There’s an old adage “never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
In the case of our current president, it’s more like “never let the facts get in the way of stirring up your base with some good old racism.”
T-rump met with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office last week, and proceeded to ambush (a.k.a. “Zelenskyy”) him. It’s sad when the leaders of other countries — our allies no less — are used as props to push false narratives, fodder for the crazy cannon that is Trump’s lips.
Trump rolled out a TV screen and dimmed the lights like it was a junior high health class, and proceeded to show a highly edited video.
Pointing to footage of a long line of crosses on both sides of a country road packed with cars, Trump said, “These are burial sites right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers. And those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there’s approximately a thousand of them. They’re all white farmers.”
From the BBC:
However, the crosses do not mark graves. The video is from a protest against the murder of white farming couple Glen and Vida Rafferty, who were ambushed and shot dead on their premises in 2020. The clip was shared on YouTube on 6 September, the day after the protests.
From South Africa’s top law enforcement official, Senzo Mchunu:
“They are not graves. They don’t represent graves,” Mchunu said regarding the video that has become prominent on social media since it was shown in the White House. “And it was unfortunate that those facts got twisted to fit a false narrative about crime in South Africa.”
From Snopes.com:
Per a report from the Institute of Race Relations, an anti-apartheid think tank in South Africa, the protest saw both Black and white participants mourning the deaths. One protester told the IRR: “We are supporting each other. There should be no killing anymore. White or black, we are all one.”
Trump also showed “news” clipping printouts that promoted his claims of a white genocide.
During the press conference, Trump held a stack of printed news articles that he said showed “death of people. Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”
“Pick any one of them,” Trump said. “White South Africans are fleeing because of the violence and racist laws. And this is all, I mean, I’ll give these to you.”
“A lot of people are very concerned with regard to South Africa… we have many people that feel they’re being persecuted, and they are coming to the US, so we take from many locations if we feel there’s persecution or genocide going on.”
That image Trump is holding up in the photo above? It isn’t from South Africa.
From the BBC:
But the image isn’t from South Africa – it’s actually from a report about women being killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
From the AP:
There were 12 murders on farms last year, The Associated Press reported, citing police statistics. One of the victims was a farmer, and the rest were farmworkers, none of whom were identified by race, according to the AP. White farmers own roughly three-quarters of South Africa’s privately owned land, according to government data.
Trump’s claims are demonstrably false. In other words, they’re lies. From the president of our country.
We can do all the fact-checking in the world. But the videotape makes the rounds on social media, and the base gets stirred up even more, taking the bait, hook, line, and sinker.
“Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
And never expect the truth from a born liar.
You done said…