Trump: Manufacturing Enemies Out of His Own Citizens

[Nevilledog]

https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/trump-manufacturing-enemies-out-of

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A Decade of Disinformation

Antifascism has existed as a political movement in the US for decades, and even longer in Europe, but it only rose to prominence after Trump’s election in 2016. Not long after antifascism entered the stage, so did the disinformation targeting the movement.

Following the deadly extremist attack at the far-right Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, Trump and his allies started hyping the idea of a violent “alt-left” that they sought to portray as equally as violent as the right-wing extremists who had just murdered a protester. (The evidence is clear here: Violent extremism in America is overwhelmingly a right-wing phenomenon).

Over the next several years, this grew into an expansive domestic disinformation campaign involving elected officials, government agencies, think tanks, social media influencers, and the entirety of the right-wing media apparatus.

The disinformation campaign surrounding antifascism was (is, really) two-pronged. One major aim was to associate antifascism with chaos, violence, and anti-Americanism. Simultaneously, another aim was to expand and ultimately collapse the definitional boundaries of antifascism so that the term could be applied as a catch-all to describe essentially any liberal or left-wing activist movement.

This was achieved through years of coordinated messaging and media coverage portraying Democrats and liberal activists as “radical leftists” and positioning civil disobedience and property crimes on the same threat level as fatal extremist violence.

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[cachukis]

1. You must be wise beyond your years.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R