MUST-READ Greg Sargent thread on Trump using military as prop in monstrous campaign fiction

[highplainsdem]

Starting here:

Link to tweet

1) An important point is getting lost in all the discussion of Trump’s decision to send troops to the border to “protect us” from the migrant caravan. And we need to recapture it. A thread follows.


2) This decision needs to be understood as official misconduct of the very highest order. It isn't merely Trump using the military to “play politics,” which frames the issue too euphemistically.


3) Trump is using the military as a prop to sustain the monstrous and reprehensible campaign fiction that destitute migrants hundreds of miles away pose a national emergency.


4) It is *precisely because* this is such an absurd and monumental falsehood that he is sending in troops.

Trump *needs* to do this, in order to create imagery on voters’ televisions that makes that fiction *appear* real.


5) Former military officers are now on record with @washingtonpost calling this out for what it is.

One says the depiction of the migrants as an “invasion” is fantasy.

Another bluntly asks whether the military is being used for “political purposes”:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-election-eve-border-mission-puts-the-military-in-partisan-crosshairs/2018/11/02/880dd048-deb5-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html


6) A military report debunks Trump’s biggest lies.

It concludes only 20% of migrants will arrive at border. As for Trump's claims about “middle Easterners” and “tough fighters," The Post concludes: “The assessment does not support any of those claims.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/army-assessment-of-migrant-caravans-undermines-trumps-rhetoric/2018/11/02/78b9d82a-dec0-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html


7) This isn’t just Trump. Many Republican incumbents and candidates are all in with this agitprop effort to whip up xenophobic panic for the express purpose of energizing the GOP base.

Ask yourself: How many of them have objected to sending in the military to feed that panic?


8) Some argue that the caravan presents serious issues that must be addressed. True, but there are answers to these problems (though the problems are difficult ones).

The point is, what Trump is doing makes solutions *harder* to achieve, not easier:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/10/26/president-trump-has-found-his-reichstag-fire/ …


9) Because of all of these things, Trump’s decision is absolutely ripe for serious Congressional scrutiny.

As I’ve reported, if Democrats take back the House, that’s exactly what it will get:

Link to tweet

10) We have still not found language adequate to capturing the deep saturation of lies, hate, racism, xenophobia, and corrosive bad faith that we’re seeing from the Trump presidency, which in all kinds of ways are being enabled by his party:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/11/02/trump-floats-a-new-absurdity-to-support-his-latest-hate-narrative/ …


11) This is not the conduct of an actor in a democracy. And we need to call it out as such. No more euphemisms. No more dancing around the lies, racism, hate, demagoguery, and nonstop agitprop deception flooding out of official channels. No more. FIN

[malaise]

1. Get thee to the greatest page

NOW!

[highplainsdem]

3. Thanks!

[highplainsdem]

2. Paul Krugman thread about Greg Sargent's thread:

Link to tweet

Read this thread. Many people worried that Trump would concoct an October surprise in an attempt to hold the House. And the caravan hysteria is that surprise, being fueled by massive abuse of power 1/


What's more, it was working: major media organizations went all in on caravan coverage, letting it dominate front pages and TV news for days, even though it was an obvious scam. Mass murder interrupted the plan, but Trump is trying to hijack the news again 2/


I don't think it will work, but who knows? One thing to watch: if TV and front pages are full of images of military forces deploying at the border, this will play right into Trump's hands. 3/

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. turn the cameras inward

Krugman makes a vital point: "f TV and front pages are full of images of military forces deploying at the border, this will play right into Trump's hands."

Turn the TV off and tell the media organization why, if they play chumps for Trump.

[genxlib]

4. Kick

[highplainsdem]

9. Thanks!

[Autumn]

5. The military knows it's a lie, reports it's a lie yet goes along with it.

[nature-lover]

6. He pointedly called the situation a "national emergency."

Don't our immigration and amnesty laws already cover this?

[dem4decades]

7. I saw a tweet (I think) earlier from an Afghan vet that said shooting rock throwers was a war crime.

Anyone have it? Thanks.

[highplainsdem]

11. Here's the link to that tweet:

Link to tweet

We had rocks thrown at us all the time in Afghanistan. Responding with lethal force is a fucking war crime.

[dem4decades]

12. That's the one thanks. I'm going to pass it on.

[empedocles]

8. Wapo front page, left column headline, on military concerns about being used for political purposes.

[FSogol]

13. K&R. n/t