Most Dictators Rig Elections To Win With His Postal Service Gambit Trump Merely Wants Everybody To Lose With Him
What would the U.S. media say if the president of another country was threatening to hobble his nation’s postal service in hopes of suppressing ballots ahead of an election?
Every once in a while, an American journalist gets this notion: to imagine how the national press would cover a particular domestic story, whether it be white nationalist violence or protests against racist policing, as if it were happening in another country. It’s a venerable and sometimes illuminating frame—a way for Americans, given to believing in their own exceptionalism, to see themselves and their country’s troubles from a different vantage.
But in the postal case, and increasingly in the age of Trump, the “if it happened there” test proves of little use. It is 2020, after all, and there is no global shortage of demagogues and authoritarians making a joke of democratic processes. They stuff ballot boxes, jail opposition leaders, harass journalists, and threaten voters. They exploit all the tools at their disposal to rig an election in their favor. They increasinglywelcome elections, in fact, with recent scholarship showing “that elections can actually prolong dictatorships in the longer term,” as three European political scientists put it.
With Universal Mail-In Voting , 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump July 30, 2020
This Meme About How Donald Trump Called Republicans The Dumbest Group Of Voters In The Country Is Fake
The fake quote has been floating around the internet since about the time Trump announced his presidential bid in 2015. It has been widely shared on Twitter and Facebook by people eager to expose the businessman-turned-politician as a hypocrite for leading a party he once, allegedly, mocked.
“If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican,” the fake quote reads. “They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”
News 1998 People Magazine Quote Attributed To Trump Calling Republicans The Dumbest Voters Is False
Social media users shared a quote attributed to Donald Trump alleging that he said Republicans are “the dumbest group of voters in the country.”
Trump’s alleged quote to People Magazine in 1998 reads, “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”
– MRS MCK ??? November 5, 2020
Speaking the truth for once. “@Lynneth1000000: Boris Johnson is our Trump. #GTTO#Elections2020pic.twitter.com/hy0rwkqvDP“
– David Rhodes November 5, 2020
“If I were to run I’d run as a republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country.” Donald Trump, 1998. @FoxNews@PressSec@DonaldJTrumpJr@realDonaldTrump@GOP@seanhannity@TuckerCarlsonpic.twitter.com/cHY2Mt9sWY
– KarenS November 2, 2020
Fact Check/ Verification
As expected, the run-up to the United States Presidential election results saw a number of misleading and false claims circulating online.
A relevant keyword search on Google led us to a fact check done by Reuters in May.
It quotes a magazine spokesperson as mentioned in Factcheck.org, “People looked into this exhaustively when it first surfaced back in Oct. . We combed through every Trump story in our archive. We couldn’t find anything remotely like this quote-and no interview at all in 1998.”
Result: False
Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1998-trump-people-quote/
Disclaimer
Trump ‘knows Republicans Are Stupid’ Jared Kushner Allegedly Said To Former Editor
Greg Price U.S.Jared KushnerDonald TrumpRepublicans
One of the strategies Donald Trump employed as he began putting his name on the U.S. political map years ago was championing “birtherism,” the long-held conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was born outside of the U.S. and hence should never have been elected. He often chastised Obama and demanded the president produce his birth certificate, revving up an anti-Obama base that eventually helped put Trump in the White House.
Evidently, Trump may have been using the so-called birthers only as a means to an end.
His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is also a senior adviser to the president, allegedly told a former editor of the newspaper he once owned that the billionaire real-estate mogul didn’t believe his own “birtherism” claims, and only made them to charge up Republicans because they are “stupid,” GQ reported.
During a discussion on how to cover Trump, the former New York Observereditor, Elizabeth Spiers, claimed she told Kushner that she had serious problems with Trump’s repeated claims that Obama was not born in the U.S., to which Kushner allegedly told her: “He doesn’t really believe it, Elizabeth. He just knows Republicans are stupid and they’ll buy it.”
Spiers told her Kushner anecdote in response to a question from a conservative blogger on Facebook, and then screenshotted the response and put it up on Twitter.
Top 10 Actual Things Donald Trump Said At His 2016 Presidential Campaign Kickoff
Top 10 Actual Things Donald Trump Said At His 2016 Presidential Campaign Announcement
? — On Tuesday, real estate mogul-turned reality show star, Donald Trump, became the latest Republican to jump into the 2016 presidential race.
