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Donald Trump is always right, even when he isn’t

The whole Haitian cat-eating hoax has highlighted one of the most stunning things about the Trump era: whenever Trump makes up a story, even one that's absurd and quickly debunked, his allies immediately start up a desperate attempt to prove that he was right anyway.

In the case of Springfield, we get a picture of some guy, somewhere, carrying a dead goose. We get a stupid video of someone, somewhere, grilling something that's obviously chicken but looks vaguely like a cat. We get viral memes about Trump protecting the nation's cats and dogs. We get stories about Haitians being "dropped" in massive numbers on an unsuspecting Springfield (they came because the town wanted them to fill jobs). We get claims that a Haitian immigrant murdered an 11-year-old boy (it was a traffic accident). We get claims that the Haitians in Springfield are illegal immigrants (they aren't). Or that they were let in by Joe Biden (most have been in the US far longer). In Springfield itself we get death threats and bomb warnings against anyone with dark skin. We get claims of a huge surge in crime based on misunderstanding the FBI figures. We get claims that Haitians all have low IQs and have turned Springfield into the third world. We get J.D. Vance finally just admitting that "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do."

None of this stuff is remotely true, but Trump's fans live in a universe where everything he says has to be true, by definition. Even if it obviously isn't, they spring into action on talk radio, on Fox News, on social media, and elsewhere to flood the discourse with bizarre nonsense meant to show that Trump was right in a "deep" sense even if he wasn't right in an actual sense. It's scary.

86 thoughts on “Donald Trump is always right, even when he isn’t

  1. lower-case

    nytimes

    Donald Trump Is ‘Safe’ After Shooting at Golf Course, Campaign Says

    A shooting took place on the grounds of a Trump golf course while the former president was there, the authorities said, adding that he was unharmed.

      1. ruralhobo

        CNN two years ago, reporting on a Russian border where young men were fleeing Putin's conscription plans: "Many of those leaving appeared to be men".

    1. Salamander

      Per the Post, Secret Service agents saw a man holding a gun, so they shot at him. But in Florida, open carry is every citizen's right, particularly if male and white. The only shots fired were by government officials.

      1. Mike Masinter

        Florida is not an open carry state. We do have so-called constitutional concealed carry but not open carry save for legal game hunting.

        1. Vog46

          That would make sense. This article has some interesting diagrams in it that show Trump was on hole 5 about 150m away from Trump when the secret service opened fire. It is unknown if the suspect fired or not. It was an illegal weapon with serial number filed off.
          The Secret Service was sweeping just ahead of Trump so they would have probably seen him in time.
          Here's an interesting quote from the article:
          "Since July, authorities have increased security measures around Trump. However, because Trump isn't the current president, the entire golf course was not surrounded with security — and an agent was sweeping the grounds just one hole ahead of Trump, Bradshaw said. "If he was [the president], we would've had this entire golf course surrounded. But because he's not, the security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible," he continued.

          "They provided exactly what the protection should have been, and their agent did a fantastic job," Bradshaw added"

          Here's the article itself
          https://www.yahoo.com/news/suspect-in-apparent-assassination-attempt-against-trump-charged-with-federal-gun-crimes-heres-what-authorities-say-happened-at-his-florida-golf-course-151941099.html

          This guy sounds like a real piece of work............

  2. n1cholas

    The Republican Party supports terrorism.

    What was the slogan CPAC used?

    "We Are All Domestic Terrorists".

    They chose it, not me. Google it.

      1. Batchman

        It was actually "Extremism in defense of liberty..." but I can attest to a similar sentiment re terrorism having been expressed in the pages of the Village Voice at various times.

  3. Altoid

    A quote from a recent Emptywheel post that I think is relevant here:

    " an important fact about the cult-like following Trump has created: So long as his followers believe his strength, they will believe what he says as an article of faith. They believe in him, and so believe what he says."

