Our world of misinformation, fake news and fake guns is further troubled by a fake president. The last point was given fresh currency Saturday, Feb. 18, in a speech in Melbourne, Fla., when President Trump exclaimed, “You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden! Sweden! Who would believe this? Sweden! They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.”
Trump was citing a report from a televised interview about the rising rate of violence in Sweden to bolster his stance on the restrictions on refugees and immigrants from Muslim countries entering the U.S.
The president’s inference that the wave of migrants in Sweden had led to terrorist attacks was inaccurate, and his statements left many Swedish leaders flabbergasted.
Welcome to Trumpurgatory, Sweden. We in America have been enduring this realm of falsehood for the past year or so, and even more so now that his torrent of tweets are coming from the Oval Office.
It continues to confound us that a sitting president is determined to get vital information from a cursory glance at a television interview. His reckless rhetoric based on a six-minute interview that he terribly, and probably deliberately, misinterpreted is typical of Trump’s trigger-finger tweets.
Where are his advisers, his aides, his so-called strategists when he’s ready to shoot from his lips, dripping with interposition and nullification? Not that he would be wisely counseled when you have a roundtable of Steve Bannon and Madam Alternate Facts Kellyanne Conway by your side.
President Agent Orange, as one rapper labeled him, has expended—we should say wasted—a lot of time attacking the media for dispensing “fake news” when he is a primary source of it himself. He will go to no end, cite whatever source he needs to underscore his position on immigration, climate change, health care, national security, etc.
Each of these areas is sorely in need of facts, not lies and fake news. We can’t afford to have a commander-in-chief who seems perpetually disconnected from reality. While we are encouraged to learn that he has chosen a national security adviser who appears to be a straight shooter (and we emphasize the shooter for this general), we know that the minute he veers off script and away from Trump’s dictates, he will be history.
Last Monday was President’s Day, or as some have renamed it, “Not My President’s Day,” and we were additionally enthused to see so many Americans in the streets, protesting the new administration with their posters and placards representing a wide array of organizations and forums, signaling a growing concern about a chaotic White House.
Once more we add our voice to the increased outcry declaring Trump Must Go!