In Donald Trump\u2019s imaginary world, Americans can\u2019t venture out to buy a loaf of bread without getting shot, mugged or raped. Immigrants in a small Ohio town eat their neighbors\u2019 cats and dogs. World War III and economic collapse are just around the corner. And kids head off to school only to return at day\u2019s end having undergone gender reassignment surgery.<\/p>\n
The former president\u2019s imaginary world is a dark, dystopian place, described by Trump in his rallies, interviews, social media posts and debate appearances to paint an alarming picture of America under the Biden-Harris administration.<\/p>\n
It is a distorted, warped and, at times, absurdist portrait of a nation where the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to deadly effect were merely peaceful protesters, and where unlucky boaters are faced with the unappealing choice between electrocution or a shark attack. His extreme caricatures also serve as another way for Trump to traffic in lies and misinformation, using an alternate reality of his own making to create an often terrifying \u2014 and, he seems to hope \u2014 politically devastating landscape for his political opponents.<\/p>\n
Trump, for instance, regularly claims that Democrats favor abortions up until the day of birth \u2014 and, in some cases, even after birth.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Sept. 10 presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Trump falsely claimed that Harris\u2019s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has said \u201cabortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe also says, \u2018execution after birth\u2019 \u2014 execution, no longer abortion because the baby is born \u2014 is okay,\u201d Trump continued.<\/p>\n
In fact, Walz has not said this, The Washington Post Fact Checker found, and \u201cexecution after birth\u201d \u2014 or infanticide \u2014 is illegal in all states. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2021, nearly all abortions \u2014 93.5 percent \u2014 occur at or before 13 weeks, and less than one percent were performed after 21 weeks.<\/p>\n
World War III, too, is another all-but-certainty should Trump not be elected in November, the former president frequently claims. In July, before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his private Mar-a-Lago Club, Trump told reporters that only his electoral victory could stave off another global conflagration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we win, it\u2019ll be very simple. It\u2019s all going to work out and very quickly,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t, you\u2019re going to end up with major wars in the Middle East and maybe a Third World War. You are closer to a Third World War right now than at any time since the Second World War. You\u2019ve never been so close, because we have incompetent people running our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
And this month, shortly after news that former Republican vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, planned to vote for Harris, Trump took to his Truth Social site to attack them and claim, \u201cI am the Peace President, and only I will stop World War III!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not the same candidate he was in 2016 or 2020,\u201d said Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist who took note of Trump\u2019s \u201cimaginary world\u201d in a post on X this month. \u201cHe\u2019s far more diminished and untethered.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe percentage of time he\u2019s spending in the real world versus his dystopian world is decreasing. He\u2019s just not speaking about things that are true in this world that we all live in,\u201d Rosenberg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is true that economic hardships, border tragedies, and two new wars have broken out under Vice President Kamala Harris and four more years of her policies will only make the pain and suffering worse,\u201d said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign\u2019s national press secretary, in a statement. \u201cPresident Trump speaks the hard truth about this reality and has an optimistic vision for the future to make America strong, safe, and prosperous again by securing the border, cutting taxes, bringing down inflation, and restoring peace around the world, like there was during his first term.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked to provide specific examples of all of the claims Trump has alleged, Leavitt sent over a list that in some cases \u2014 like schools performing sex reassignment surgery \u2014 did not provide any evidence of the assertions. In other cases \u2014 such as not being able to buy groceries without getting accosted \u2014 Leavitt offered several examples of such crimes, but not the mass phenomena justifying Trump\u2019s claim that \u201cyou can\u2019t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread; you get shot, you get mugged, you get raped.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among Trump\u2019s supporters, some seem to accept his false claims as unassailable truths, while others say he sometimes exaggerates \u2014 but in doing so accurately captures their fears about real issues facing the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he does stretch the truth,\u201d said Trump supporter Marelee Ernestberg, 59, as she defended some of his more extreme falsehoods, including his baseless claim about Haitian migrants eating pets, which she called \u201can absolute truth\u201d that did not surprise her. \u201cTrump is not a liar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking at her first Trump rally in Las Vegas earlier this month, Ernestberg pivoted when discussing Trump\u2019s claim that children are being given gender reassignment surgeries in school \u2014 and said that she does not care about the list of falsehoods.