Will Trump’s Disinformation Lead to Civil War?

President Donald Trump speaking at Fort Bragg on Tuesday. Alex Brandon/AP

Ten years ago this Monday, Donald Trump rode down an elevator, surrounded by make-believe supporters who had been paid to cheer him, and delivered a rambling speech declaring his candidacy for president. It was dark. The United States, he bellowed, had “become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.” The nation was “getting weaker.” It was no longer great. Its leaders were “stupid,” “losers,” “morally corrupt,” and “selling this country down the drain.” Mexico was sending “rapists” across the border to the United States. Unemployment was 21 percent. (Actually, it was 5.3 percent.) The US nuclear arsenal “doesn’t work.” (It did.) He laid it on thick: “We’ve got nothing...We’re dying...We’re becoming a third-world country...Sadly, the American dream is dead.”

Ever since then, Trump has been running a disinformation campaign of doom and gloom, depicting the United States as a disastrous hellscape—that is, whenever it serves his perverted political purposes. In his first inaugural address, he characterized the nation as being racked with “American carnage.” During the 2020 contest, he accused Joe Biden of plotting with radicals, antifa, and communists to literally destroy America.

His 2024 presidential endeavor was more a propaganda operation than a political campaign. He claimed Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs, Venezuelan criminal migrants had taken control of towns across the Midwest, schools were performing gender transition operations on children without informing parents, and Biden and Vice President Harris were purposefully importing millions of undocumented people (and using a phone app that told cartel heads where to drop off these migrants). He spewed outrageous and outlandish lies to support an unfounded narrative: America was apocalyptic.

This was both madness and method. The goal of disinformation is to shape perceptions. If Trump could convince voters that they were imperiled by mobs of barbarous pet-eating brown people and that Biden and Harris were in cahoots with savages and marauders, then they’d have little choice but to vote for him. He was selling a fictitious script to incite fear and loathing, believing that would win him support.

Trump is not facing an election now, but he is continuing to use scare tactics to skew reality. Since he returned to the White House, he has cited phony emergencies to abuse presidential power, falsely claiming that the entry of undocumented people into the United States amounts to an invasion waged by a foreign power and that trade deficits threaten the survival of the nation. And in response to the protests in Los Angeles against his cruel mass deportation effort, he has turned his disinformation campaign up to 11.

Trump says these demonstrations—which have been mostly peaceful, with some yielding limited violent actions—are an insurrection. He and his aides have maintained that Los Angeles is under siege by a vast horde of criminal migrants. In front of troops at Fort Bragg, Trump declared that California Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass are “incompetent” and that “they paid troublemakers, agitators, and insurrectionists” to “aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders.” He has also said the protests have caused “a lot of death.” And that LA would have been “obliterated,” had he not sent in National Guard troops. His top aides have chimed in. Attorney General Pam Bondi exclaimed, “California is burning.” Stephen Miller, Trump’s minister of malice, tweeted, “Los Angeles is occupied territory.”

None of this is remotely true. The inciter-in-chief was lying to the troops. Yet Trump cult propagandists at Fox and other right-wing media outlets have strived to bolster Trump’s deceit with hysterical coverage of the few violent acts that have occurred in a 1-square-mile area of downtown Los Angeles. (The city encompasses 502 square miles.) Yet again, Trump is cynically concocting a bogus and dangerous tale that demonizes Americans for political advantage. In his telling, he’s the strongman rescuing a great American metropolis from annihilation. In reality, he is exacerbating conflict triggered by his own destructive policy.  

Countering disinformation is difficult, especially in a time of media fragmentation. Trump’s supporters and Fox viewers tend to believe whatever he says. One photograph of three burning driverless taxis goes a long way with his devotees. Fact-checking and reporting by other media outlets mean little to them. And it is tough to fight disinformation one falsehood at a time. Litigating phony assertions can draw them more attention. By the time you’ve challenged one piece of disinformation, another—or many more—emerges.

A more effective response to disinformation is to characterize specific sources of bad information as untrustworthy and not to be believed. But the media lost this fight with Trump years ago, in the early stages of his political career, when it was largely reluctant to brand him a perpetual liar. Since then, it has been playing catch-up with his never-ending stream of falsehoods and hokum, as the stakes get higher. And into this present crisis, when he is spreading lies to justify using military forces against domestic political opposition.

As Trump turned his last political campaign into a disinformation op, he has done the same with his second presidency. He seeks to convince Americans that both an invasion and an insurrection are underway and that the existence of the nation is at risk—and that he must respond with militaristic and autocratic tactics. (On Thursday, a federal judge in California ruled Trump did not have the legal authority to assume control of California National Guard troops and order them to Los Angeles. Hours later, an appeals court stayed the judge’s order and set a hearing on the matter for June 17.)

This is a perilous moment. It was disturbing to see federal agents on Thursday forcibly remove and assault Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) when he tried to interrupt Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, while she was conducting a press conference in Los Angeles. More troubling was what she said moments before that episode:

We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.

