Trump's evil mass deportation policy will fail and his circus of executive orders are a diversion to deflect his policy failures

Trump’s immigration crackdown relies on fear — and silence
Trump administration’s immigration enforcement strategy is not just about arrests and deportations — it’s also about controlling the narrative (IOW "censorship")

Evilism Trumpziism 

Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe by Marcia Garcia:  When word of an immigration raid in East Boston spread like wildfire on social media in late January, Alberto Vasallo III set out to do what the federal government has refused to do: Verify the truth.

Armed with a camera, Vasallo — CEO of the Spanish-language news outlet El Mundo Boston — rushed to Blue Line stations where raids were supposedly happening on January 29th, hoping to capture evidence of the alleged enforcement action.

But there was nothing to film. The rumor appeared to be false.

Trump promised a sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants, replacing the policy of previous administrations that focused on those who have committed crimes.

Those promises are what makes it totally understandable for immigrants to fear what ICE agents might be up to in East Boston, an area with a large immigrant population.

But there is some evidence to suggest that the Trump administration is trying to create an impression of widespread enforcement that goes well beyond the facts, and that it actually suits the administration’s purposes to let unfounded rumors about enforcement actions — whatever their origin — spread.

This is the reality of Trump 2.0: An immigration enforcement strategy that isn’t just about arrests and deportations but is also about fear and ambiguity. By refusing to confirm or debunk viral claims, ICE is allowing misinformation to flourish, leaving immigrant communities in a state of constant anxiety.

The administration doesn’t have to actually conduct mass raids to spread fear — silence and uncertainty can do the job as effectively. For the administration, it’s a twofer: the rumors worry immigrants, while making Trump supporters imagine he’s following through on his promises.

That might be why ICE has stonewalled journalists, including my Globe colleague Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, refusing to clarify critical details about the agency’s own reported nationwide arrest numbers. Key missing information includes any alleged criminal offenses of those detained and the specific locations of the arrests.

ICE did not respond to a request to confirm local enforcement activity over the past three weeks. Based solely on the agency’s press releases, the ICE field office in Boston in charge of removal operations has arrested 10 “illegally present” immigrants since Jan. 22, all of whom, according to ICE, had criminal backgrounds. That sounds like business as usual, not the kind of vast dragnet that MAGA supporters seem to want and immigrants fear

Austin Kocher, an immigration enforcement researcher and assistant professor at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University in New York, told me that ICE could be far more transparent. 

Instead, he said, the agency seems more invested in shaping perception through social media than in responding to journalists' questions.

While some of the immigration arrests are “just routine enforcement that happens all the time,” Kocher said, ICE is “making it more sensationalized than ever.” When you “have ICE going out with celebrities like Dr. Phil, it just sends a message that you’re not taking the job seriously.”

By withholding basic information, ICE is making it harder for the public to trust what little it does release. “I don’t know that these agencies are engaging in propaganda at the moment — that is, misinformation that’s put out by the government itself,” Kocher said. “But we have to be sensitive to the fact that we could be going down that road.”

Vasallo, who also hosts a daily morning show, “La Hora del Café,” understands how easily falsehoods spread. He knew the reports of ICE raids in the Blue Line T stations were probably bogus. 

Still, he took his cameras to Maverick Station in East Boston, showing his audience in real time that no ICE agents were present. His video has racked up over 140,000 plays on Facebook.

That same day, he visited two other locations nearby that had also been the subject of viral ICE activity reports.

I asked Vasallo if he worries that, by constantly addressing these rumors, he might inadvertently amplify fears rather than calm them.

“I think that this is exactly what we need to do,” Vasallo said. “It’s better to debunk [fake news] because you’re showing to thousands of people, ‘look, it’s not true.‘ What if you leave it alone? It just gets out of hand. The amount of misinformation travels so much faster than the truth.”

That’s precisely the point. Misinformation about immigration enforcement doesn’t need official confirmation to be effective — just silence from those in power. By refusing to engage with the media and clarify the facts, ICE is not merely failing to correct the record; it is weaponizing uncertainty. The result is an information vacuum where fear festers, allowing Trump to maintain the illusion of sweeping crackdowns without needing to carry them out at scale. Fear, apparently, is the policy.

Marcela García is a Boston Globe columnist. She can be reached at marcela.garcia@globe.com..

