Disinformation Nation
(What a stupid title)
Why Lie About Biden?
Biden is not the prefect candidate. Let me rephrase that. Biden is not a great candidate. Actually hold on one more try. Biden is a terrible candidate. Everything about Trump and how he campaigns would make you hope the Democratic candidate for president would be quick on their feet and able to inspire some kind of populist movement like his opponent. Instead what the Democrats have given us is an old man. An old man that has trouble completing thoughts and sentences and occasionally giving up mid word. Its not the best. But, these things are easy to point out. And we should. Pointing out the flaws in your preferred candidate (even if its just by virtue of the other guy being a fascist) is healthy and allows you to see them as people with flaws and not your savior. The Trump campaign talks about these flaws ad nauseam, but they also lie. With Biden and Trump, their flaws are evident and lying seems like something you don’t even have to do. But here we are.
Lies On Lies
Twitter is a useful medium for lying. Before anyone finds out that you are lying its spread far and wide and there is no way to run it back, even with the facts. Trump does this pretty frequently on twitter. Its sometimes benign, sometimes racist, or just good old fashioned lies.
Yesterday the Trump campaign twitter sent out a video grabbing a small portion of a Biden speech to make it seem like all he was saying was “You will not be safe in Joe Biden’s America”
The fact is, this is only part of the video. Biden was only pointing out that Trump was insisting that you will not be safe in Joe Biden’s America. Joe’s response to this is pointing out who is currently in charge of America.
“And what’s their proof?” “The violence you’re seeing in Donald Trump’s America.” -Joe Biden
The point he was trying to get across was as obvious as the spray tan rings around Trumps eyes. Its kind of hard to blame the candidate that has been condemning the violence over the past few days while the opposite is true for The Donald.
“I want to be very clear about all of this — rioting is not protesting,” Biden said. “Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change, it will only bring destruction. It’s wrong in every way, it divides instead of unites.” — Joe Biden
Trump didn't stop there. In an interview with one of the various blonde women that yell at the camera on Fox last night, he said some more big beautiful words.
THERE IS NO PEPE SYLVIA!
Trump is now leaning into Qanon and the conspiracy that there are a group of “dark shadows” behind the scenes coordinating the protests and riots. These shadowy figures are being flown in on jets full, black uniforms on, coming to your city to incite violence. The reason he cant give any more information is “It is under investigation”. You would think that the one person in the nation that can talk about any classified or ongoing investigations at any time would be able to comment on some more of this and maybe point out where these shadow figures where headed. He does not give any more information for no other reason than good ole lying. He is making it up. More importantly he is putting the seed in peoples heads that are already on board with the cabal of shadow government officials controlling the riots and giving those individuals the green light for violence against them. After all, they aren’t people according to trump. Not real people there protesting police violence, they are Bill Gates and Soros backed terrorists coming to destroy your way of life.
This kind of rhetoric has consequences. Some are immediate and others will come with time. Across the various Qanon message boards and “research” forums they where ecstatic that he validated their conspiracy. He often hints and winks and nods to it, but he is now getting more explicit. More often than not, what is considered “proof” among the Qanon community reminds me of the episode of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Charlie has a room full of pictures and yarn on every surface.
The more real world connections to their web of conspiracy the more people will hop on board. More people on board means more violence in the streets. Encouragement from the Right for people to take to the streets with guns will only end in more violence.
Biden recently came out hard against the riots. Now, you can say this is too late and that that he should have spoke up earlier, but we are currently at the point were one candidate is trying to calm the water and maybe return it to some kind of still state. The other candidate, and the other party, is lauding the shootings as an example of a patriot doing what the police cant. I think the police are doing well enough shooting people. In America, police really don’t need any help from 17 year olds across the country with less training getting into bad situations that would make them think that killing several people is justified.
Biden is attempting (albeit too little and too late) to calm those on the streets. They wont listen to him, those people on the streets are mostly younger and younger people aren’t too thrilled about the decision to make in November. In this situation, I’ll take someone trying and failing to keep the peace over someone encouraging more violence and guns on the streets.