    The cultists don't test the validity of what he says. They *assume* the validity of what he says-- it's a prior for them; he's their oracle and it's up to them to discover and understand the truth of what he says. Belief in him as an authority comes *before* belief in anything he says, and belief in his statements is a consequence of that authority. The pattern is a lot like Q, a manifestation of the same thing. It's pre-modern.

    (Marcy's post is a little tangential to this specific question but very germane and is here https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/09/15/how-kamala-harris-dodged-the-two-truths-problem/)

    1. jeffreycmcmahon

      I'd say it's less about actually "believing" in his authority as much as creating a social environment where dissent is impossible. It's a shared agreement to believe in absurd lies as part of the compact for inclusion in the group. If everyone agrees the Emperor is wearing fine clothes, nobody will speak up about it.

      (Apologies if this is just repeating what others have already said.)

      1. Altoid

        The way I see this, there's a group element but the primary thing is each cult follower's alignment, identification, with the cult leader. That matters far beyond any question of truth or falsity in the real world. Of course it's based on an imaginary relationship because it only runs one way, but in order to maintain it in their own minds, cultists need to agree with any BS the cult leader pumps out, even if it's self-contradictory or physically impossible. There's a group sense and people who go to his rallies talk about it, but I think it grows from that imaginary relationship each one has with trump.

        It gets more complicated when somebody like him has real power because then people have all kinds of incentives to fake being cultists and you get pure opportunism.

    1. Josef

      Imagine how bad it would be here if we experienced the same economic turmoil Germany faced post world war one? I shudder to think how bad the GOP, Trump and his cult would be if it had been.

      1. Joseph Harbin

        Germans had to endure the humility of the harshest depression in history for Hitler to rise to power.

        Republicans had to endure the humility of having a black man serve as president for eight years.

        Not that different, if you look at through their eyes.

        1. gs

          Sure, it was a humiliating treaty for Germany, but

          1) They invaded France, having violated Belgian neutrality.

          2) Essentially of the trench warfare took place in France, leaving Germany unmarked. This means all the unexploded ordnance - which still kills the unwary - is in France.

          Was France really, really pissed? Would you be?

          1. TheMelancholyDonkey

            That, and anyone who thinks that the Treaty of Versailles was harsher than the post-WWII peace hasn't really thought it through.

  4. akapneogy

    "We get J.D. Vance finally just admitting that "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.""

    That's what Trump and Vance have been doing all along - except it is about getting the votes of the gullible and the greed of one, maybe two, people.

  5. Josef

    It's a cult. It's no longer a question of if the GOP and Trump are like the Nazi party and Hitler, it's to what degree and how quickly they are changing.

  6. Joseph Harbin

    57 card-carrying Communists in the State Department
    Tax cuts that pay for themselves
    WMDs in Iraq
    Obama born in Kenya
    Benghazi
    Her emails
    They're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats

    None of it's new. All lies and distortions. It's been the Republican m.o. since before anyone remembers.

    They're nothing if not persistent. The best explanation may have been this one, published in the NYT just before the election of 2004.

    In a nutshell: "We create our own reality."

    The longer version:

    The aide said that guys like me [Suskind] were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

    --Karl Rove (likely, anonymously)

    Every so often, their shit goes too far and they'll be called on it. Kamala and Tim and the perfect team to do that now. But the media never seems to learn the lesson and lets them back in the conversation.

  7. Josef

    He's not making up stories to convince the media of anything. He's making them up to bolster and lend credibility and legitimacy to the rantings of a completely stupid man.

  8. KJK

    If given the choice between voting for Il Duce and that couch fucker vs voting for Nixon and Agnew, I would choose the latter in a heartbeat. Vance is absolutely an even a bigger scum bag than Agnew was, and Nixon was racist, antisemitic paranoid, but was also a patriot and really understood politics and international affairs. Nixon actually felt shame for some of Watergate, which was a relatively minor event compared with what that Orange Fuck Head did (and will do if reelected).