Donld Trump ionly interested in serving himself. He told voters "I don't care about you". Philadelphia Inquirer calls for "Dump Trump"

Trump only interested in providing for himself - he said "I do not care about you"- Philadelphia Inquirer says "Dump Trump"

June 30, 2024
Evil 👿Trump is an unserious carnival barker running for the most serious job in the world. During his last term, Trump served himself and not the American people.

Thank you Philadelphia Inquirer

Donald Trump is a carnival barker and a danger to democracy

Although President Joe Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. ( Many of his responses were disjointed with a dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race 😒😟)....
But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.

In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump. To build himself up, Trump constantly tears the country down. There is no shining city on the hill. It’s just mourning in America.

After scheming to overturn the 2020, election, Trump refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Unless, of course, he wins.

The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage.

Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators.

Trump is an unserious carnival barker running for the most serious job in the world. During his last term, Trump served himself and not the American people.

Throughout the debate, Trump repeatedly said we are a “failing” country. He called the United States a “third world nation.” He said, “we’re living in hell” and “very close to World War III.”

“People are dying all over the place,” Trump said, later adding “we’re literally an uncivilized country now.”

Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths told during his four years as president. He dodged the (robotic ❗) CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world.

Trump’s response to the January 6, 2021, insurrection he fueled was farcical. He said a “relatively small number of people” went to the Capitol and many were “ushered in by the police.”

Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths (aka- misinformation) told during his four years as president. He dodged the (robotic❗) CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world.

Trump’s response to the January 6, 2021, insurrection he fueled was farcical. He said a “relatively small number of people” went to the Capitol and many were “ushered in by the police.”

After scheming to overturn the 2020, election, Trump refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Unless, of course, he wins.

The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage.

Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators.

Trump is an unserious carnival barker running for the most serious job in the world. During his last term, Trump served himself and not the American people.
Trump spent chunks of time watching TV, tweeting, and hanging out at his country clubs. Over his four-year term, Trump played roughly 261 rounds of golf.

As president, Trump didn’t read the daily intelligence briefs. He continued to use his personal cell phone, allowing Chinese spies to listen to his calls. During one Oval Office meeting, Trump shared highly classified intelligence with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

Trump’s term did plenty of damage and had few accomplishments. The much-hyped wall didn’t get built. Infrastructure week was a recurring joke. Giant tax cuts made the rich richer, while fueling massive deficits for others to pay for years. His support for coal, oil drilling and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement worsened the growing impact of climate change.

Trump stacked the judiciary with extreme judges consisting mainly of white males, including a number who the American Bar Association rated as not qualified. A record number of cabinet officials were fired or left the office. The West Wing was in constant chaos and infighting.

Many Trump appointees exited under a cloud of corruption, grifting and ethical scandals. Trump’s children made millions off the White House. His dilettante son-in-law got $2 billion from the Saudi government for his fledgling investment firm even though he never managed money before.

Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic resulted in tens of thousands of needless deaths. He boasts about stacking the Supreme Court with extreme right-wingers who are stripping away individual rights, upending legal precedents, and making the country less safe. If elected, Trump may add to the court’s conservative majority.

Of course, there were the unprecedented two impeachments. Now, Trump is a convicted felon who is staring at three more criminal indictments. He is running for president to stay out of prison.

If anything, Trump doesn’t deserve to be on the presidential debate stage. Why even give him a platform?

Trump allegedly stole classified information and tried to overturn an election. His plans for a second term are worse than the last one. We cannot be serious about letting such a crooked clown back in the White House.

Yes, Biden had a horrible night. He’s 81 and not as sharp as he used to be. But Biden on his worst day remains lightyears better than Trump on his best.

Biden must show that he is up to the job. This much is clear: He has a substantive record of real accomplishments, fighting the pandemic, combating climate change, investing in infrastructure, and supporting working families and the most vulnerable.

Biden has surrounded himself with experienced people who take public service seriously. He has passed major bipartisan legislation despite a dysfunctional Republican House majority.

Biden believes in the best of America. He has rebuilt relationships with allies around the world and stood up to foes like Russia and China.

There was only one person at the debate who does not deserve to be running for president. The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be.



The Inquirer Editorial Board

Hello #TFG: Just so you know- Mexico never paid for the wall

Say whaaaa?  "Mexico will pay for the wall" ??? IDTS

The former guy's cult are deaf to his evil list of lies. 

The atmosphere is thick with misinformation.

Echo opinion published in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Hoyt Purvis: The Big Lie?

And it might be said that #TFG cultist environment is permeated with misbelief.

