It’s a Disinformation Operation, Not a Presidency

President Donald Trump leaves the House of Representatives chamber after addressing a joint session of Congress on Tuesday. Win McNamee/AP

During the 2024 president race, I came to the realization that Donald Trump was running not a political campaign but a disinformation operation. Promulgating false propaganda was the essence of his effort. Almost all candidates lie to some degree. Prior to Trump, political prevarication was rather basic, with office-seekers making untrue claims about their records and policy stances and hurling lies about their opponents. Think of Ronald Reagan telling misleading anecdotes (the welfare queen) and insisting that his massive supply-side tax cuts that disproportionately benefitted the wealthy would close the deficit and create an economic paradise. (They didn’t.) Or George W. Bush’s allies falsely denigrating John Kerry’s Vietnam War record. Trump lies like that, but he also does something much different.

The goal of disinformation is to affect how a person or group processes reality. Trump has long wielded lies and falsehoods to present a phony overarching picture of the world to television viewers, consumers, and voters. He did this with his bogus reality show that created a fake “Donald Trump,” the cutthroat tycoon living a make-believe story of super-success concocted by television producers. And he has done so as a politician. He tells lies to shape how his audience perceives reality. Migrants are eating cats and dogs. Criminals and mental hospital inmates are flooding the United States and threatening all of us. The economy (until January 20) was a hellhole, the worst it has ever been. And he repeats the hogwash—crafted to exploit and exacerbate anxieties, fears, and biases—with ferocity, even after the canards are demonstrated to be pure fakery. The point of his disinformation is simple: If people see the world as Trump depicts it, then they really don’t have much of a choice but to support him. Convince voters of these lies, and everything else, including an authoritarian regime, falls into place.  

At the non–State of the Union speech Trump delivered before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, this disinformation strategy was in full view and full force. Trump tossed out one falsehood after another to depict threats and problems that don’t exist. But if you believe they do, he’s your man.

To justify the Elon Musk–led war on a supposedly bloated and inefficient government that is sucking America dry, Trump asserted that DOGE had uncovered hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud—which was false—and he ran through a lengthy list of spending programs that he could mischaracterize and mock. One example: “$10 million for male circumcision in Mozambique.” He did not explain this was part of an AIDS prevention program. (A circumcised man has a much lower chance of acquiring HIV.) He did a long riff on Social Security, reciting statistics showing that people older than 100 and up to 360 years old are on its rolls, suggesting tons of money was being paid out fraudulently. This was bunk. Past and present Social Security Administration officials have explained that there are millions of names in the system’s database without dates of death and that these nonexistent people are not receiving checks. The lie that tens of millions of dead people are pocketing Social Security—which Musk previously promoted—has been soundly debunked. Yet here was Trump turning it into a long set piece of a presidential address to bolster his contention that government is the No. 1 enemy of the American public and ought to be demolished.

Trump fostered the notion that school systems across the country are secretly aiding children’s gender transitions without informing parents—as if this is a widespread danger. (During the campaign, he ridiculously said that schools were performing transition operations on children in secrecy.) But the case Trump cited was far more complicated than he let on and involved a parent who gave permission to the school to support her child’s decision to identify as nonbinary. Trump fear-mongered further by maintaining that “entire towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio,” are being “destroyed” by “migrant occupation and corruption.” That’s fiction. The mayors of those towns have repeatedly denied Trump’s assertion that immigrant gangs have demolished their cities.

Evil government out of control. Social Security checks going to dead people. Schools scheming to transition children. Savage migrants seizing control of American cities. This is all bullshit, much of it fueled by fright and a good heaping of racism. If you buy it, though, you’re not voting for a Democrat.

After Trump’s speech, fact-checkers at major news outfits poured out a pile of corrections. But at this point—and I hate to say it—such fact-checking does not matter politically. Disinformation aims to create impressions. And impressions often cannot be undone by facts. (That’s a subject for another time.)

Which brings me to Sen. Elissa Slotkin. She’s the relatively young (48 years old) Democrat from Michigan who was chosen to give her party’s response to Trump’s speech. As we all know, this is usually an awful assignment. (Remember Marco Rubio and the bottle of water!) And she did...just fine. But she took a rather conventional approach, introducing herself (she once worked for the CIA!), praising patriotism and the middle class, and arguing that Democratic policies are better for most Americans than Trump’s tariffs, tax cuts for the rich, and budget plans that will likely threaten Medicaid and perhaps Medicare and Social Security, too. Citing Reagan as a hero (ugh!), she bashed Trump’s pro-Putin moves and his assaults on American allies.