If he’s elected in 2016, the GOP hopeful predicated that he would be the most successful president for U.S. jobs that “God ever created,” used the recent sale of a multi-million dollar apartment he owned to someone from China as an example of his friendly ties with the country, voiced concern that people from the Middle East are “probably” sneaking into the country through the border, and revealed that rich Islamic terrorists are his competition within the hotel market in Syria.
This is all real, and it’s trademark Trump. Here are the quotes from Trump’s presidential announcement that you will never hear another presidential candidate say — ever.
Most Of Trump’s Stories Then Were About His Pending Divorce From Marla Maples
• While the quote has been debunked several times since it apparently surfaced in 2015, users have recently been resharing it on social media.
• Most of Trump’s stories were about his pending divorce from Marla Maples and appearances at various social and entertainment events.
A magazine photo claiming that US President Donald Trump referred to Republican voters as ‘dumbest voters’ is false.
The photo- that has gone viral on social media platforms quotes the Peoples Magazine in 1998, where it is alleged Trump said if he were to dip his toes in politics, he would use the Republican ticket.
“If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific,” read the message purporting to be a quote from Trump.
Several Twitter users including Azeem ButtValryLeBourg and MuthuiMkenya in reference to the ongoing US election indicated that one does not have to be smart if their followers are stupid.
While the quote has been debunked several times since it apparently surfaced in 2015, users have recently been resharing it on social mediaespecially after a Democratic Candidate Joe Biden was projected as the President-Elect for the United States.
The Star’s fact-check desk established that the meme was first debunked by SNOPES in 2015, followed by other independent debunks.
‘i Just Want 11780 Votes’: Trump Pressed Georgia To Overturn Biden Victory
- Trump asked secretary of state to recalculate vote in phone call
Martin PengellyRichard Luscombe
In an hour-long phone call on Saturday, Donald Trump pressed Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there in the election the president refuses to concede.
The Washington Post obtained a tape of the “extraordinary” conversation, which Trump acknowledged on Twitter.
Amid widespread outrage including calls for a second impeachment, Bob Bauer, a senior Biden adviser, said: “We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place.”
The Post published the full call.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” Trump said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
Raffensperger is a Republican who has become a bête noire among Trump supporters for repeatedly saying Biden’s win in his state was fair. In one of a number of parries, he said: “Well, Mr President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”
Trump said: “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
He insisted: “There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”
Dumb Son Of A Bitch: Trump Attacks Mcconnell In Republican Donors Speech
At Mar-a-Lago, former president also goes after Fauci and Chao … and claims party ‘can’t have these guys that like publicity’
Donald Trump devoted part of a speech to Republican donors on Saturday night to insulting the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell. According to multiple reports of the $400,000-a-ticket, closed-press event, the former president called the Kentucky senator “a dumb son of a bitch”.
Trump also said Mike Pence, his vice-president, should have had the “courage” to object to the certification of electoral college results at the US Capitol on 6 January. Trump claims his defeat by Joe Biden, by 306-232 in the electoral college and more than 7m votes, was the result of fraud. It was not and the lie was thrown out of court.
Earlier, the Associated Press reported that a Pentagon timeline of events on 6 January showed Pence demanding military leaders “clear the Capitol” of rioters sent by Trump.
But Trump did nothing and about six hours passed before the Capitol was cleared. Five people including a police officer died and some in the mob were recorded chanting “hang Mike Pence”. More than 400 face charges.
At his Mar-a-Lago resort on Saturday, amid a weekend of Republican events in Florida, some at Trump properties, the former president also mocked Dr Anthony Fauci.
I hired his wife. Did he ever say thank you?
Trump also said Covid-19 vaccines should be renamed “Trumpcines” in his honour.
Fact Check: Trump Did Not Call Republicans The Dumbest Group Of Voters
5 Min Read
An old quote falsely attributed to Donald Trump has recently resurfaced online. The viral meme alleges Trump told People magazine in 1998 that Republicans are “the dumbest group of voters in the country”. This is false.
While the quote has been debunked several times since it apparently surfaced in 2015, users have recently been resharing it on social media. Examples can be seen here , here , here , here
The meme reads: “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific. – Donald Trump, People Magazine, 1998”
Snopes first wrote about the false quote here in October 2015 . Since then, the quote has been debunked multiple times .
People magazine has confirmed in the past that its archive has no register of this alleged exchange.
“People looked into this exhaustively when it first surfaced back in Oct. . We combed through every Trump story in our archive. We couldn’t find anything remotely like this quote–and no interview at all in 1998.”, a magazine spokesperson told Factcheck.org that year .
