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Gaslighting: The Lies Media Tells About Donald Trump
Lies have been told. And those lies about President Trump – pushed by media and celebrities and political elites – have been allowed to take hold in America. And we must put an end to them. A decent society demands that lies be called out and corrected. And those who lie must be called out and admonished.
There are people out there who don’t like Donald Trump. There are people out there who don’t like what Donald Trump says or tweets. Those people exist, and those feelings are pretty normal; you aren’t going to like every person and you’re not going to like what every person has to say. If you dislike the President, however, to the point you proactively and aggressively lie about what it is he said to move your agenda? That is obscene. It is gaslighting.
The definition of gaslighting is to manipulate someone by psychological means into questioning their own sanity. Gaslighting by the media is pushing a narrative, theory or belief about a person or group of people that provides political advantage to another; and that group is the Democratic Party and the political Left. Nowhere is this more prevalent than the media vs. President Trump and the GOP, and on no subject is it more prevalent than white supremacy and bigotry in the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) went to El Paso with a message of support and healing for the community. Univision star Jorge Ramos took the opportunity to ask Sen. Cruz if President Trump should be held responsible for the violence due to his rhetoric, accusing President Trump of calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. That is a false accusation. It’s not how it went down, as you can see in this video.
That is not calling Mexicans “rapists.” Jorge Ramos’s entire line of questioning is based on a lie to push the narrative that President Trump is a racist. Gaslighting. Former Congressman Robert “Beto” O’Rourke claimed that President Trump signed an Executive Order that banned Muslim travel to the United States. The Executive Order, which has been upheld, prevented travel from nations that proactively support terrorism. If Rep. O’Rourke is opposed to that policy, he should answer for that. Instead, he gaslights: pushing the narrative that President Trump wants to keep non-white people out of the country.
Rep. O’Rourke continued, repeating a lie that President Trump laughed when someone at a Florida rally cried out “shoot ‘em” in regards to a migrant caravan heading towards the United States border. O’Rourke’s description of this event is completely false:
Former Vice President Joe Biden commented on the President and his so-called connection to and encouragement of white supremacy. Again, not true. If you don’t like what the President says or the way the President says it, that is a reasonable position. And if you want to speak out against it, that is reasonable and American. To say that the President is actively promoting white supremacy and white nationalism is gaslighting.
President Trump condemned white supremacy, but it was not enough for Joe Biden, claiming it was the first time Trump condemned white nationalism. But it wasn’t:
Joe Biden just claimed on CNN, that today was the first time he had ever heard President Trump condemn white supremacy. THAT IS FALSE. Here are MULTIPLE examples of President Trump condemning white supremacy, going back to 2016. pic.twitter.com/b3xcQI1cQf
— Francis Brennan (@FrancisBrennan) August 6, 2019
On MSNBC, Nicole Wallace made one of the most obscene statements of late, claiming that the President is talking about exterminating Latinos:
When? Where? On what planet? After vomiting this lie, MSNBC contributor Raul Reyes agreed with her like it’s just a standard thing that Trump says. Denigrating and attacking Trump – that is all that matters, truth be damned! Gaslighting: Trying to put forth the idea that Donald Trump is only interested in the destruction of people who look differently than he does. Nicole Wallace came out with a nonsensical apology on Twitter:
I misspoke about Trump calling for an extermination of Latinos. My mistake was unintentional and I’m sorry. Trump’s constant assault on people of color and his use of the word “invasion” to describe the flow of immigrants is intentional and constant.
— Nicolle Wallace (@NicolleDWallace) August 7, 2019
That is not an apology and that is not a misspeak. To misspeak on calling something extermination? Does this happen often? And what of this line – “Trump’s constant assault on people of color and use of the world invasion to describe the flow of immigrants is intentional and constant.” Again, more gaslighting.
The President will speak about the people of Guatemala and El Salvador, and how those nations are not doing enough to help the citizens of their own country, leading the people to flow to the United States. If you have a group of 10,000 people demanding entry into the country and saying they are not going to stop, throwing rocks, breaking down gates between Guatemala and Mexico— what else, besides invasion, would you call it?
The word invasion is used because no other word will suffice. That is not hyperbole. (I am begging for another word, but it doesn’t exist.) Article 4, Section 4 of the US Constitution says the Republic will protect the nation from invasion. Words have meaning and the manipulation of words is gaslighting. Nicole Wallace claims the President favors the extermination of Latinos and in her “apology” continues to gaslight.