After 100 minutes of Trump, it was refreshing to watch a fresh-faced Democrat who seemed exceedingly normal. If this had been a debate, Slotkin would have wowed the judges. But it wasn’t. What the Democrats face is a crisis purposefully orchestrated by a demagogue who is looking to emasculate government to degrade American democracy and make way for a blend of oligarchy, autocracy, and kleptocracy. For weeks, I’ve been complaining that Democrats have brought a teaspoon to a gunfight. On Tuesday night, Slotkin swapped the teaspoon for some index cards.

With his firehose of falsehoods and fusillade of disinformation—and his intention to eviscerate the rule of law and decency—Trump has radically altered the battlefield. Many Democrats don’t seem to get that. A conventional we-have-the-better-argument stance is not likely to win the day. On Tuesday night, they should have tossed aside the playbook that called for a formal reply and instead held a panel discussion with federal workers who provided important services and who were fired by Musk (say, a vet working a hotline at a VA hospital, or a cancer researcher). Or something else. Anything different—to convey that these are perilous times. Daring and guts are the order of the day. You don’t neutralize disinformation designed to undermine constitutional government with a politician delivering a stump speech promising better policies.

Yet Democratic leaders are largely sticking to their conventional guns (or teaspoons). After Trump’s speech, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who’s been on the road promoting his children’s book extolling democracy, let it be known he was not happy with those House Democrats who protested Trump by walking out of the speech or, in the case of Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), shouting at Trump. Jeffries and his Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, seem to be leaning in the direction of Democratic strategist James Carville, who recently offered this advice to his party: “[R]oll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us. Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular. Until then, I’m calling for a strategic political retreat.”

This strategy is playing with fire—or, more accurately, ignoring a fire. If you let a fire burn, it can destroy a lot, including much that cannot be rebuilt. Trump and Musk are waging a smash-and-burn crusade of disruption to fundamentally reshape the nation. Musk yearns for a libertarian dystopia in which tech gods can do whatever they wish; Trump seeks to rule as an authoritarian in happy concert with Putin and other strongmen. And they are relying on cheating—that is, disinformation—to win. Democrats can’t wait. They can’t play rope-a-dope. They need to figure out—and test out—various strategies to counter the lies and the fascist tactics being deployed. (Just as the media needs new methods to report on and contend with a leader who injects propaganda into the nation’s civic bloodstream 24/7.)

It's not easy to oppose disinformation that originates from a master conman and that is buttressed by the world’s richest person and the social media platform he owns, as well as the entire right-wing media ecosystem. Trump may go too far and upset voters. As his poll numbers have dipped, he has slightly curtailed Musk’s power to wreak havoc on federal agencies. But the midterms are a long time from now, and much can be obliterated in this stretch, as USAID and the Consumer Protection Financial Board have been. Moreover, disinformation doesn’t dissipate on its own. Let it take root, and it is tough to displace. Trump the showman knows that the most powerful thing a politician does is to tell a story and that the goal is to control the narrative. His tale is a false one. But it is the foundation of the power he has amassed. You don’t beat that with silence.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

The judges took Tuesday night off, claiming they did not know that Donald Trump was giving a speech that evening. I wonder about that. But of all the many stupid and false utterances Trump spewed, perhaps this was the most laughable: “The days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick could certainly win a contest for the most buffoonish Cabinet member. Appearing on Fox Business after Trump’s lie-a-thon at the US Capitol, he exclaimed that a significant dent in Social Security spending could be achieved by cutting off those checks going to dead people: "Think about this—we got $4 trillion in entitlements! And no one’s ever cut it...Everybody whose grandfather died and is still getting Social Security? Give me a break."

Ass I pointed out above, dead people receiving Social Security checks is not a problem, and not an area for major savings. Lutnick is either too foolish to take the one minute necessary to research this matter or just a damn liar who doesn’t give a fig about the truth. Only in the Trump administration would those be job qualifications.  