    The fact that this election is so close instead of being a land slide, like 1964, is testament to how moronically stupid a vast majority of the US is.

  9. ruralhobo

    This will sound strange, but I wonder if there isn't some pity in it. Like the people who wore adult diapers to his rallies. They're protecting him like a parent who overdoes it protects a child: no-one may laugh at my Donnie.

    I don't mean Vance who is just trying to become President For Life. But all the magats who go on social media with talk of people eating ducks and whatnot.

  10. rick_jones

    Springfield (they came because the town wanted them to fill jobs)

    Did Springfield actually court specific groups to fill jobs?

    1. golack

      Business in Springfield were looking for jobs, and they had a Haitian community there. Not sure if city leaders reached out or if businesses asked their workers if they had friends. I'd guess non-immigrants who could take those jobs could also move on to other places and make more money.

      1. emjayay

        Immigrants always tell their friends and relatives back home about how they are doing, even when it meant writing a letter and buying international postage, not going on their phone or computer and doing it paperless, immediately, and for free.

        I first got this maaaannnny years ago when I was in college at USF. The guy running the nearby corner store told me most of those stores were owned by people from one specific town in the Middle East somewhere that he was from for exactly this reason. They were probably all Chinese owned before that, and who knows what (maybe Chinese again) now.

  11. cephalopod

    Looks like the two attempts on Trump's life are by loony-tunes white guys who liked Trump. The right-wing machine is already trying to paint the latest guy as a lefty, even though he voted for Trump and was big on other Republicans.

    1. LactatingAlgore

      i knew the screenshot on kkklay travis's twitter feed, allegedly from the shooter, was not the whole story.

      or, possibly, no part of it at all

  12. J. Frank Parnell

    Two of Trump's favorite comments:

    "I know more about 'X' than anyone."

    "I know nothing about 'Y'."

    where "X" includes ISIS, weapons, steelworkers, drones, politicians, technology, ethanol wind, trade, consultants, the system, debt, banking and environmental impact statements,

    and "Y" includes QAnon, his indictments, WikiLeaks, those women, Russia, Putin, proud boys, David Duke and white supremacists.

    1. emjayay

      He said he never read the 2025 Project and knows nothing about it - and also disagrees with many things in it.

      And also has had all kinds of contacts with Heritage including having a Heritage head guy on his plane. Yeah, he'll basically say anything.

  13. Jasper_in_Boston

    For team Trump, this is all about increasing the salience of immigration as a campaign issue. Harris doesn't want to run on this issue. Trump does.

  14. MF

    Trump has now locked up the childless cat ladies vote!

    It is amazing how stupid the liberals screaming about this are.

    Almost everyone knows that Haitians are not eating cats and dogs in any significant numbers. Grabbing ducks and geese is more likely. Why not? Free food and very delicious. Remember RFK Jr picking up the dead bear. Same thinking.

    But who cares?

    1. Sputtering outraged liberals are hilarious
    2. The memes are hilarious
    3. Every time a liberal opens his mouth to Deny the story it reminds everyone that liberals have no sense of humor and that Border Czar Harris has let millions of people with cultures very different from ours to enter the US, often illegally, and refuses to deport most of them.

    In short, it's at triple win!

      1. cld

        A thing about comedy and wingnuts is that when something is funny there will always be something right about it, however shallow. Conservatives can get into the shallows, but they will almost never get it right.

          1. Josef

            It's funny he had to tie his obsession with cultural appropriation to this story. He's got a lot of crap floating around in his head. Too bad it comes out all jumbled together.

        1. MF

          Grin... not surprised that anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head. Obviously anyone who supports Israel must be a Jewish Israeli.

          I live in the Middel East. Not in Israel. Yup... in an Arab country, but in a sane one with leaders that understand the threat of Islamism and that quickly imprisons (and sometimes executes) such people.

