@mrundkvist

#disinformation leads to doubt, and doubt leads to a non-rational craving for clarity. So this is not a rational, logical response, but a psychological one. The democratic response that promises to negotiate a middle ground everyone can sort of agree on is a lot weaker than spouting the opinion that "obviously", "something" needs to be done "now".

"some future Gibbon chronicling the descent into authoritarian corruption of the once-republican United States of America may very well sift through the archives of our era and decide that nothing sums up our decline and fall quite like the events of May 22, 2025."

Tomasky goes on to talk about the double whammy of the Republican bill and Trump's big crypto dinner.

#Trump #authoritarianism #fascism #corruption #chaos #destruction #education #science #ignorance #disinformation #diversity
/9

"If the world still exists a hundred years from now or, even more improbably, a thousand, and people are still writing and reading something that vaguely resembles a 'book,'" (continued in /9)

~ Michael Tomasky

#Trump #authoritarianism #fascism #corruption #chaos #destruction #education #science #ignorance #disinformation #diversity
/8

https://newsletter.tnr.com/index.php?action=social&chash=2b8eba3cb0d0f1d761cb74d94a5ace36.1780&s=cdd6377d8462caad2b4695418c877aea

"He and his regime are mounting an assault on the American mind. Why? Because ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny."

~ Robert Reich

#Trump #authoritarianism #fascism #corruption #chaos #destruction #education #science #ignorance #disinformation #diversity
/6

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-i-told-the-ed-school-graduates

It’s unclear where #Trump got the video from, or who, if anyone, characterized to him what the video showed. #ElonMusk — who is originally from #SouthAfrica & is one of Trump’s *advisers* — had posted the video on the social media site X at least twice before today’s meeting.

In Wed’s meeting, when President #Ramaphosa asked where the video was from, Trump said, “I mean, it’s in South Africa.”

The misrepresentation of the footage took place during a stunning meeting in which #Trump made false claims about a genocide against white farmers. Trump dimmed the lights to play the footage, presenting it as *evidence* of racial persecution against white South Africans.

As the clip played, the #IdiotInChief said: “These are burial sites right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers.”

A NYT analysis found that the footage instead showed a memorial procession on Sept 5, 2020, near Newcastle, #SouthAfrica. The event, according to a local news website, was for a white farming couple in the area who the police said had been murdered in late August of that year.

The crosses were planted in the days ahead of the event & were later removed.

#Trump Claimed a Social Media Video Showed ‘Burial Sites’ of White Farmers. It Didn’t.

In a White House meeting on Wednesday, Trump showed President Cyril #Ramaphosa of #SouthAfrica a social media video of a rural road lined with white crosses & hundreds of vehicles.

Trump told Ramaphosa that the footage showed “burial sites” of “over 1,000” white farmers in South Africa.

#Disinformation #FactCheck #TrumpLies #WhiteSupremacy #racism #geopolitics
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/us/politics/trump-south-africa-president-white-farmers-video.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p&pvid=DE8CC19D-BEB4-498F-AE33-C0428FAEB8CF

"It was an international humiliation. And let’s be clear: this isn’t just about optics. This kind of behavior weakens our alliances, strengthens our adversaries, and makes America look more like a rogue state than a global leader.

You can bet the BRICS bloc—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—was watching this closely. So was Xi Jinping. And you can be damn sure they liked what they saw…"

~ Ben Meiselas

#Trump #SouthAfrica #WhiteSupremacy #disinformation
/5

https://www.meidasplus.com/p/trumps-oval-office-meltdown-with

On the positive side, a lot of people around the globe who have not really understood who too many Americans actually are now have the scales taken from their eyes and are seeing clearly who many of us actually are — something those of us living with these people have never had any option to pretend about or ignore.

#Trump #SouthAfrica #WhiteSupremacy #disinformation
/4

"and his government is trying to redress the enduring injustices of South Africa’s apartheid past. He even quipped that he was sorry he didn’t have a plane to give Trump, to which Trump said he wished he did."

The international embarrassment that this man is, and I'm certainly not speaking of Mr. Ramaphosa.

#Trump #SouthAfrica #WhiteSupremacy #disinformation
/3