Liberate the city? Engaging in classic red-baiting, Noem was proclaiming that Trump intended to use federalized National Guard troops and Marines to overthrow the elected leaders of Los Angeles and California because he objected to their policies and political stances. The federal government does not have the authority to do this. Here was a brazen attack on the constitutional order. It was practically a declaration of civil war against the people of LA and California. Call it authoritarianism. Call it fascism. It is not American democracy. Ultimately, Trump’s disinformation operation is aimed at undermining, if not crushing, our diverse and messy democracy. He seeks to burn the village so he can seize power to supposedly save it. And the most potent ammunition for his war on America is lies.

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

The judges usually don’t consider a “no comment” to be in contention for this prize. They expect potential recipients to work harder than that. But this week, they were willing to accept a nomination for Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).

When anti-vaxxer and conspiracy-monger Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was facing Senate confirmation earlier this year, it seemed Cassidy, a medical doctor who has been a champion of vaccination and who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, might try to prevent RFK Jr. from becoming secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Not surprisingly, Cassidy caved, claiming he had received assurances from Kennedy. One was, Cassidy said, that Kennedy, if confirmed, would “maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendations [for vaccinations] without changes.”

So what did Cassidy have to say this week when Kennedy fired all the members of this ACIP committee? Confronted by a reporter, he muttered, “I’m just not going to comment on that.” Then he scooted away.

Cassidy did tweet, “Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion. I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.” Well, two days later, RFK Jr. stocked the committee with members who have criticized vaccines and spread misinformation. Dr. Cassidy, you were played. And you probably knew it at the time.

Vice President JD Vance believed this was a good week to defend the Confederacy—or, at least, people who fought for it. On a podcast, he huffed, “I feel like something happened like 10 years ago where every, it’s like you have to think that every single person that who fought for the Confederate side was an evil person. I just think that’s so stupid.”

He was so close to saying there were very fine people on both sides.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was hailed when first appointed to this post as an adult who could be a responsible steward of policy. He’s turned out to be another Trump suck-up who peddles bunk. At a congressional hearing, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) noted that the economy under Trump has been weak, and he wondered if Bessent felt bad about that. Then this exchange occurred:

Beyer: Isn't this embarrassing?

Bessent: You seem not to have seen the economic data. GDP growth has been quite substantial. Job growth is solid.

Beyer: GDP growth is half what it was last year, sir.  

Bessent: Job growth is solid.

Beyer: Job growth is a third what it was all last year, sir.

The numbers might be even worse than Beyer suggested. Last year, GDP growth was 2.8 percent. In the first quarter of this year, there was 0.3 percent shrinkage. And GDP growth for the entire year is now projected to be 1.8 percent. During the first quarter of this year, job growth was about 619,000—much less than the 898,000 added over the same period in 2024. Bessent was doing what the boss often does: lying.

Politico this week showed us how to normalize authoritarianism:

Trump made a host of idiotic remarks this past week about Los Angeles, deportation, and other matters. But the judges wished to highlight a particular comment he uttered in the Oval Office on Tuesday about his expensive and pointless military parade: “If there’s any protest that want to come out, they will be met with very big force...This is the people who hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.”

There were not major protests scheduled for Trump’s silly parade, though hundreds of No Kings demonstrations were organized for cities and towns across the nation. And Trump was not voicing concern about violent protesters but any and all protesters, suggesting that even peaceful demonstrators would be targeted with “heavy force.”

It’s not gone unnoticed by many this week that Trump adheres to a rather obvious double standard: He decries criminal violence in Los Angeles (which he falsely hypes), but he pardoned the violent, law-breaking January 6 rioters. And his cultists have had to play along, no matter how awkward. Here’s a compilation of replies to an obvious question.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the LA situation was “very different” from January 6: “These are people out there hurting people in California right now. This is ongoing...California is burning.” A great many people—mainly police officers—were hurt on January 6. House Speaker Mike Johnson wouldn’t address the question at hand, harrumphing, “Everyone wants me to relitigate January 6, and I’m not going to do this.” And Sen. John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader, also took a dive: “I think the issue that is in front of us right now is the chaos in LA.” There was far more chaos on Capitol Hill than in the City of Angels.

That supercut included this week’s winner, but Johnson earned the judges’ collective thumbs up (or thumbs down) for a different statement. Asked about border czar Tom Homan’s comment that California Gov. Gavin Newsom might face arrest for impeding ICE deportations, the House speaker said, "I'm not going to give you legal analysis on whether Gavin Newsom should be arrested, but he ought to be tarred and feathered, I’ll say that.”

One of the highest elected officials in the land was suggesting a governor should be subjected to violence. No doubt, Johnson would claim he was merely joshing. But in a combustible situation, a responsible leader does not encourage violence. And it’s certainly not what a self-professed Christian ought to do.

A key front in the battle against authoritarianism is civil society. This fight does not transpire only in the realm of politics. Thus, leaders in assorted fields—business, civics, culture, sports, religion, education, arts, entertainment—need to be part of the opposition. This has been crucial in other nations that have resisted the rise of autocracy. So kudos to late-night funnyman Jimmy Kimmel for this week devoting the first 11 minutes of one of his shows to combatting Trump’s disinformation.

