I was watching an interview of authors Phillip Rucker and Carol Leonnig who wrote the Trump expose book: I Alone Can Fix It. As part of their sources, they asked and were granted an interview with Trump himself at his Mar-a-Lago resort. They spent over two hours talking to him. Among the questions they asked him is why did he lie so much. He responded that there’s a beautiful word word for it: misinformation.
Now that’s an odd word for an American former president to use. Who was he misinforming? The American public. But usually misinformation is used as a weapon on an enemy to confuse him. And who is a master at this? Putin and the Russians. They used it on Facebook and other platforms to tip the scales towards Trump. And when he was elected, he continued the policy that worked so well by spouting misinformation constantly to divide the country and appeal to his “base.”
Alas, it was also his downfall. Trump blames the election result on the pandemic. But it was really due to his misinformation campaign. When the pandemic broke out, the economy cratered, but I heard some of the historians on TV say that it was also an opportunity for a president to rally the country. This concept of country over ego was foreign to Trump. He continued his divisive misinformation campaign and led the country to a loss of 600K+ deaths.
Putin is still figuratively pulling the strings on Trump who is willingly continuing to spread misinformation through his party and the country. Will we learn and reject it? It remains to be seen.