As if there was a need to remind everyone that American politics has lost its marbles and then pulverized them with a steamroller, here are five observations from recent domestic events and the president’s Twitter feed.
(1) There is no observable limit to whom President Trump will use to promote his (sometimes petty) aims.
Wednesday morning, the president retweeted three videos from a fringe far-right British activist and stoked memories of a far-left conspiracy theory involving Joe Scarborough. Think on this for a moment: Trump’s use of the Internet to achieve his aims and sate his grievances is so bendable that it’s circular. One minute he promotes footage from Britain First official Jayda Fransen of what purports to be Muslims physically harming whites and desecrating Christian statuary. Literally 150 minutes later he alludes to the sudden death of one of his media adversaries’ 28-year-old staffers 16 years ago, implying the adversary somehow was involved—a conspiracy theory pursued for years by the Daily Kos. As my colleague Michael Warren reported last weekend, the president tweeted an approving link to MAGAPILL, whose name references a concept of political awakening “popular among the online alt-right and white nationalist movements” inspired by The Matrix. Yeah. Those guys are totally normal.
(2) The president promotes people who shouldn’t be promoted.
See above.
Why does this matter? Because providing an audience to toxic movements—perhaps “legitimizing” them with his endorsement—poisons the political system. Britain First is a nonentity in the U.K. Then the president of the United States gives its number two a platform by retweeting her videos. The alt-right entertains a vision of America that combines white superiority and braggadocious machismo presented by men who couldn’t bench press a wheat sheaf. Then the president of the United States tweets links to their websites.
(3) There’s not just a blatant disregard for truth afflicting society. There’s an effort to undermine those who try to find it.
The president boosting conspiracy theorists (or floating theories of his own) aside, there’s a Senate race in Alabama of some interest. Roy Moore has been accused of sexual assault and multiple instances of impropriety by women who were teenagers when he was in his 30s. The volume of reporting on his background has been heavy. The number of contemporary accounts supporting the claims against him have been numerous. And the attempts to invalidate them have ranged from nonsensical to scandalous.
Moore’s campaign and its boosters have waged war on the Washington Post, the newspaper at the forefront of the investigation, while failing to present evidence to contradict the paper’s reporting. One attempted rebuttal was that Leigh Corfman, the then-14-year-old alleged victim at the heart of the story, said she spoke to Moore as a youth from a bedroom phone when the phone actually was located in her house’s hallway. Corfman and her mother have said the corded phone could be carried into her room. A Moore campaign spokesman responded by saying “the Washington Post is a worthless piece of crap.”
Most recently, a woman apparently affiliated with the right-wing media watchdog Project Veritas presented herself to the Post as a victim of Moore who claimed he impregnated her when she was 15 and talked her into an abortion. After doing its due diligence, the paper never ran her account and instead outed the woman, Jamie Phillips, explaining how it discovered she was a fraud.
(4) “Fake news” is a meaningless term.
The Post demonstrated how to avoid publishing “fake news.” The videos the president shared Wednesday morning on Twitter were not verified. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, “Whether it’s a real video, the threat is real.”
(5) None of this matters, because of partisanship.
It’s true on the Democratic side. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi adopted Moore-style defenses of Rep. John Conyers, who used office funds to settle a sexual harassment claim against him and supported by fellow staff in 2014. Other employees backing her allegation said in affidavits they witnessed Conyers behave similarly or suspiciously toward other women.
And it’s true on the Republican side. Politico reported Tuesday that Trump was thinking about helping Moore:
Meanwhile, Trump himself “has continued to suggest” an Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged about grabbing women’s genitals is inauthentic, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
To Moore supporters, there’s no reason to believe the Post, and to Trump’s, no reason to believe the Times—whose editorial board’s Twitter account asked Maine residents Wednesday to call Sen. Susan Collins’ office phone number and tell her to vote against the Republican tax reform bill.
In two polls this week, Moore leads opponent Doug Jones by five and six percentage points.