In December 1987, People published a profile on Donald Trump titled “Too Darn Rich”. The article quoted him saying he was too busy to run for president .
Republicans Say Bidens Afghanistan Withdrawal Plan Is Dumber Than Dirt
President Biden’s pledge to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11 prompted immediate backlash Tuesday from leading congressional Republicans, who decried his plans as “outrageous,” “dumber than dirt” and “a disaster in the making.”
“Precipitously withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a grave mistake. It is a retreat in the face of an enemy,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Foreign terrorists will not leave the United States alone simply because our politicians have grown tired of taking the fight to them.”
The GOP’s wholesale rejection of Biden’s planned withdrawal illustrates the political risk confronting the new administration as it seeks to bring the country’s longest war to a close — even as many Democrats greeted the news with relief.
“It took us 10 years to find and kill Osama bin Laden. We stayed an additional 10 years to help train Afghan security forces and create conditions for a more stable future in that country,” said Sen. Tim Kaine , a leading advocate for repealing the 2001 war authorization that permitted U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. “It is now time to bring our troops home.”
Biden will withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021
“It is insane to withdraw at this time given the conditions that exist on the ground in Afghanistan,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham , noting that he also thought Trump’s deadline was “very bad, ill-conceived policy.”
No Donald Trump Did Not Call Republican Voters Dumb In The 1990s
Donald Trump has made plenty of questionable claims over the years, but calling Republican voters dumb isn’t one of them.
Still, one political meme continues to spread across social media sites and claims he said just that.
The story goes that in a 1998 interview with People Magazine, Donald Trump said he was considering a run for president and would do so as a Republican because “They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”
The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.
The meme features a repurposed image of a younger Trump, with the quote billed as a statement he delivered in an interview with the magazine.
So did Donald Trump actually say that – or anything like it?
No, the quote is bogus.
The fabricated quote appeared on social media sites inOctober 2015, when Trump’s campaign started to gain steam. The meme has continually resurfaced over the years, though it has repeatedlybeendebunked.
We searched People’s archives, which date back to the 1970s, and found no Trump interviews in 1998 – or any other time – that feature that quote or anything resembling it.
Most of the magazine’s articles at the time that involved Trump discussed his celebrity and high-profile divorce from Marla Maples.
Featured Fact-check
People also issued a statement rebuking the quote’s authenticity.
Trump Did Not Disparage Gop In 1998 People Magazine Interview
CLAIM: “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.” — Donald Trump in 1998 People magazine interview.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The president did not make such a comment to People magazine.
THE FACTS: Singer and actress Bette Midler, who often speaks out against Trump, shared the false quote attributed to Trump on her Twitter account Sunday, with the comment that Trump “certainly knew his crowd.” Julie Farin, a People magazine spokeswoman, told The Associated Press that the magazine looked into the claim exhaustively when it first surfaced years ago but did not find anything remotely like it made by the president.
The image used with the false quote shows Trump during a 1988 appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” where he discussed running for president, but made no reference to Republicans being “the dumbest group of voters.” The quote first began circulating in 2015 and has been widely shared across social media platforms, including Facebook. It has been widely debunked since that time.
Here’s more information on Facebook’s fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536
___
This is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.
Trump Gets Slap On The Wrist For Rant On ‘stupid’ Iowa Voters
‘Not good to insult Iowa voters,’ one Iowa Republican says, but the fallout is far from dramatic.
Donald Trump’s slam of Iowans as “stupid” would usually be a breathtaking gaffe for a presidential candidate, but the billionaire businessman has proved time and again that this isn’t any normal presidential race and that he isn’t any normal candidate.
Top Republicans and Republican operatives in the state on Friday disparaged Trump’s comments from his Thursday evening rally at Iowa Central Community College in which he questioned the intelligence of voters who believe rival Ben Carson’s claims of a violent past and subsequent redemption. “How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?” Trump yelled.
“Not good to insult Iowa voters,” Doug Gross, the former chief of staff to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, told POLITICO on Friday.
Steve Grubbs, the chief Iowa strategist for rival Rand Paul, was happy to pounce on the comment. “Trump’s meltdown last night makes me worry what would happen in a stressful situation in the White House,” Grubbs said.
But many Iowa Republicans also don’t see lasting damage. They see the comments as unfortunate but not nearly enough to send Trump packing.
“I heard audible gasps from those I was sitting by, yet that had no effect in his standing in the caucuses. And I’m not trying to dodge or be cute, but we don’t know. We don’t know what impact this will have,”Strawn said.
