Trump's attempts to gaslight Americans again. And again. And again.
/Donald Trump spent the day and evening at his Florida resort yesterday attempting to gaslight the American people via Twitter.
He's clearly a desperate man.
We need to be cautious and not allow this gaslighting to work.
If you're unfamiliar, gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Trump attempts this constantly by simply, unabashedly, and shamefully stating falsehoods that Americans know are untrue in hopes that the lies will eventually crystallize into fact.
- It's why he claimed enormous inauguration day crowds when all evidence proved otherwise.
- It's why he repeatedly claims his tax cuts are the biggest in history (not even close).
- It's why he claims that immigrants commit more crimes than non-immigrants when this isn't even close to being true.
Say something often enough and uninformed, undiscerning people start to believe it's true.
Here are yesterday's examples:
These first tweets blame the Democrats for the DACA problem, even though the problem was directly and specifically caused by Trump's refusal to re-authorize DACA protections to Dreamers. We had a solution, designed by Democrats and effective for years, but Trump removed it, creating this problem that he promised not to create.
Yes he takes no accountability in hopes that Americans will forget his failure to reauthorize the protections.
These next tweets are the sign of a man who does not understand that innocent people don't constantly profess their innocence, particularly while simultaneously disparaging the very organization investigating them.
Trump says, "No collusion" more than anything else these days. He wants those words to sink into our consciousness. He wants us to believe that "The Dirty Dossier" and "Uranium" are actual scandals, when in fact none of them are relevant or meaningful. This is why he doesn't explain anything in detail. He says, "Uranium" in hopes that Americans hear that word and think, "Clinton scandal" when most don't actually understand the situation at all.
Trump has claimed for months that the FBI investigation is a "witch hunt.: Now that Russians are indicted, he cannot claim this anymore. He does not acknowledge that he was wrong. Instead, he has shifted to, "The investigation proves no collusion via these indictments."
I don't know if Trump is guilty of collusion, but he sure as hell sounds like a guy guilty of collusion.
Trump expects Americans to believe that a company that does not want to be linked to election tampering is the best source as to whether or not the ads that they accepted millions in Russian rubles to display swayed the election.
He attempts to make the VP of Facebook ads an unbiased, expert source of information.
These next two tweets are interesting. Trump (and Trump supporter Michael Goodwin) would have us believe that the indictments against 13 Russians issued last week will be the only indictments forthcoming. Yes, it's true that last week's indictments do not prove collusion. A Trump campaign official was duped by the Russians, but he did not know that he was being manipulated.
But that's one guy. One set of indictments. There could very well be many more indictments to come. Give Mueller time.
This last one is just stupid.
The Russians decided to interfere with the American elections in 2014, particularly in order to prevent Hillary Clinton to become President. They didn't know who the candidates would be, but they established operations and simply waited for the weakest, most easily manipulated, most comprimised pro-Russian candidate to emerge.
Trump appeared on the scene, the choice became obvious, and the team went to work.
Anderson Cooper took on the administration on gaslighting in relation to the Rob Porter scandal.
I highly recommend both of these commentaries.