The Hill – Page 4 – * Failed Pols

Donald Trump’s recent endorsement of Georgia Republican congressional candidate and QAnon conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene is yet another indication that Trump’s presidency has nothing to do with the pursuit of truth or integrity, and everything to do with what Trump sees as sustenance for his ego.

Following Greene’s primary win, Trump tweeted, “Congratulations to future Republican Star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big Congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and smart opponent. Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up – a real WINNER!”

No one should be surprised by Trump’s enthusiastic endorsement of Greene on the basis of her vocal racism and xenophobia. She is a 9/11 truther, and has made statements that Muslims don’t belong in government, that members of the Black Lives Matter movement are “idiots,” and that “the most mistreated group of people in the United States today are white males.” Those statements fit perfectly with the ideology of Donald Trump.

When one digs further into the sinister cult-like QAnon movement itself, however, it may be hard to understand why anyone, especially the president of the United States, could consider a QAnon supporter to be fit for a public office— until one discovers that the prevailing QAnon conspiracy theories are about Donald Trump, himself.

The currently dominant (and baseless) QAnon conspiracy claims that a cabal of Satan-worshipping and blood-drinking pedophiles that includes politicians and A-list celebrities such as Tom Hanks, Bill Gates, and of course…the Democrats, are in cahoots with governments around the globe to engage in child sex trafficking. (They conveniently leave out all of those images of Trump himself partying with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.) Followers also believe there is a “deep state” that wants to take down Trump. Why? Because Donald Trump has arrived on the scene to vanquish them.

Other QAnon conspiracy theories involve mass shootings (such as the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, which they claim didn’t really happen), and now the coronavirus (including the idea that 5G cellular networks spread the virus).

Greene posted a video on social media, in which she says, “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.”

One would expect a rational person to either be horrified but this cult-like movement, or to laugh at its absurdity. Not Donald Trump. Trump is not a reader, and we know that he is not a critical thinker or an avid consumer of factual information, even if someone were to read it to him. His comprehension of the QAnon movement stops at “I understand they like me very much.” That’s all Trump needs in order to embrace it.

When a reporter told Trump that the crux of QAnon is the belief that he is “secretly saving the world from this Satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals,” Trump responded, “Well I haven’t heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing?”

Trump doesn’t appear to care that he is legitimizing a dangerous cult-like movement that the FBI considers a “domestic terrorist threat.” The FBI has catalogued QAnon as an “anti-government, identity-based, and fringe political (web of) conspiracy theories” that “very likely motivate some domestic extremists to commit criminal, sometimes violent activity.”

For Donald Trump, all that matters is that “QAnon supporters like me very much, which I appreciate” (and therefore, “They love our country”).

Upon learning that QAnon sees him as somewhat of a Christlike figure, Trump also said, “If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it. I’m willing to put myself out there… And we are actually. We’re saving the world from a radical left philosophy that will destroy this country, and when this country is gone, the rest of the world would follow.”

Though QAnon may have become Donald Trump’s favorite conspiracy theory (what narcissist wouldn’t love to be seen as a messiah, even if by lunatics?), he has promoted at least 25 additional conspiracy theories since his candidacy. Another favorite recent Trump conspiracy theory centers on the question of Kamala Harris’ citizenship and qualifications for the office of Vice President, based on the fact that her parents were immigrants. (Harris, born in Oakland, California, is an American citizen.) And who could forget the similar theory around President Barack Obama’s birth certificate? Additionally, there’s the battery of disinformation and conspiracy around the coronavirus— its origin, scale, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Donald Trump’s legacy will include the conspiracy culture that he has fostered, and in part, created.

QAnon and similar movements support Donald Trump’s worldview, and any movement that does that, no matter how false, dangerous, or violent, will be embraced by Donald Trump, because the only truth that interests him is his truth.

Many high-ranking House Republican leaders have distanced themselves from Marjorie Taylor Greene and from QAnon. After Trump legitimized the movement, however, some have changed their stance and are now supporting Greene. As these leaders continually demonstrate, they, too, tend to align with Trump’s truth.

“The president has weakened the antibodies in the Republican Party against nutty conspiracy theories because the president himself believes in them,” said journalist and CNN White House correspondent John Harwood.

With every retweet and remark supporting unfounded QAnon conspiracy theories and their believers, Donald Trump gives them more credibility and authority. And each time Trump chooses his ego over his country, he adds to the glut of political and medical disinformation— and ignorance— filling our country. The result is the moral, spiritual, physical, and even financial price Americans are now paying. And when Donald Trump endorsed QAnon supporter Marjory Taylor Greene, he demonstrated, again, that he was more than willing for us to pick up the tab.