His message: We who live in Los Angeles know that Trump’s description of the conflict is complete BS; so don’t fall for it, America. Kimmel, who has long been a Trump critic, hit the president hard:

Putting out a fire you purposefully start doesn’t make you a firefighter, it makes you an arsonist with a hose. The president of the United States has been tougher on LA than on Russia. Remember that two-week deadline he gave Putin to sit down with peace talks with Ukraine? As of tomorrow, it’s two weeks. But by all means, send the Marines to the Grove [shopping center]...None of these doomsday scenarios the president and his minions keep imagining aloud—it’s not remotely true. There are no mobs. There is no violent insurrection...He is purposefully pitting Americans against each other to create protest porn for Fox News...He wants us to burn this city down...Leave us alone here. We don’t need you.

It's worth watching the full bit. This was the right mix of seriousness and satire and ended up reaching over 2 million people, including probably some who are not addicted to the news or social media. As the Trump crisis intensifies, more prominent Americans, especially those with significant platforms and audiences, should do the same.

It appears the recent issue on the “celebrity oligarch feud” between Donald Trump and Elon Musk irked several readers. As Cathy Pike wrote,

I very much value your insights, in written and interview form, but wonder if you might consider the following observation about today's newsletter. The two images you use (other than “clowns”) are “cat-fight” and “mean girls.” I think this is unfortunate and overlooks the maleness of this head-butting. The world is being destroyed by men who are insecure about the size of their penises. Sounds a little over the top, but I'm not joking. Trump of course; Musk, with his obscene fathering of children (I suspect “father” is not the right word for him); and Putin, with his shirtless posing. And so on. Fascism and misogyny are as linked as fascism and antisemitism. I'm not forgetting about Kristi Noem, Marjorie Taylor Greene, or the rest of those odious women. But they aren't at the top.  

Good point, Cathy. I will keep that in mind. 

Jack Zelver found a typo:

In your last letter you said: “I had originally intended to lead this issue with an item on another Bonzo: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. So let’s move on to that…” Didn't you mean "Bozo"? I can't find a reference for "Bonzo" to mean anything as foolish/stupid/dangerous as Kennedy.

A dumb error. I apologize to RFK Jr. and Bozos everywhere.

Steve Kane emailed:

You put the Trump-Musk “feud" in perspective while focusing on the far more insidious threat of RFK Jr. to rationality. The level of discourse in main-scream media and current DC politics boggles the mind. While there are certainly voices of sanity for a concerned citizen to feast upon, I sometimes feel these voices are an oxygen tank whose supply may not endure long enough for us to prevent full implementation of the Handmaid's Tale. Please don't stop sending oxygen.

On a cheery note, I have heard that there is a movement afoot to rehire some of those federal employees fired by DOGE. Think we might need a fully staffed FAA? If true, I hope that the alternative press and the Democrats make a field day of the fraud that was going after waste, fraud, and abuse. Maybe this will supply some fresh air while holding out hope that we can recover from the flat spin that our aircraft is currently experiencing.

It's good news that some folks are being rehired. Many are not. Unfortunately, even with the rehiring, these agencies will not be back on the footing they once had. It will take a long while to get out of the hole that was so quickly dug.

In response to that recent item on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. exploiting and encouraging the distrust of science, Linda Jack wrote:

Questioning science or the expertise of scientists is being cultivated as a successful con, and RFK Jr. as well as a host of others are making a fortune. It also bolsters the egos of those who don't understand science, as here's this famous millionaire telling them that they know better than the experts. The con men are telling their marks that they are smarter than the experts, that the marks are among the elite who know the real truth. To people who are baffled by what goes on in the world around them and are resentful of being told what to do by bosses, the government, etc.—who feel they have little control over their own lives—it's heady stuff. As Thomas Sowell said, "It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance."

Linda, it's funny how you end up quoting a prominent conservative on this.

Jeanne Schuster appreciated the recent issue that examined how the media helps Trump by repeatedly using his description of the tax-and-spending legislation as the “big beautiful bill”:

This is what I've been saying. Every time PBS (which has such a good news team) reports that "Trump said -----," it's spreading the propaganda. It gets irritating. They can cover a news story without doing this. And too many newspaper headlines repeat Trump's words. That's a lot of free propaganda as well, not news.

Richard Van Aken shared this:

I like quotes, and here's one that fits Trump: "Corruption has many tools but a lie is the handle which fits them all,” Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The actual quote is a bit different: “Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all.” That fits, too.

A McPheeters emailed:

The reason people fall for what Kennedy sells? It is because it is what they want to hear. They can use it as an excuse to be skeptical about vaccines or anything else. Also, he knows that most people are not going to do any research to check his statements. If it sounds "scientific," it must be right. If he gives sources to back it up, most people are not going to check. 

P.S. Moxie looks so cute in that picture.

Moxie says thanks...and that she thinks she looks good in every picture. Speaking of which...

Is there anything on the other side of the ocean?”
“Yes, Moxie. Other places with other people.”
“And dogs?”
“Yes, lots of dogs.”
“But I can’t see them.”
“Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
“Are you going to start again with object permanence?”