9/11.” He was asked if Waltz believes that Ukraine now shares Trump’s assessment of the start of the war, or if he believes.
“good,” Waltz said carefully.“It should not be surprising to see that we share the President’s assessment of all kinds of issues. I wrote as a member of Congress as a former member of Congress.”
And the real reality of Mr Waltz has replaced an alternative version of Mr Trump.
