Spreading the gospel of white nationalism, alienating allies, and attacking a woman who isn’t Theresa May… just another day with Trump

This morning, our President, Donal Trump, shared three videos by way of social media that had originally been posted to Twitter by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, an anti-Muslim extremist political organization. The three videos appear to show a Muslim man destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary, an “Islamist mob” shoving a young man to his death from the roof of a building, and a Muslim “migrant” beating up a Dutch boy on crutches. The first of these two videos, it would appear, date back to at least 2013, and the perpetrator of the crime in the third tape, we now know, wasn’t a migrant at all, but a 16 year old who was born in the Netherlands. England’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, after hearing that Donald Trump had shared these videos put on social media by a British extremist group, issued a statement condemning the action. Trump, she said, was “wrong” to have shared this material, which was posted to Twitter by Britain First, an entity, according to May, that seeks to “peddle lies,” “stoke tensions,” and “divide communities through their use of hateful narratives.

Trump, as I suspect will surprise no one, didn’t take this rebuke lightly, tweeting a nasty note back to someone who he thought, based on her Twitter handle, might be Theresa May. [It wasn’t.]

And, now, May, the leader of what has historically been our closest ally, is now facing pressure to un-invite Trump, who is supposed to visit the UK early next year.

As for the damage Trump has done to our standing in England, here’s a tweet from Sam Coates, the deputy political editor at The Times.

🇬🇧Donald Trump is facing unprecedented criticism in the Commons chamber today. MPs calling him “fascist”, “stupid”, spreading “evil” and “racist or incompetent or ignorant or all three” – remarks of a vehemence never heard before about a US president in the UK Parliament 🇬🇧

— Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) November 30, 2017

Meanwhile, here at home, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders essentially told reporters that, even if the videos weren’t real, it was OK for Trump to have shared them, as they’ve brought our collective attention to the very real problem of Muslim migration. “Whether it is a real video, the threat is real,” Sanders said. “That is what the President is talking about, that is what the President is focused on is dealing with those real threats, and those are real no matter how you look at it.” Sanders then went on to tell the assembled reporters that they were “focusing on the wrong thing” here. “The threat is real,” she said. She then went on to say, “The threat has to be talked about and that is what the President is doing in bringing that up.” Here’s the video.

Question on President Trump's retweets this morning: Does it matter if it's a fake video?

Sarah Sanders: "I'm not talking about the nature of the video. I think you're focusing on the wrong thing. The threat is real, and that's what the President is talking about." pic.twitter.com/Nh2YyuLD01

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 29, 2017

If you’re struggling with this concept – that, when Trump lies, he’s actually speaking the truth – I’d suggest listening to the episode of Sam Harris’s Waking Up podcast, where he talks with Trump fan Scott Adams about the concept he refers to as “emotional truth”… or this idea that sometimes a lie can contain more truth within it than the truth itself. [It’s absolutely infuriating to hear Adams defend Trump’s lies as “emotional truths,” but, if you’ve got the stomach for it, I’d suggest you give it a listen, as it helps explain to some extent why the President’s supporters seem so impervious to the truth.]

So, just to recap… The President today retweeted videos that were posted by a woman in the UK who not only leads a neofascist organization, but was just recently found guilty of having committed a hate crime under British law. And, in doing so, he earned the public rebuke of a longstanding democratic ally, unlike anything I can remember in my lifetime. [Guess what? The Brits, given their history, apparently don’t take too kindly to people playing footsie with fascists.] Then, to make matters worse, Sanders said it didn’t really matter if the videos were fake, as they pointed toward a greater truth, at which point Trump attacked a woman on Twitter, thinking that she was Theresa May, telling her to stay out of our business… Oh, and this all happened after Trump hinted that his former friend, Joe Scarborough, may have murdered a former intern… Just another day in Trump world.

Oh, and guess what? Britain First loves Putin… Small world, right?

note: I almost didn’t post this, as it crossed my mind that this whole thing may have been orchestrated to keep our attention off the fact that the cruel, dishonest and unfair Republican tax plan is currently making its way through the Senate, but then it occurred to me that maybe, if you haven’t already picked up the phone to call your Senators and demand that they put an end to it, this most recent incident, as outlined above, may light a fire under your ass… This man, if you haven’t noticed, is dragging along with him into a world of madness, and we need to fight him at every turn. We need to kill this tax bill. And then we need to get Doug Jones into the Senate. If we can do those two things, the Republicans, I suspect, may finally turn on Trump and force him from office. And, here’s the bonus. Even if that doesn’t work, and Trump stays in office, we still keep Roy Moore out of the Senate, and stop the Republicans from raising taxes on the middle class to pay for unprecedented give-aways to the wealthy… So, what do you say? Will you CALL YOUR SENATORS and demand they vote “no” on this tax bill?