Here Are The Top 10 Stupidest Things Trump Did As President
We’re tentatively starting to emerge from the four year-long national nightmare of Donald Trump’s presidency, but the reckoning of what the nation endured will take years to really understand. Trump was terrible in so many ways that it’s hard to catalog them all: His sociopathic lack of regard for others. His towering narcissism. His utter ease with lying. His cruelty and sadism. The glee he took in cheating and stomping on anything good and decent. His misogyny and racism. His love of encouraging violence, only equaled by his personal cowardice.
But of all the repulsive character traits in a man so wholly lacking in any redeemable qualities, perhaps the most perplexing to his opponents was Trump’s incredible stupidity. On one hand, it was maddening that a man so painfully dumb, a man who clearly could barely read — even on those rare occasions when he deigned to wear glasses — still had the low cunning necessary to take over the Republican Party and then the White House.
On the other hand, it was the one aspect of Trump’s personality that kept hope alive. Surely a man so stupid, his opponents believed, will one day blunder so badly he can’t be saved, even by his most powerful sycophants. That has proved to be the case as Trump fumbles his way through a failed coup, unable and unwilling to see that stealing the election from Joe Biden is a lost cause.
He then pointed at his head, and said, “I’m, like, a person who has a good you-know-what.”
Trumps 10 Most Hilariously Stupid Things He Said In 2019
President Donald Trump has a long history of saying some of the most bizarre things in politics. This year was one for the books as the president flailed, searching for excuses for his July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Here are some of the most hilariously stupid things the president has said this year:
1. Windmills cause ear cancer
“If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value,” Trump told Republicans in April. “And they say the noise causes cancer. You tell me that one.” He then made a whirring noise mimicking a turbine.
2. He wants to buy Greenland
“In meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance and, according to two of the people, has asked his White House counsel to look into the idea,” the Wall Street Journal reported in August.
“Denmark essentially owns it,” Trump told reporters in the days that followed. “We’re very good allies with Denmark. We protect Denmark like we protect large portions of the world. … Strategically it’s interesting.”
Trump then got into a fight with Danish leaders and had to cancel a trip he’d planned to the country.
3. Trump is the “chosen one.”
4. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.”
Fact Check: Did Trump Say In ’98 Republicans Are Dumb
Q:
Did Donald Trump tell People magazine in 1998 that if he ever ran for president, he’d do it as a Republican because “they’re the dumbest group of voters in the country” and that he “could lie and they’d still eat it up”?A: No, that’s a bogus meme.
FULL ANSWER
The meme purports to be a quote from Trump in People magazine in 1998 saying, “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”
We were alerted to the meme by a reader, A. Douglas Thomas of Freeport, N.Y., among others, who saw it in his Facebook feed, along with a message from someone who said, “I just fact-checked this. Google Donald Trump, People magazine and 1998. This is an actual quote by Trump.”
We’ll save you the effort. It is not an actual quote by Trump.
We scoured the Peoplemagazine archives and found nothing like this quote in 1998 or any other year.
And a public relations representative with People told us that the magazine couldn’t find anything like that quote in its archives, either. People‘s Julie Farin said in an email: “Peoplelooked into this exhaustively when it first surfaced back in Oct. We combed through every Trump story in our archive. We couldn’t find anything remotely like this quote –and no interview at all in 1998.”
There were several stories in the late 1990s about Trump’s flirtation with a presidential run.
Trump Forced Republicans Into The Dumbest Corner
Republicans are stuck on the wrong side of public opinion on Covid-19, and that’s probably the biggest reason why they’ve struggled to make up any ground against their Democratic opponents. Back in March, I noticed a trend that was unusual in our polarized times: GOP voters were telling pollsters that they believed Donald Trump’s various claims about the origins of the pandemic and bought that the media and Democrats were exaggerating its danger, but when asked about how they themselves were responding to the outbreak, majorities made it clear that they took it very seriously. They were concerned about its impact on their families and communities, were taking precautions to avoid contracting the virus and supported most if not all public health measures to contain it.
And even as numerous prominent Republicans and White House staffers tested positive for the disease, the conservative media continued to relentlessly downplay the severity of this historic public health crisis and openly mock those who take it seriously. It’s hard to overstate how wide the divide between the movement and a significant majority of the public–voters Trump needs to win over–has become.
For a party that was once hailed for its messaging prowess, it is confounding. But it makes sense in context. Trump set the course for his party to navigate the pandemic months ago, and he simply does not have a plan B.
