We learn from Thomas Friedman that Trump has re-tweeted a QAnon-linked post that reported that Bin Laden’s killing was faked by the Obama administration, which may have actually killed a bunch of SEALs. Another post re-tweeted by the POTUS held that the Obamians secretly transported Bin Laden from Iran to Pakistan for a “trophy kill.”

Now, when you re-tweet something, even without comment, you are saying at the least: this deserves to be taken seriously; it’s credible.  So, we must conclude that Trump either (1) actually believes that this nonsense is to be taken seriously, in which case he’s nuts, or (2) Trump knows full well that it’s nonsense and his tweets represent pure malevolence.  (Is there a third possibility that I’m missing?)

I personally lean to the second possibility: I do think that Trump is nuts, but not that nuts.

Longtime readers may recognize this post as yet another installment in my longstanding exploration of the question: is Trump delusional, or is he just a bald-faced liar? My initial answer to the question was that while some of Trump’s falsehoods may indeed be the product of a remarkable capacity for self-delusion, others are certainly deliberate, knowing lies.  Later, with help from an insightful commenter, I came to the conclusion that in any case, the truth simply doesn’t matter to Trump.  When he speaks, he is performing, and the truth or falsity of what he says is irrelevant.  So, he doesn’t necessarily know that he’s lying; truthfulness is just not something he thinks about.

Of course, the current age of disinformation isn’t entirely of Trump’s making.  But the words of the President of the United States count for a lot.  How different if Trump had accompanied his re-tweets with the comment “This is the kind of ridiculous garbage we need to beware of.”  (Of course, I’m dreaming.) Some day, hopefully soon, we will have a POTUS who doesn’t actively serve as a megaphone for the crackpot right.

 

5 comments

  1. Jeffrey Herrmann October 29, 2020 at 1:45 am

    This malignant narcissist finds himself trapped in the humiliating wreckage of his failed presidency. The cognitive dissonance is unbearable, so his mind grasps at paranoid explanations for his imminent disgrace. He can’t be a loser, so he must be a victim of dark forces.
    I think he believes this stuff, at least momentarily. He retweets it and then his scattered mind moves on to the next bit of insanity that drifts in on Twitter from the fever swamp. He’s already lost interest in whether the last fantasy was true. And so on ….

  2. Ronald Bleier October 29, 2020 at 9:51 pm

    I haven’t followed the Seal Team Six murders, but if the US murdered them they may have had a motive. Bin Laden died in 2001. He had been deathly ill. When Obama/Brennan assumed office they had to contrive a way to announce the death of a man who had died more than 10 years earlier. So it’s not a surprise that the killers of a dead man might have been targeted to maintain the official story.

    Similarly, while Trump is an inveterate and champion liar, he sometimes lands on the truth. As in the continuing persistence of the Russiagate fable, a Hillary Clinton/DNC created myth as distraction from embarrassing emails disclosed by Wikileaks which received them not from Russia, but most likely a DNC source, Seth Rich, later murdered in mysterious, still unsolved circumstances.

    • tonygreco October 30, 2020 at 1:27 pm

      I feel obliged to reply to this comment, but I will only note that it comes from a 9/11 “truther” who gives credence to the theory that no planes crashed into the World Trade Center that day; it was all computer-generated imagery.

      • Ronald Bleier October 31, 2020 at 4:20 pm

        Thanks to Tony for responding. He writes that I think it (the 9/11 terror attacks) “was all computer generated imagery.” Actually I think only the second strike on the South Tower, the video everyone saw on tv many times in those days, was computer generated. #AceBaker has ably demonstrated how CGI “planes” were dubbed into live TV news feeds on 911. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rml2TL5N8ds
        What about the other two NYC targets, the South Tower –first hit; and Building 7 which fewer people know about which came down strikingly like controlled demolition around 5 pm that day.

        Our view of the first strike on the North Tower is from a video taken by the Naudet brothers, French “documentarians,” who were purportedly making a documentary about the NYC fire department. (I join fellow truthers in believing they were planted purposely to take that video by the chief terrorists, VP Dick Cheney and his co-conspirator, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

        As to Building 7 which came down inexplicably around 5 pm, most people, perhaps 99 or more of a hundred, will agree that,the building collapsing, in about 7-8 seconds, looks very much like videos we see of controlled demolition which by Dan Rather said on live tv in real time. When Rosie O’Donnell said the same thing – Building 7 looks like it came down via controlled demolition– she was fired from hosting “The View” within 24 hours.

        In my article on the collapse of Building 7 in my book on 911, I cite researcher Eric Hufschmid who argued that if Building 7 came down by controlled demolition, all three NYC towers did. See Ronald Bleier, No Plane Crashes on 9/11 – Exposing the Illusion, available on Amazon in kindle and hardcover. The eleven essays in my book include two by me on No Planes on 911, and articles looking at the Washington, D.C., and Shankesville, PA “plane” crashes, and other related subjects. Once again, it stands to reason that if the NYC terror attacks were homegrown, so were the others that day.

        The last article in my book is a speculative look into the circumstantial details that could point to the possibility that Dick Cheney might have had a plan to assassinate President Bush and step into the presidency. Had such a thing happened, it wouldn’t have been the first time in post WWII US history.

  3. Jeffrey Herrmann November 7, 2020 at 7:01 am

    Obviously, Seal Team 6 had to have been killed by Seal Team 7. Who else could pull it off?
    But then Seal Team 7 had to be killed by Seal Team 8.
    Where will this all end?

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