The Big Lie

Misinformation is evident in campaign attacks and criticism by the pro-Trump forces and their lack of regard for the truth – a notable example being what many are calling the "big lie." Fabricated claims and exaggerated boasts are commonplace.

Recall #TFG Trump's frequent assertion that he knows more about taxes than anyone else. Now, of course, Trump and some of his financial cadres are facing tax-related legal difficulties. 

And who could forget "Mexico will pay for the wall" and many further examples. Trump also grossly exaggerates the size of crowds at his rallies. After leaving the White House, Trump and some close allies continue to repeat and rely on unfounded claims, particularly related to the 2020 election.

They insist that Trump won, despite no evidence to support those claims. Indeed, there is near unanimity among local and state election officials that Trump lost. And there is nothing to indicate "mass election fraud" as Trump has argued, even though local and state officials, his own attorney general and large numbers of judges, some of whom he appointed, have ruled against Trump and his backers.

Trump has said 86 election-related lawsuits have been filed. He also alleges his First Amendment rights have been violated by social media companies, accusing them of censoring him and other conservatives, of exhibiting terrible bias. In most cases, the cases have been quickly dismissed.

Trump and many supporters are trying to whitewash the violent melee at the U.S. Capital on Jan. 6.

Meanwhile, internal GOP politics is more and more confusing -- and, as Republican Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says, perplexing. Or, as we might say, bewildering.

All of this takes us in a puzzling direction when you factor in conflicting reports and analysis, disputed numbers and different perspectives. There are, of course, the hard-core Trump supporters who take his word as gospel and will not entertain any alternative ideas.

Many are reluctant or unwilling to take precautions – for example, wearing masks when appropriate. Generally, the U.S. has adequate information, equipment and supplies. However, Arkansas now ranks at or near the bottom among states in percentages of vaccinated individuals.

What is especially bewildering is the large number of eligible citizens who refuse to take advantage of "free shots," with inoculations now readily available without charge. Arkansas's Republicans Governor Asa Hutchinson's administration has even offered incentives such as fishing licenses and lottery tickets, but they were not effective.

Hutchinson says the most powerful incentive is the reality that if Arkansas does not significantly increase its rate of vaccinations, "we won't be getting rid of covid-19 and its spinoffs anytime soon."

Hutchinson points out that a month ago, the state was on a positive track, but then began to stall at about 40 percent. He said the number of active cases was declining and he and many others were optimistic about a "return to normalcy." Hutchinson notes that this was when the Delta variant began to have significant impact and was continuing to accelerate.

As Arkansas finds itself at or near the bottom of various national rankings, it is particularly distressing to see it in this listing.

Hutchinson has recently become the go-to-guy for national media and is a regular commentator and spokesman for Republicans.

Whether Hutchinson can hit that mark will be a significant indicator of the future and of the Republican Party -- and his own future in state and national politics and in the Republican Party, with some touting him as moving away or "distancing" himself from Donald Trump.

Again, the internecine conflict could tell us a lot about where the Republican Party is headed.

These baskets of "perplexing-bewildering" issues are overflowing and commanding attention. 

Some of those issues become entangled with partisan politics, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan or the disputes over voter rights.

In recent days, #TFG Trump doubled down on "voter fraud", while speaking in Dallas at CPAC, a conservative conference. 

President Biden and his team are, of course, aiming at increasing the number of those who are vaccinated to prevent COVID spread, but they are also dealing with a wide range of topics that can shift the focus to terribly troubled areas already devastated by the pandemic, including the ransomware threats, the recent assassination in Haiti and the battles over You Tube, Facebook and Twitter.

Is Trump-driven politics so weighty and important that it overrides all other considerations? (P.S. Maine Writer: Ugh! Former Guy Fatigue: #TFGF.)

Meanwhile, Fox News must do some "real news" investigative reporting to find out what happened to Trump's Big Lie, about how Mexico would pay for the border wall.

Alternative facts and bullshitting- Donald Trump lies

Trump isn’t lying, he’s bullshitting – and it’s far more dangerous an echo opinion published in The Conversation.

By Lauren Griffin the Director of External Research College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida

If you’ve been paying attention to the news over the past week or so, you know that over the weekend America was introduced to the concept of  “alternative facts.” 

After the Trump administration's (failed) Press Secretary Sean Spicer rebuked the media for accurately reporting the relatively small crowds at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Spicer wasn’t lying; he was simply using “alternative facts.”

