It may come as a surprise, after watching him fumble through the early weeks of his second term like an inebriated toddler, but there are a few things Donald Trump is actually quite good at.
None of those things qualify him to occupy his current position, of course, but they do make it quite a bit easier for him to control the narrative surrounding it. Trump has made nothing but mistakes since he re-took the Oval Office, but in the right circles, you’d never know it. That’s thanks to a careful and targeted chokehold on information, and one that Trump’s been refining for years.
Over the last decade, Trump found constant opportunities to challenge established facts and dribble out false information through careful redirects, shrugging dismissals, and brazen, bald-faced lies. The result is a man who recently “forgot” who launched the Russian invasion of Ukraine — spoiler alert: it wasn’t Ukraine — and claimed that $50 million (or was it $100 million?) in condoms were slated for Gaza thanks to Biden. All lies, all easily fact-checked, and yet Trump has backed down from none of them.
Instead, he deflects. Much like he’s doing now, as he works overtime to distract the public from that damning display last week, when he berated and bullied Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on live television. The optics were awful, the world is furious, but few people are as furious as the American people. We are outraged at Trump’s despicable behavior, and it seems he knows that.
Which is why he’s once again working to distract us. Trump’s latest Truth Social post — which promises that “TOMORROW NIGHT WILL BE BIG,” as the president supposedly preps to “TELL IT LIKE IT IS” — achieved exactly what it set out to do when it successfully distracted a good portion of Americans.
Trump is set to address Congress tomorrow, and, according to the president, that address will be overstuffed with nothing but facts. In reality, it will be yet another debacle of deception, as he denies the facts, sprinkles lies, and dodges any conversations that don’t paint him in an exclusively positive light. He’ll fess up to exactly nothing, and he’ll do it all while claiming he’s the best, most popular American president that ever lived.
The tweet is already having the desired effect, as Americans rush to social media to suss out what Trump is making reference to. They’re fixated on some incoming announcement or major development, but in reality, it’s just another false flag. The man just wants us talking about anything other than the embarrassment that is his second term, and he wins every time his distractions pull our focus.
During his first term, Trump strove, at every turn, to control the narrative. He’d spout lies from the presidential podium and, even when fact-checked, he’d often double down. You probably don’t remember that embarrassing stunt with Hurricane Dorian, after five years of near-constant chaos, but it serves as a perfect example of the lengths Trump will go to in his quest to shape facts to his favor — and, perhaps more importantly, how well his push to bury information is going.
Back in 2019, Hurricane Dorian was on track to several U.S. states, but one was notably not among them. Despite Alabama being in the clear, Trump falsely claimed that the southern state was in the path of the hurricane, and when he was repeatedly fact-checked on the claim, he doubled down. In order to appear right, Trump went so far as to alter an official map with a Sharpie and encourage his staff to force a retraction from the National Weather Service.
Term two Trump is only ramping up those same tactics, and with similarly successful results. He’s winning the war of information in this country, and the only way we can fight back is with the truth. So don’t believe everything the orange man says, and take everything his advisors spout with a grain (or 50) of salt.
Published: Mar 3, 2025 04:13 pm