Good Morning,
We live in an age of disinformation, where the aim is to overwhelm you with loads of confusing information, so much so it’s hard to navigate the truth, but you have to keep a clear head.
As former Trump advisor Steve Bannon once said, “The Democrats don’t matter, the real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
You could argue the strategy of flooding “the zone with shit” comes from Russia which perfected the control of media, disruption of opposition, and the suspension of democracy to hold power at all costs. And President Putin and former U.S. President Trump do so without conscience.
This weekend, Putin travelled to Mariupol, a city occupied by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, a city largely destroyed by months of bombing where bodies were left rotting by the thousands in streets, and abandoned apartment buildings, and even a theatre where women and children huddled for safety, and where hundreds were killed in a Russian missile strike.
Putin drove a car, and strode about like some victorious peacock, albeit with muted groups of people allowed to get close to him.
The theatre of the absurd, Putin’s low key visit, was meant to send the message that things are slowly returning to some kind of normal in Mariupol, and that Russia now owns the space.
It also taunts the Ukrainians, who along with the International Court in the Hague, now see Putin as a wanted war criminal who oversaw the transfer of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, a crime under the Geneva Convention. Some of them from Mariupol.
And, Putin’s visit is meant to signal to the Chinese all will eventually be quiet in Ukraine, if only Russia gets those lethal weapon shipments it’s asking for.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is due on Moscow this week to sign agreements with Putin which may include arms.
What’s all this got to do with ex U.S. President Trump?
Well this week, likely Tuesday, Donald Trump is expected to be arrested for paying hush money to stripper Stormy Daniels, and violating New York election laws in the manner he concealed those payments.
Trump will be finger printed, with mug shots, and brought before the courts by a District Attorney.
If this was you or me, we would go to court and get a good lawyer to go with us to prove our innocence.
But of course this is not you and me, it’s Donald Trump who tries to airbrush the truth, turning fact to fiction, and dangerously igniting political division in America.
Trump is saying the pending arrest will bring civil war and in a social media post he has called on his supporters to protest, just as he did when he lost the election in 2020, resulting in a violent attack on the Capitol.
As one British columnist wrote “his social media post typical of his violent visions of America in chaos: a “dying” and “third world” country where “leftist thugs” are “killing and burning with no retribution”.
Trump’s labelling of the New York investigation of his hush payments as politically motivated, of course tries to distract and muddy your ability to wade through the charges against him, and weigh the morality and impropriety of what he did to cover up an election scandal.
Never mind the fact he was married to Melania, and he carried on an affair with a porn star stripper who he then paid 130 thousand dollars to shut up about it, just as his newborn son Barron was being born.
Trumps constant claims that the election was stolen, or some deep dark state is robbing him and Americans of their freedom and liberty is some of that “shit” Steve Bannon talked about.
Trump has incited Americans to take up arms and “fight like hell” for any cause it seems that see’s him returning to the White House.
He is once again testing our ability to see through the fog of lies which have made up his former Presidency.
The Russians will keep telling us they were simply defending themselves when they attacked Ukraine and starting killing innocents. They will soon attack others if they are not stopped in Ukraine.
Trump will keep telling us he is a victim, while he tries to dodge justice even as he attempts to destroy democracy in the U.S. and tries to regain power in 2026.
And you just have to see through it all.
It’s a tough go in this social media space flooded with disinformation, but I’m confident you will.
Dana Lewis