How do you know if it’s a bot or a real pro-Trump person?
Because, really, it can be impossible to tell the difference. Bots (often from pro-Trump Russian interests) and pro-Trump human beings both resort to the same techniques: outrageous lies, preposterous accusations, the usual smears against the usual suspects (Hillary, Obama, Democrats), attacks on non-usual suspects who are newcomers to the political scene (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has come under heavy fire on rightwing assault vehicles like Breitbart), vulgarities, sexual innuendoes, and in general, the stupidest, easiest-to-disprove claims the right generates to disseminate anger and doubt.
Consider, for example, a supposed person named Robert Manning, who is one of my Facebook “friends.” I don’t know who he is, or where he lives: the information on his Facebook page may or may not be real. Whoever or whatever he is, he is one of the most rightwing, pathologically sick Trumpites I’ve yet to come across—and that’s saying a lot! He loves to put up posters with moronic sayings against Democrats—sayings that are demonstrably untrue, and that show a bigotry that is despicable in our multi-cultural democracy. Let me share a couple of his phony posters. I doubt that Manning himself designed them, or even came up with the memes; he’s an old man who most likely doesn’t possess computer skills. Rather, I suspect, Manning is supplied these posters by pro-Trump forces, who may well be Russians.
This one is heinous.
It implies that only Republicans care about our men and women in uniform—a smear that has been a favorite of rightwing white nationalists in the Republican Party for decades, but one that has gained urgency with the advent of Trump who, with his constant attacks on military heroes, is the most disrespectful (of serving Americans) of any President in history.
Then there’s this one, a not-so-thinly veiled attack on women and people of the Islamic faith.
Trump has made it permissible for neo-nazis to insult and demean both women and Muslims, and with this nasty little poster, Manning is doing his part to rile up hatred on the right. Manning, how about we make a deal: Ocasio-Cortez can’t wear her headscarf in Congress, and Christians can’t wear crosses.
Speaking of Christians, it wouldn’t be a Trumpite rightwinger if it wasn’t promoting its own religion, and Manning does that particularly well.
He seems to be some kind of evangelical Christian, perhaps a Catholic of the fascist type, and his posts are frequently filled with “Blessings” and references to “God.” In this, Manning borrows from the Trump playbook to demean his political enemies (Democrats) with the implication that “America” can’t be great “again,” and “God” will not love America, until everyone in it, or the majority of us, is as batshit born-again crazy as he is. No room for diversity in Manning’s theocratic dictatorship. Only his brand of “Christians” need apply.
I referred briefly to Manning’s misogyny earlier, but I need to do so again, as he so frequently attacks Democratic women with even more viciousness than his hero, Trump, if that’s possible. This crowbar to the knees against Dianne Feinstein speaks for itself in violence, ill-feeling and lies.
Here’s one more that’s a real howler, considering that Trump “won” the election only with the help of Putin, who undoubtedly has “the goods” on Trump, possibly the pee tape, more probably evidence of serious financial wrongdoing by the Trump Organization.
It is indeed funny that Manning is now pretending to be upset at foreign meddling in our elections, given what we know of Russian collusion. He has zero proof–zero!–of any non-citizens voting–show us one, Manning, one non-citizen who voted!–but he doesn’t need any proof, because in the Trump’s War on Truth, to make the allegation is enough. This line of attack is so stupid, it makes me wonder why Manning has been instructed by his handlers to bring up the topic in the first place. My hunch (and that’s all it is) is that it’s somehow designed to pave the way for Trump to fire Mueller and discredit (if not deep-six) his report. I don’t know how, but that’s the goal.
Manning posts so much fake bullshit that I could cite it all day, but I have room only for one more: another attack on a woman, and this time a Black woman: Whoopie Goldberg.
He might have chosen Meghan McCain or Abby Huntsman for his diatribe against a popular morning TV program, but no, he needed a Black woman to stir up the bile in Red State trailer parks against “them.” One might have thought, not that long ago, that displaying such open hostility to women and minorities would be reserved for men’s clubrooms at all-white country clubs in lily-white suburbs. No more. Nowadays, white supremacists like Manning have been emboldened by their Leader to haul their bigotry out in the open and celebrate their racism.
I show you Manning’s deplorable posters not to give him any more publicity than he deserves, but because it’s always a good idea to personalize an opponent, to put a human face on him (if, indeed, Manning is human). People like Manning are a severe problem for America. Everything he stands for is obviously odious, but also patently false. And in this, too, Manning has borrowed a tactic from Trump (who borrowed it from Goebbels): Tell a big, huge lie, and repeat it often. There are enough unstable people on the Trump right wing who will believe anything, as long as it’s directed towards people and groups they hate (Blacks, women, liberals, Muslims, gays).
The larger question remains unanswered: What does he get from such stupid stuff? Does he feel, in his life that may be small and have unaccomplished little, like he is somehow making a mark on the world? Does he have repressed anger so great that it needs to seep out like sewage in horrid attacks on his fellow human beings, none of whom has done anything against him? Or, maybe, is he getting paid by his Russian-Trump overlords to spread disinformation and bad feeling? We don’t know the precise answer, but we do know, beyond doubt, that Manning and people like him must be stopped—and the only ways to stop them are through elections, through compelling Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms to more rigorously patrol their posts, and to educate the American people that Trump is a menace—and so is Manning.