    1. Josef

      "Almost everyone knows that Haitians are not eating cats and dogs in any significant numbers."
      "Vance said the claims were based on "firsthand accounts from my constituents" and that American media had ignored his attempts to discuss the "problems in Springfield for months."
      “In Springfield they’re eating dogs,” the former president said, referring to an Ohio city dealing with an influx of Haitian immigrants. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating … the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
      "But who cares".
      Apparently both the Orange turd and his lickspitle running mate care a lot. As it seems you do to by the amount of posts you've written.

    2. Josef

      Nobody is screaming ya ditz. We've become accustomed to the sheer insanity of Trump and his cult. And the idiocy of defenders like yourself. Just another day in Orange Kool-aid land.

    3. HokieAnnie

      It's blood libel and causing havoc in Springfield, OH.

      And polling indicates Trump will lose due to women en mass going the polls in a Oh Hell No maneuver.

  15. KenSchulz

    Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll reported by Fox News (!}: Trump 47%, Harris 43%, in a state TFG won by 10 percentage points. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-poll-shows-harris-surging-state-thought-safe-trump
    Doubt that Democrats could win Iowa, but one has to think that a shift of this magnitude (+14 percentage points compared to earlier Trump/Biden results in the same poll) is unlikely to be unique. The change is attributed in the report to higher likelihood of voting by women, especially young women.

    1. KenSchulz

      I mean, this result makes it more likely we will see significant shifts toward Harris in other states; not necessarily of this magnitude, but polls across states are correlated.

  16. MAndTillman

    The word "incorrigible" comes to mind.
    Basically, they're convinced that immigration is bad, so any way he attacks it is fine with them.
    It's rooted in racism. Back in the 60's, somehow a bunch of hippies convinced most of America that racism was wrong. How did that happen?

    1. Austin

      I think TV was more instrumental in doing this, because it did the same for lesbians and gays in the 2000s. Americans are generally OK with racism, as long as they don’t have to actually see it. Images of burning crosses, bombed out churches, firehoses and police clubs being used on peaceful protestors… all piped into America’s idyllic northern suburban living rooms was “too much” for the suburbanites.

  17. ruralhobo

    If "primitive" designates peoples who don't lie, and "civilized" people who do but still know it's wrong and thus are embarrassed when caught in the act, and who also refrain from it under certain circumstances like when under oath, then Trump brought his followers into a new state of development altogether. It's not just their relationship to the truth but, deeper, to language. Which no longer describes or should describe reality, only intent. I think they knew quite well why he spoke of Haitians eating pets: to serve his purposes. Now, to protect him, they try to show he didn't lie at all, by turning his words into reality. But behind it lies their approval of how he ditched even the pretense that words can be sacred sometimes.

    I wonder if it's just a blip that will pass when he does, or whether his supporters have durably changed. I've seen politicians lie all my life but never like this, and never with such public approval. I think of Foucault's epistemic crisis, but he wrote of one collective methodology of thought (Church doctrine) being replaced by another (Reason) during the Enlightenment, not of an episteme disappearing and being replaced by nothing at all.

  18. ConradsGhost

    The parallel between the Republican/'conservative'/Trumpian reality creation and every authoritarian and fascist movement in history needs to be broadcast relentlessly. We are fully into fascist territory here; this is not leftist hyperbole but observable reality.

    What also needs to be seen, understood, and taken very seriously is that what Trump and Vance are doing works not just with the faithful, but with folks nowhere near identifiable as MAGAnauts. Humans are for, far less "rational" and objective than anyone wants to admit; decades of sociological, anthropological, and social psychological study show this clear as day. Human behavior is far, far more 'lizard brained' and 'chimp brained' than not, especially when you're dealing with something as primal as selecting a 'chief,' even more so when one candidate and his surrogates display naked aggression and threatened violence. What they're doing works and will continue to work because Trump understands, in a primal way, how humans actually work, not how lefty liberals (like me) want to believe they work. This is going to be close, and Trump/Vance can and will pull it off unless they're cut off at the knees.

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