The rampant callousness of the Trumpers remains staggering. Even when it’s politically idiotic to express such mean-spiritedness, they cannot help it. Asked about veterans who have lost their jobs in Musk’s blitzkrieg, Alina Habba, a senior Trump adviser, exclaimed, “Perhaps they're not fit to have a job at this moment."

Perhaps they are not. But Musk and his minions have been firing people willy-nilly at the Department of Veterans Affairs, including veterans, and elsewhere without determining if any of them deserved dismissal. This was wrong—and particularly so for vets.

Habba was not alone in her lack of compassion for VA workers and veterans. When Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) was asked about the report that Trump intends to cut 70,000 jobs at the VA and the impact this will have on services for veterans, he barked, “Nobody in the United States has a right by God to have a job at taxpayer expense at the federal government."

These people claim Trump loves vets. Well...

While we’re on the subject of compassion, when Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was asked to reflect on Trump's big speech, he oohed,

The one thing that really stood out for people in the room was the empathy. Every single person that he introduced, whether it was a mom of a soldier that died or was injured in Afghanistan withdrawal, whether it was the mother or sister of Laken Riley. He’s talked to all those people. If the police officer has been killed, he was at the funeral. The mother of the hostage from Russia—he had given her the promise. The fact that he’s called all these people, he’s talked to them, and he knows them is part of the reason Americans respect him. He’s really in touch with the American people.

This was a severe case of Dear Leader-itis. Yes, Trump the pitchman knew how to seed the audience with people whose personal tales he could use to score political points. But empathy? This guy has been firing vets, scientists, forest rangers, aid workers, and other federal workers in pell-mell fashion with no concern for them or the millions of people at home and overseas who benefit from the work they do. He tells Americans concerned with rising prices to live with that for now. He has ordered mass deportations of law-abiding migrants and impeded asylum requests. He’s considering revoking the temporary protective status for 240,000 Ukrainians residing in the United States who fled the war his pal Putin launched. Empathy? Malignant narcissists are generally not known for their empathy.

Speaking of empathy, Musk recently appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and had a few things to say on this topic. “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk remarked. “There it’s, they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.” Empathy, he added, has been “weaponized.” And while Musk did say that “you should care about other people,” he groused, “We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on.”

Social media commenters jumped on this, with many noting the crucial role of empathy in the development of human society and civilization. By the way, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (a.k.a. the DSM), one trait necessary for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder—that is, being a sociopath—is lack of empathy. The judges are not mental health professionals, but they do know a frightening and worrisome comment when they see one. That is why Musk once again is the winner.

A reader says, “I love Dumbass Comment of the Week, but perhaps you can occasionally highlight a positive remark.” That might be a challenge some weeks. But I can give it a shot. This week, it was refreshing to hear the leader of a democracy address a serious challenge in a calm and rational manner. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been in the political doghouse recently. But Trump’s assault on Canada—tariffs and taunts about forcing our northern neighbor to become the 51st state—has buoyed his political standing, while Trump and other Republicans have demonstrated their pettiness by addressing him as “governor.” Here’s how an adult responds to all this crap. Bien joué, Monsieur Trudeau:

One thing I’ve learned from doing this newsletter: If you write about Democrats screwing up—as I did recently—you’ll get a lot of mail.

Lynda Dobens wrote:

It’s time for us to send Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer a dear John letter. The honeymoon is over, and we want a divorce. They should get their asses on Fox News and other outlets and start making the case to defend our country with not just criticism but a plan to put us back on course. These racketeers are selling us out. There are much better leaders for the Democrats. Let’s give AOC a chance. Jaime Raskin and lots of junior people offer incredible voices—not the weak tea Jeffries and Schumer are serving. 

I’m not sure going on Fox is the answer. But I think I made the case for serving stronger tea above. 

Bill Lally emailed a different perspective:

As a first-time writer to Our Land, my thinking on the Democrats (I am one) is that they should coalesce around a message or a few messages that resonate with the "ignored" middle of all stripes and ignore the firehose of BS spewed daily by Trump and his apparatchik. It's impossible to respond to every WTF statement that comes from that PR extravaganza. I feel like that (and other missteps) contributed to November results. Stop already with the Hitler comparisons. Stop jumping at every news blurb about the incomprehensible statements coming from them. Stop defending anything and everything! Defend what matters to the majority. Tell us how the changes that have happened affect voters and what your plan is to deal with inflation, health care, and Social Security.