The Fake Donald Trump Quote That Just Wont Die
In October 2015, as Donald Trump was gaining steam in the Republican primary, a quote began circulating that, for any other GOP member, might have ended their campaign. In 1998, as the story goes, Trump told People, “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”
The quote was too good to be true. Sites like Snopes and Politifact quickly debunked it as a lie, or more specifically, could not find a primary source. There is no record of Trump saying this quote in People, though he has more broadly expressed political ambitions for decades. Despite the quote’s repeated debunking, it has shown up across social media consistently throughout the campaign in an attempt to derail the Trump Train.
While all of the fact-checking has determined that the quote is most certainly fake, the origins of the fakery are shrouded in mystery.
Snopes obtained the quote via an image emailed to them, one of the type meant to go viral on Facebook, and they first wrote about it on October 16, 2015. The image they cite has a watermark from the popular liberal Facebook page the Other 98%, one of the largest of a new genre of publication that exists mainly on social media and is dedicated to preaching to the choir.
Similar comments appear on another version of the clip.
User ieathairpussy:
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“They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”
The only problem is, there’s no evidence of Trump having ever said it.
According to Snopes, a website that debunks urban legends and myths, the image began appearing around October 2015, about four months after Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency.
While the quote may seem plausible, there is no evidence that Trump even gave any interviews to People magazine in 1998, let alone uttered the now-viral phrase, and there is nothing in the magazine’s extensive online archive pointing to political profiles of the businessman.
The reference to Fox News is also suspect – while the network launched in 1996, its popularity only really took off during the 2000 presidential campaign when George W Bush was elected; in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks and during the 2002 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Trump did begin making noises about running for president in 1998, telling NBC’s Stone Phillips that he was ‘liberal on healthcare’, in favour of tax cuts and pro-choice when it came to abortion, saying: “I hate the concept of abortion. I hate anything about abortion and yet, I’m totally for choice. I think you have no alternative.”
He also told King that he was planning on forming a ‘presidential exploratory committee’, adding: “The polls came out and they said if I ran, I’d do very well.’
The Birth Of The Stupid Party
Republicans are handing their presidential nomination to a know-nothing billionaire bully, Donald Trump — the worst nominee in modern times. How did Republicans get to be so stupid?
Of course, “stupid” is subjective. But by most standards, Republicans fit the bill. In September, Public Policy Polling found that “66% of Trump’s supporters believe that Obama is a Muslim… 61% think Obama was not born in the United States.” The same poll found that 54 percent of all Republicans believed the President to be a Muslim.
In 2013, Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal warned the GOP to “stop being the stupid party.” Jindal said Republican candidates should “stop insulting the intelligence of voters… with offensive and bizarre statements.” However, Jindal didn’t listen to his own advice; on May 10th, Jindal endorsed Donald Trump. Stupid is as stupid does.
It wasn’t always like this. Fifty years ago, Republicans seemed wrongheaded but intelligent. What has happened to the Grand Old Party? Its transition to the stupid party had four stages:
In September, writing in the Daily Beast Ana Marie Cox observed, “Trump and Carson are winning a huge slice of the GOP base because of prideful ignorance, which to voters signifies not just a rejection of the establishment or elites but a release from the hard work of having to think.”
2. Republicans accepted racism. When the GOP adopted the southern strategy, they tacitly accepted racism. With Trump this racism has come out in the open.
Did They Really Say That
Thread > Trump trying to steal election” alt=”MyYESNetwork.com > Thread > Trump trying to steal election”>
It was Abraham Lincoln’s 208th birthday last weekend. The US Republican Party’s social media feeds honoured the 16th president by sharing a picture of his iconic memorial in Washington DC, with an inspiring quote laid over the top.
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that counts, it’s the life in your years,” was the message on Twitter and Instagram, also shared by President Trump.
There was just one problem: the words have been attributed to Lincoln many times over the years, but there is no evidence he ever said them. The post has since been deleted.
It was the latest example of a growing modern phenomenon, the fake political quote.
Some have said “fake news” could have swung the outcome of November’s US presidential election. Bogus stories like “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President” were extensively shared online.
Made up quotes are perhaps more benign than fictitious news stories with a clear political agenda. But they still raise concerns, says James Ball of Buzzfeed News, who is writing a book about “post-truth” politics.
“If enough people share and believe these fake quotes, then they can contribute to the polarisation of politics, making each side think less of the other, especially as many partisans think fake news is a problem which affects primarily their opponents.”
These fake quotes don’t just come from right-wing politicians and activists.
It seemed too obnoxious to be true – and it was.