News outlets are still working through the process of figuring out what to call these mischaracterizations of reality. (“Alternative facts” seems to have been swiftly rejected.) Many outlets have upped their fact-checking game. The Washington Post, for instance, released a browser extension that fact-checks tweets by the president in near real-time.

Other outlets have resisted labeling Trump’s misstatements as lies. Earlier this year, for instance, the Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief Gerard Baker insisted that the Wall Street Journal wouldn’t label Trump’s false statements “lies.”

Baker argued that lying requires a “deliberate intention to mislead,” which couldn’t be proven in the case of Trump. Baker’s critics pushed back, raising valid and important points about the duty of the press to report what is true.

As important as discussions about the role of the press as fact-checkers are, in this case Baker’s critics are missing the point. Baker is right. Trump isn’t lying. He’s bullshitting. And that’s an important distinction to make.

Bullshitter-in-chief?

Bullshitters, as philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote in his 1986 essay “On Bullshit,” don’t care whether what they are saying is factually correct or not. Instead, bullshit is characterized by a “lack of connection to a concern with truth [and] indifference to how things really are.” Frankfurt explains that a bullshitter “does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

In addition to being unconcerned about the truth (which liars do care about, since they are trying to conceal it), Frankfurt suggests that bullshitters don’t really care whether their audience believes what they are saying. Indeed, getting the audience to believe something is false isn’t the goal of bullshitting. Rather, bullshitters say what they do in an effort to change how the audience sees them, “to convey a certain impression” of themselves.

In Trump’s case, much of his rhetoric and speech seems designed to inflate his own grand persona. Hence the tweets about improving the record sales of artists performing at his inauguration and his claims that he “alone can fix” the problems in the country.

Likewise, his inaugural address contained much rhetoric about the “decayed” state of the country and rampant unemployment (a verifiably false statement). Trump then proceeded to claim that he was going to rid the country of these ailments. The image of Trump as a larger-than-life figure who will repair a broken country resonates with his audience, and it doesn’t work without first priming them with notions of widespread “carnage.”
A stinky, slippery slope

There are several problems with Trump adopting the bullshit style of communication.

First, misinformation is notoriously hard to correct once it’s out there, and social media, in particular, has a reputation for spreading factually inaccurate statements and conspiracy theories.

One study, for instance, examined five years of Facebook posts about conspiracy theories. The authors found that people tend to latch onto stories that fit their preexisting narratives about the world and share those stories with their social circle. The result is a “proliferation of biased narratives fomented by unsubstantiated rumors, mistrust, and paranoia.” Another study examined Twitter rumors following the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. These researchers explored how misinformation about the identity of a suspected terrorist abounded on the social media platform. They found that although corrections to the error eventually emerged, they didn’t have the same reach as the original misinformation.

Second, because Trump’s communication style relies heavily on anger, people who are predisposed to his message may become even less critical of potential bunk. Research suggests that when people are angry, they evaluate misinformation in a partisan way, typically accepting the misleading claims that favor their own political party. One study, for instance, primed participants by having them write essays that made them feel angry about a political issue. The authors then presented them with misinformation about the issue that either came from their own party or the opposing party. Participants who felt angry were more likely to believe their party’s misinformation than people who were primed to feel anxious or neutral.

Finally, a communications strategy based on bullshit inherently makes enemies of anyone who would seek to reinstate the truth and expose his statements as bunk. Journalists, scientists, experts and even government officials who disagree with him are subject to charges of ineptitude, partisanship or conspiracy. They’re then threatened with restrictions on funding, access and speech. We’ve already seen this happening with the suggestion that Environmental Protection Agency data may undergo review by political appointees before being made public.

In fairness, Trump may very well believe the things that he’s saying. He was recently quoted as saying “I don’t like to lie.” And people can convince themselves of things that aren’t true.

There’s some evidence, for instance, that he avoided information that Muslims in New Jersey didn’t actually celebrate the terrorist attacks on September 11th, as he claimed. Like all of us, Trump may be putting up psychological defenses to avoid accepting information that challenges his worldviews, as research suggests all of us do. So although he’s corrected frequently by journalists and on social media, it’s a very real possibility that he’s simply shut out anyone or any source of information that threatens his way of seeing things.

But this is of little comfort. Trump has an affinity for speaking mistruths with little consideration for their factual accuracy. Combine this with his relentless efforts to discredit anyone who challenges his declarations and his heavy use of social media – where posts and tweets can go viral with little context and no fact-checking – and it sets the stage for a dangerous turn in American political and civil discourse.