Martha Ture shared intriguing information from an article posted by the Cipher Brief and written by past GOP House chief of staff Steven Moore:

We polled Republicans about the Ukraine aid vote last year. Our polling is a little dated, but still a useful gauge. The most effective approach involves giving American Christians accurate information about Russia torturing and murdering Ukrainian Christians in occupied Ukraine. Specifically:  

According to American Christian leaders, evangelical Christians are being persecuted and tortured by Russian soldiers in the areas of Ukraine that are occupied by Russia. Christians report torture with electrical shocks and being beaten with a baseball bat. Some bodies are too disfigured by torture to be easily identified. 

Sixty-three percent of Republican voters and 70% of evangelical Republicans were more likely to support last year’s aid bill when given this information, based on actual incidents of torture and murder. The Russians have shut down every church in occupied Ukraine that is not controlled by the Kremlin. Believers who meet to pray do so under the threat of torture and imprisonment. The Russians have killed 47 faith leaders.

Mike Eckel also was thinking about Ukraine and the recent meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

Why do reporters not ask the obvious question to Trump, Steve Witkoff, and others who spout this nonsense that the discussion of Ukraine joining NATO was a justifiable provocation for war: Why did Russia not invade Finland or Sweden when they indicated they were thinking of joining NATO? Shouldn't this have been more frightening to Russia? The actions of the president and the vice president during the February 28 meeting with Zelenskyy is a dishonor the United States will not be able to live down for many years.

What the Russians did to the Ukrainians when they started the invasion in in 2022 are every bit as awful and despicable as the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7. In at least one respect, worse: Hamas kidnapped approximately 250 Israeli citizens; Russia has kidnapped more than 20,000 children. Why is the world not demanding the same attention and action to recover those kidnapped victim as we have with the Israeli kidnapped victims?

Katie Quinn responded to the recent issue that explored how Republicans for decades have encouraged distrust of the media: 

I enjoyed your newsletter and shared it with my book club, but I was also curious. While acknowledging a decline in trust of the media across three factions—Democrats, Republicans, and independents— you seem to characterize distrust of the media as a largely conservative phenomenon, both in terms of its origins and in terms of its practitioners (conservatives and GOP-leaning independents). I consider myself a fairly progressive person, and I've likewise been disenchanted with mainstream media coverage. Of late, I've been deeply disappointed in "liberal" media's coverage of Palestine, private equity in housing, immigration policy (and comparative deportation numbers between administrations), and more. I've noticed that my more mainstream Democratic peers tout the superiority of the New York Times, the Atlantic, etc. while failing to recognize what I consider to be blind spots in foreign and domestic policy. I was wondering (1) if you encountered similar sentiments among progressives at the Semafor conference; and (2) if you think the relatively high trust in corporate media amongst Democrats is a good thing?

Good questions. (1): The Semafor conference I wrote about was just a series of one-on-one interviews with media bigshots. It did not feature any conversations that would allow for pulse-taking of progressives. (2): No one should have full faith in corporate media. But that’s different than saying it should be distrusted. All media must be read, watched, and listened to with discernment. By and large, much of the mainstream media—disdained as the “liberal media” by the right—does a mostly decent job of reporting basic news. It doesn't, for instance, tend to make stuff up; its reporters try to be accurate. And often it delivers important exposés. See the New York Times’ reporting on Trump’s taxes or its preelection story that noted Trump’s former chief of staff now considered him a “fascist.”

The problem often is how establishment media contextualize stories and what they choose to focus on or, more important, not focus on. Say, being overly credulous of Israeli government sources and not reaching out to Palestinian sources. Or too often covering Trump, a wannabe autocrat, as if he were a normal politician. The question of trust regarding the establishment media for many libs and progs is of a different nature than it is for those on the right, where MAGA people view the same news outfits as purposefully rigging news coverage as part of a diabolical scheme to undermine or destroy America. This can be a much longer conversation.

“Moxie, what a day. Some humans are real assholes.”
“I don’t know. Everyone I meet is friendly.”
“That’s because everyone you meet pets you and tells you how cute you are.”
“What’s wrong with that? It’s a wonderful world. Humans are so nice.”
“You’re living in a bubble.”