Trump’s “New Age” Of Disinformation

Former Rep. David Jolly (R-FL), now an MSNBC commentator, told host Joy Reid Monday that Donald Trump is intentionally sowing chaos:

“Garry Kasparov, the Russian freedom activist, has said the point of disinformation isn’t to manipulate the truth, it’s to exhaust your critical thinking,” Jolly explained. “To exhaust your critical thinking, that’s what we’re experiencing as voters.”

“I had a colleague that was in a meeting in the Roosevelt Room and he said he heard Trump say, ‘Have you ever seen the nation so divided?’ My colleagues and others said, ‘No, we haven’t.’ Trump said, ‘I love it that way.’ This is the currency that he’s peddling as political strategy, but it’s not one we have to accept,” Jolly explained.

Sowing chaos strengthens Trump’s genetically weak hand. One hesitates to call anything Trump does a strategy. Sowing chaos — mated with bullying — is more a reflex the trust-fund “king of debt” has employed for decades to dominate more intelligent and capable people around him. This is perhaps an element of Trump’s kinship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a much craftier and more strategic authoritarian.

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