President Trump held yet another one of his now-daily rallies today in Elko, Nevada. His two-hour performances are seemingly the only thing he’s done in office that might actually be considered “work,” and somehow people still keep going to them despite the dramatic and very obvious degradation of his mental faculties with each passing week.
Today’s rally was no different, as the president presented a mix of particularly mystifying comments with simply breathtaking lies and seriously outlandish, racist conspiracy theories.
One of his more peculiar comments was on was the internet and social media, which is “bad” because of human trafficking but “good” because it allows his Twitter account to exist.
He was saying that the internet has its downsides – human trafficking – so maybe the world was better without it…but then his Twitter account wouldn't exist, and that would be terrible. https://t.co/SPcLF0uh2h
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 20, 2018
Trump is here referring to the counterproductive SESTA-FOSTA bill, a bipartisan piece of legislation that he signed earlier this year that was ostensibly supposed to cut down on the mythical epidemic of internet sex trafficking but instead deprived sex workers of ways to safely conduct their business and put an already vulnerable population at even more risk and actually makes it harder for law enforcement to locate and protect the victims of human trafficking.
I think we can all agree the world would be much better off with safe sex work and no Trump Twitter account.
The president went on to display his firm grasp of social media concepts by coining a new hashtag.
Trump: "Democrats produce mobs, Republicans produce jobs. Hashtag. Right? That's called hashtag. That's a new hashtag. That's a hot one."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 20, 2018
Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised at this coming from a man who once infamously said that we have to get better at “the cyber,” but you’d think he’d have picked it up with all the time he spends on Twitter.
He had some new ideas about the Democratic Party and possibly changing our name to…the Democratic Party.
Trump trollishly suggests that Democrats change their name to the Democratic Party. That is their name.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 20, 2018
Ironically, his jab ended up undoing several months worth of work by Republican propagandists trying to brand the Democratic Party as just “Democrats,” insinuating that we are un-Democratic instead, as amusingly summarized by Twitter user Patrick Monahan.
CONSERVATIVES: I make sure to call them the *Democrat* Party, because whatever they are, they aren’t Democratic
TRUMP: The Democrats should call themselves the Democratic Party
STADIUM FULL OF RUBES: *baying and hooting*
CONSERVATIVES: Ah.— Patrick Monahan (@pattymo) October 20, 2018
Later on, however, the president’s big talk turned much more dangerous, as he concocted wild and entirely imaginary tales of “riots” in California protesting the sanctuary city policies (which the people actually living in those cities strongly support) and again floated the preposterous idea that migrant caravans from Latin America are encouraged by Democrats (though they should) and even that Democrats are somehow “organizing” them from thousands of miles away.
Trump lies that California residents are "rioting" in protest of sanctuary city immigration laws: "They're rioting now. They want to get out of their sanctuary cities."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 20, 2018
Trump with some vague conspiratorial thoughts on immigration: "Democrats want caravans. They like the caravans. A lot of people say, I wonder who started that caravan."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 20, 2018
Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale summed up the entire thing as being “immensely dishonest.” As the midterms grow closer, the rate of the President’s falsehoods and their egregiousness have grown disturbingly quickly.
It sends a shudder down one’s spine to remember he still has one more rally tomorrow.
h/t to Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star for the live-tweet recap.
