The Grand Illusion
The other day, Donald Trump falsely charged Kamala Harris with transferring funds from FEMA to fund aid to illegal immigrants.
Not only was this false, but as president, in 2017,Trump delayed disaster aid for hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico and diverted money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in order to finance an effort to return undocumented migrants to Mexico. Then just weeks before the 2020 election, the Trump administration released $13 billion in aid to Puerto Rico, which triggered an investigation about why the funds had been delayed for years.
In essence, Trump falsely charged Harris with (1) doing something that she did not do and could not have done even if she’d wanted to (since the vice-president doesn’t have that authority) and (2) doing exactly what he did when he was President.
Last week Trump also charged the White House with not giving aid to North Carolina because the state voted Republican didn’t support the Democrats.
That was also false, so false that the governors of the impacted states, including senators and congressmen, have stated publicly that they are getting aid and that any delays are because roads have to be cleared to reach some areas.
But again, the past reflects Trump’s charges. Trump initially refused to approve disaster aid for California after deadly wildfires in 2018 because of the state’s Democratic leanings. Trump only changed his mind when his staff pulled voting results to show Trump that heavily damaged Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa. So… once again Trump charged his opponents – falsely – with what he tried to do for real.
So… not only is Trump spewing more blatant falsehoods, but he’s also revealing how he thinks and falsely projecting his own vindictive behavior on others.
Not only that, his surrogates (MTG, I’m looking at you!) are claiming that ‘they’ (Dems and the deep state in the federal government) can change the weather to affect the areas where Trump’s voters are and thus interfere with the upcoming election! That’s nuts.
Well, OK then. If only that were true and the Dems had that power? If I were king of the weather, I’d sure not waste that talent on poor people in NC. I’d send that storm straight over Mar a Lago.
Hmm, wonder where Hurricane Milton is headed this week.
Looks like it is going north of Trump’s playhouse.
MAGA has no problem explaining beliefs they don’t like through a conspiracy theory lens as in “fake news”.
Once they get there, then they also feel completely justified in “fighting fire with fire” with lies, since in their minds, the other guy did it first.
There’s no taking the high ground with MAGA. They love any excuse for trollish behavior.
Is this still surprising to some people? Not the MAGA people who don’t believe facts, only what their leader tells them.
I thought everyone else had realised years and years ago that this is something that often turns out to be true. If hard-line Republicans accuse their opponents of something and you dig a bit deeper, very often they or their fellow republicans turn out to be the ones doing such a thing, to the point where republican accusation = confession has become a bit of a meme in some leftist circles.
As with the names of their thinktanks and pressure groups, which are often named for the opposite of what they are, or are trying to achieve, it’s sort of Newspeak – saying the opposite of what’s true, and repeating it often enough in the hope that people will believe it. Or if your opponent tries to turn the truth back on you, you can make this look like a childish tit-for-tat reaction instead of a truth bomb.
They got ahead of any serious comparisons of disaster reactions by the Trump and Biden administrations, and can now derail onto this “No you did it” “No you did” to avoid this influencing voters.
It’s a very well-worn playbook by now.
Someone here might like to take a look at Dan Rather’s views on this, as he wrote in his latest newsletter Steady, which includes a link to the extra Rumor Response page FEMA has had to set up, to counteract the lies.
https://open.substack.com/pub/steady/p/a-hurricane-of-lies?r=wu9wp&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email