Trump’s statements on foreign policy and economics reveal a willingness to disregard facts in pursuit of narrative control.
We are in the depths of the Post Truth Era. Although he is not the only propagator of disinformation, US President Donald Trump is leading the charge into a new world order where facts no longer count.
After the strike against Venezuela, Trump told the world: “We are now in control of that country.”
Perhaps you’d like to tell the country’s new acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, that… because she clearly hasn’t got the memo.
How are you going to control a country if you do not physically have a presence on the ground? You can’t continue to send stealth fighters and Delta Force in every night. Attacking is one thing; holding and occupying in the wake of that is another thing entirely.
Trump rarely lets facts gets in the way of his determination to be the Ruler of All Creation. He told Americans that tariffs on imported goods would save them money.
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Yeah, right. He told them inflation was down. It’s up.
In a recently televised address by him, analysts recorded 50 instances of falsehoods uttered by him in just 18 minutes.
Such comment is water off Trump’s back… because he knows that many of his followers, at home and abroad, don’t bother fact-checking him.
That religious fervour is not much different than Catholics accepting, as a fact, that no pope can ever be wrong, thanks to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility.
Sadly, that blind acceptance of anything which supports your world view has spread to our country – accelerated by the access to rabbit holes opened up by the internet during the Covid pandemic.
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That brings the danger that gullible people could be led up the garden path by cynical manipulators.
Ernst Roets, the champion of self-determination and Make America Great Again ideology, posted a story within hours of the strike on Venezuela saying the South African ANC-appointed ambassador to Venezuela had “not long ago” threatened military action against the US.
Those who read it (at home and perhaps some of Trump’s wild advisors) would have assumed it was recent. It wasn’t. It was from eight years ago.
“Not long ago,” indeed.
Free Market Foundation “legal expert” Martin van Staden thumping another “self-determination” tub on X this week, claimed South Africa is, “by definition” a federal state. When challenged to show where this actually appears in the constitution, he went silent.
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Another X user, however, pointed out that, far from being “by definition” a federal state, the constitution actually speaks of the “indivisibility” of South Africa.
Then there was another conservative “expert”, Jaco Kleynhans of the Institute for Race Relations, who reposted a “gotcha” picture of Rodriguez wearing a dress which allegedly costs $15 000 (about R248 000), along with that poster’s comment: “Communism is a political leader wearing a $21 000 dress while her citizens are living without reliable access to water, electricity and food.”
He added his ten cents’ worth: “This is also painfully familiar to South Africans.”
Indeed it is, Jaco – disinformation posing as news.
He ignored a clear addition to the post by the X community that pointed out the original picture had been digitally altered and that the dress was actually $754.
If you need to resort to disinformation, manipulation and lies to make a political point, then perhaps you don’t have a genuine one.
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And if you don’t look beyond your own prejudices because bullsh*t suits you now, don’t forget it can bite you in the bum later.
