![]() ![]() This became frequent media shorthand for Trump’s distortions. He remained obsessed with the coverage of him in his home town paper. In fact the Times thrived during his presidency and now has more than 7 million paid subscribers. One of Trump’s favourites on Twitter and elsewhere, particularly when referring to the New York Times. But in January 2017, Trump, then president-elect, told CNN’s Jim Acosta at a press conference: “You are fake news.” From that moment on, he coopted and weaponised the phrase to dismiss media reports he did not like. The term was popularised by BuzzFeed News media editor Craig Silverman to describe unverified claims and online rumours. ![]() The danger of such rhetoric was evident in Trump supporter T-shirts that said: “Rope. In the 20th century it was embraced by autocrats from Stalin to Mao to justify their bloody purges. Its lineage dates back to 1789 when French revolutionaries threw it at those who opposed them. In a characteristic shock tactic, Trump used this historically loaded phrase regularly to attack the media. The willingness of Republicans and conservative media to do likewise raised fears of a fundamental breakdown in trust in government institutions and the media. Trump pushed disinformation about the economy, coronavirus, election and countless other topics. Typically defined as the dissemination of deliberately false information, it took flight with Russia’s social media attack during the 2016 election. “Thank God for the deep state,” John McLaughlin, a former deputy and acting director of the CIA, remarked last year. ![]() Others came to see civil servants, judges and national security personnel as a bulwark of democracy. Trump pushed the conspiracy theory that bureaucrats within the political system effectively run a secret government that plots against democratically elected officials. In the end, Mueller stopped short of asserting that collusion took place – prompting Trump’s defenders to cry “collusion delusion” – but did make a persuasive case that the president obstructed justice. The first half of Trump’s presidency was dominated by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. He insisted: “Asian Americans are VERY angry at what China has done to our Country, and the World.” But even Conway rejected the term “China virus” as “wrong” and “highly offensive”. Trump complained that Covid-19 had multiple names but more often than not settled on the racist terms “China virus” and “kung flu”, putting Asian Americans at risk of hostility and persecution. But the word “bigly” does appear in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Others reckoned he must have said “big league”. “I’m going to cut taxes bigly, and you’re going to raise taxes bigly,” he said, or at least that was how some people heard it. Legend has it that Trump first deployed this word during the first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Joe Biden remarked during a presidential debate: “Antifa is an idea, not an organization.” Its followers have used aggressive tactics including physical confrontations to intimidate groups they regard as authoritarian or racist. The phrase also had jarring associations with a 1940s movement to keep the US out of the second world war that came to be accused of antisemitism.Īn amorphous and leftwing anti-fascist movement demonised by Trump and fellow Republicans. He followed through on withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, renegotiating trade deals and leaving the US isolated on the global stage. Trump’s central promise of self-interest galvanised his base and dismayed critics. In his inaugural address, Trump painted a dark picture of poverty in inner cities, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones and crime and gangs and drugs, promising: “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” But the phrase came back to haunt him, especially when the coronavirus pandemic killed hundreds of thousands of people. Bannon went on to become Trump’s chief strategist during his first race for the White House. When Steve Bannon was running Breitbart News, he called it “the platform for the alt-right”. One of its leaders, Richard Spencer, described it as “identity politics for white people”. Together these formed the original sin of the Trump presidency, culminating in his coronavirus and election denialism.Ī far-right movement based on white nationalism and antisemitism. Coined by Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor, during a Meet the Press interview in January 2017 to defend press secretary Sean Spicer’s the false assertion that Trump drew the biggest inauguration crowd ever.
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