I have never once said that you have to like Donald Trump. I have never once said that you can’t speak out against policies that you don’t like. I have the First Amendment, so do you, and so do they. But lying? Purposefully? Willfully? Moving lies that they know are lies because it helps them further their agenda – which is defeating Trump in 2020? That is gaslighting.
It’s obscene. When perpetrated by the Fourth Estate, if left unchecked, it can not only destroy a President, it can destroy our nation.
Crossposted at WIBC.com.
Published in Politics
They don’t care. All they want is power.
We are past peaceful transfers of power in the Republic now. The Democrats don’t care.
The people running companies don’t care. It is all short term thinking.
All of the opening post and all of this. The behavior from many news organizations and twitter influencers– people who claim to be truth seekers—has been unconscionable.
Do other people see this? Or has the strategy of just endlessly screaming and tweeting “white supremacy!” “immigrants are scared!” “there’s a mass shooting everyday, kids are scared!” just beat casual consumers of the news into submission?
The strange thing is that there is enough to criticize Trump for that you’d think there would be a nice niche market for the “sane left-leaning anti-Trump critic” spot. Instead, we get the most feverish and alarmist responses from critics. We actually got to the stage in Trump Derangement Syndrome where people on the news were mad that Trump condemned white supremacy and visited shooting victims. I don’t get it.
Well said Tony.
There are other big lies; Russian collusion with no evidence, 97% of scientist agree that climate change is man-made, all Trump supports are racist, all white people are racist, black people can’t be racist, calling police guilty before the evidence is in, hands up – don’t shoot, the goal of gun registration isn’t to take you guns, illegal aliens aren’t criminals, the media isn’t biased, more money will fix our schools, if you like you doctor you can keep your doctor, voter ID = voter suppression, Mike Pence hates gays because he was in favor of the Indiana Religious Freedom Act….I don’t know where to stop. It is so common that it is overwhelming.
I am no Latin scholar. But I have read a bit of Tacitus and Plutarch. So after reading this excellent post, it flashed through what is left of my mind that “Yup. They got rid of Greek, then Latin, in high school then college. Was it so no one would read about the end days of the Roman Republic and see the connection?” The lying, the corruption, the short-sighted factionalism of the late Republican Romans are reflected in our cynical politics.
I was raised by the men and women who defeated Hitler and were staring down Stalin. Until recently, I scoffed at the “We are going the way of the Romans” school. It seemed historically simplistic and tinged with fatalism. I was confident that the political system we enjoy, based on a document whose climax is a pledge of “our Lives, our Fortunes, our Sacred Honors” was being followed, in the main. We were not as corrupt and cynical as the Europeans, where bribery was a way of life. I thought we the citizens understood the virtue required for a Republic to thrive. And the American virtues were a sense of fair play (“Let him have his say” or the cracker-barrel), and a melting pot that burned off the aristocratic dross of the old world and left a new minted American–who came in any color, creed, or sex. (There was no “gender” in my day except in grammar books.) OF COURSE we would not go Rome’s way.
Nowadays? I’m not so cock-sure, but spem spiro, spero. (while I breathe, I hope). And old Ben Frankilin’s “A republic, Madame–if you can keep it” rings true, as always. It just ain’t written that we gotta make it. It is up to us, God help us.
A proposal: Would the creation of a database of media lies be of use? Maybe a wiki we control where the catalog would be maintained. Then, we find a way to publish the results to everyone who would care to listen? Or do I grasp a straw?
so many Lefties want to be lied to. global warming, TDS,… they hear what they want to believe and repeat what they want said.
Agree, but what do we do? They have media and the schools that shape easily influence minds. We had a national consensus of sorts, we argued with some commonalities tied to the real world. Some easily influenced folks who just wanted to get along were influenced by a loose evolving consensus that was shaped by a free interplay of many of the best minds around over many years, indeed centuries. We still have lots of educated and serious folks, but most media and schools aren’t part of it and regular folk get pulled into a new phony cultural view. We also have big new platforms. The techies who dominate them are young products of our school system, with a technical take on things that lack deeper education in history and the history of thought and broader experience that also shapes the best minds. I don’t think this thing can be fixed with the current educational system. Moreover, the giant internet multipliers operate as monopolies which we must fix without using the administrative state. Folks think we have two sides and they work things out going back and forth. That hasn’t been true for many decades. That can happen locally, not at a remote Federal level, but that is where many new technologies are taking us.
For a good companion piece for this, see Angelo Codevilla’s Igniting Civil War (H/T):
P.S. If the “media” you are consuming contains the words “Nicolle Wallace” in any serious context, you have already given up the game. What a complete and utter embarrassment…has been for years.