Donald Trump’s coordinated disinformation campaign
As you know, Trump was given a day off from his 2016 Election Interference trial last week to attend his son’s commencement ceremony. Then he returned to the Manhattan courthouse for the commencement of staged GOP chaos agents’ performances. The males coordinated almost identical costumes, dark suits, white shirts, and red ties, while the females coordinated almost identical talking points for the press, in violation of Trump’s gag order.
The coordinated messaging which included misconstruing the trial as a sham, misrepresenting Trump as the victim, and falsely vilifying Biden, was all from the Project 2025 playbook. Normally I do not give Project 2025 oxygen, but I will point out Pillar III, which is a “training effort” of online courses called the “Presidential Administration Academy.” I’ll also point out that this training is nothing new. White Christian Nationalists have been indoctrinating disciples since the Southern Baptist Convention got Reagan elected President in 1980. Project 2025 is the updated curriculum.
Just as the SBC’s vast radio network in the 1970s and 1980s targeted the youngest voters, (of which I was one), the GOP are now targeting our newest voters, GenZ. In David Rothkopf’s recent podcast, Tara McGowan sounded the alarm that Republicans are aggressively building a presence on the GenZ preferred platform, TikTok, outnumbering Democratic messaging 4 to 1.
McGowan also pointed out that first-time voters were only 10 years old when Trump took over the White House, so they are just now being introduced to him. Democrats should not assume GenZ are aware of Trump’s disastrous record, while the GOP whitewashes it. Republicans are even shamelessly using TikTok to blame Biden for banning TikTok, although it was a bipartisan ban.
Meanwhile, President Biden’s powerful Morehouse College commencement speech received a standing ovation from students and faculty, there were no disruptions from protesters, and Biden was awarded an honorary degree from the historically Black college. This indicates his popularity with GenZ and Black voters is stronger than reporting suggests.
As always, I shine a light on these GOP tactics to mock them and diffuse their influence. While Biden-Harris HQ has ramped up its presence on TikTok and all social media platforms, we need to tell our GenZ nieces, nephews, grandchildren, godchildren, and friends the truth about Trump and Republicans. Offer to help them register to vote. Then VOTE BLUE.
Chicago native Lorraine Evanoff earned her degree in French from DePaul University then became a Certified Financial Manager. She worked as a finance exec in film production for seven years in Paris, then in Silicon Valley during the dot-com era, and later for various Hollywood production companies, notably as CFO of National Lampoon. She is currently living in Los Angeles with her husband.