President Trump not shying from support of QAnon conspiracy theorists |
CBS This Morning [2020-08-20]

Trump PRAISES QAnon supporters | The Hill {2020-08-19]

On Thursday, the U.S. set another record for new COVID-19 cases— more than we’ve seen since early April. Donald Trump says the solution is obvious: Reduce testing. It appears to make perfect sense to many Trump stalwarts, too, that the way to slow the increase in the number of cases is not by wearing masks or by social distancing, but by simply eliminating testing. The Trump administration now plans to end federal funding for a number of COVID-19 testing sites in several states, despite public health experts’ warning that more testing, not less, is what will help contain the virus.

“Cases are going up in the U.S.,” Trump tweeted this week, “because we are testing far more than any other country, and ever expanding. With smaller testing we would show fewer cases!”

“Here’s the bad part,” said Trump at his rally in Tulsa, after boasting (falsely) that the U.S. was doing a bang-up job with coronavirus testing. “When you test the, when you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please!”

The Tulsa crowd nodded and cheered at this. It was unclear why they were cheering for fewer tests, except that perhaps they saw brilliance in Trump’s logic that fewer tests mean fewer cases. Trump’s base is behind him all the way, as they always are, even when it endangers them.

Almost Immediately after Trump made those remarks, White House officials began claiming that he wasn’t serious.

Peter Navarro told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “Come on, now, Jake. You know that was tongue-in-cheek. Come on, now…It was a light moment.”

More than 122,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19. Nothing about the coronavirus warrants a light moment.

As they try to walk back Trump’s remark, it’s clear that even those who are close to Donald Trump are either in disbelief at what Trump said, or they are embarrassed by it.

In response to a reporter’s question about what Trump meant when he said he told his people to slow the testing down, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “He was kidding… The President was trying to expose — what the media oftentimes does is they ignore the fact that the United States has more cases because we have more testing. We are leading the world in testing, and he was pointing that out that it’s a fact that the media readily ignores.”

She confirms what we’ve suspected all along: that one of the requirements for being a successful White House press secretary is the ability to gaslight without blinking an eye.

Trump later publicly stood by his comment, though. When asked if he had just been kidding, he said, “I don’t kid.”

McEnany later tried to clean up after Trump yet again by saying that Trump was also being sarcastic when he said, “I don’t kid.”

But it turns out that he wasn’t kidding.

Texas led the way in the hurry to re-open businesses and return to “normal.” Now, however, Texas is currently one of the leading states in the number of new cases per day. Though some people have waited for hours in line to get a test, federal funding for seven Texas testing sites will end on June 30. Several sites in Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Colorado will lose federal funding then, as well.

Twenty-seven states are now seeing sharp increases in the number of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospitalizations. Governors of many of those states, supporters of Trump, ignored the guidelines for when it was safe to begin reopening their states’ businesses, and some are still refusing to enforce mask-wearing in public. Some, until recently, have even boldly denied that their states were seeing surges in the numbers of cases, despite data showing that the opposite was true.

But Donald Trump maintains that the number of COVID-19 cases is surging because we’re doing more testing. It doesn’t matter whether he really believes this; what’s important is that his supporters continue to push that narrative and that his base sees it as logical. To his childlike way of thinking, all he has to do is reduce testing to reduce the number of reported cases, and his ratings will soar.

Public health and infectious disease experts have clearly laid out that testing, contract tracing, isolating cases, wearing masks and practicing social distancing while doing the testing and contact tracing are the ways to effectively manage and reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. That process is how other countries have succeeded at reducing the spread.

The U.S., however, is led by a man whose inability to understand cause and effect, and whose lack of capacity for complex thinking are combined with a dearth of empathy. Donald Trump is only able to see through the lens of his re-election prospects; COVID-19 is not about human lives for him, it’s about numbers that will make him look good or bad.

Donald Trump still appears to believe that, as he said earlier this year, COVID-19 will just fade away, “Like a miracle.” But since it’s not fading away quickly enough for him, Trump is hoping that if he can at least prevent us from seeing it, it will be like it’s not there.

Public Health experts warn that COVID-19 is indeed still here, and will be with us for a long time. Donald Trump’s presidency, however, does not need to stay with us for much longer. On Election Day, for our survival as Americans, we need to make the Trump presidency go away, “Like a miracle.”

Trump on COVID testing | The Oklahoman [2020-06-20]

Pres. Donald Trump: Coronavirus ‘testing is a double-edged sword’ and driving up U.S. case numbers | | CNBC [2020-06-23]

Category: The Hill

Editorial: Donald Trump’s New Fling: QAnon