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, of course, everybody exaggerates \u2026 Trump\u2019s not perfect, and when I\u2019m looking at a candidate, I\u2019m not looking for perfection. I\u2019m not going to marry the guy,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not looking for a spouse. I\u2019m looking for someone who\u2019s going to bring this country to a safer, more secure place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Immigration is another topic ripe for Trump\u2019s land of make-believe. For example, the former president repeatedly references Hannibal Lecter, the fictional serial killer from \u201cThe Silence of the Lambs,\u201d as a way of conflating migrants seeking asylum with people in mental institutions to suggest without evidence \u2014 but with dehumanizing language \u2014 that those crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are migrants from insane asylums.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have people that are being released into our country that we don\u2019t want in our country,\u201d Trump told a Wildwood, N.J., crowd in May, after mentioning \u201cthe late, great Hannibal Lecter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump also regularly claims that the government is putting up undocumented immigrants in \u201cluxury hotels.\u201d In Manhattan, for instance, the city has spent millions converting motels, office buildings and even some upscale hotels into housing for thousands of migrants, but the accommodations are shelter operations, not five-star opulence.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have soldiers right now laying on the streets of different cities, all Democrat-run. They\u2019re laying on the streets in front of hotels, in some cases luxury hotels, and you have illegal immigrants coming in and living in those hotels and laughing at our soldiers, as they walk by into a luxury lobby,\u201d Trump said during an economic speech in New York this month. \u201cIs there something wrong with that thinking? Is there something wrong with our country?\u201d<\/p>\n
And recently Trump has also begun falsely claiming that a Venezuelan gang has overtaken an apartment complex in Aurora, Colo. \u2014 prompting the local police department to release a video statement explaining that after talking to the residents, they are seeing a \u201cdifferent picture.\u201d Yes, the police chief continued, some gang members do live in the Aurora community, but \u201cgang members have not taken over this complex.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump, however, was undaunted.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou saw in Aurora, Colorado, a group of very tough young thugs from Venezuela taking over big areas, including buildings,\u201d Trump told a podcast, despite the police statement to the contrary. \u201cThey\u2019re taking over buildings. They have their big rifles. But they\u2019re taking over buildings. We\u2019re not going to let this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the presidential debate, an agitated Trump repeated the baseless claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating the town\u2019s pets.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Springfield, they\u2019re eating the dogs,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThe people that came in \u2014 they\u2019re eating the cats. They\u2019re eating \u2014 they\u2019re eating the pets of the people that live there.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is also a continuation of Trump\u2019s perpetual lying and obfuscating; in Trump\u2019s presidency alone, an analysis by The Post\u2019s Fact Checker found that he made more than 30,000 false or misleading claims \u2014 an average of about 21 untruths per day.<\/p>\n
Another favorite claim Trump offers is that tourists come to the nation\u2019s capital hoping to see the sights \u2014 and end up traveling home in body bags. Accepting his party\u2019s nomination in Milwaukee in July, Trump lambasted the nation\u2019s capital, calling it \u201ca horrible killing field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crime in D.C. did increase between 2022 and 2023, when all crime went up 26 percent \u2014 and violent crime increased by 39 percent, according to the D.C. police. But so far this year, both crimes are down from the 2023 numbers.<\/p>\n
Recently, there have been several high profile instances of out-of-towners being killed while in D.C. \u2014 including a woman visiting the city for a concert and a teacher visiting for a conference \u2014 but Trump\u2019s rhetoric is deeply overstated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey leave from Wisconsin, they go to look at the Washington Monument, they end up getting stabbed, killed or shot,\u201d Trump said in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n
The former president has also seized on sex reassignment surgery as another area in which to embellish.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you imagine you\u2019re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, \u2018Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school\u2019 \u2014 and your son comes back with a brutal operation,\u201d Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin this month.<\/p>\n
Then, speaking in Arizona last Thursday, Trump spun a similar fictional tale.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you imagine?\u201d the former president asked. \u201cYour child goes to school and they don\u2019t even call you, and they change the sex of your child.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of Trump\u2019s imaginary scenarios go unchecked in real time, in part because he delivers them to adoring crowds or favorable news outlets. But at this month\u2019s debate, the moderators were primed for his fictitious world.<\/p>\n
After Trump made his claim about immigrants eating cats and dogs, ABC News\u2019s David Muir interjected: \u201cYou bring up Springfield, Ohio, and ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Trump persisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people on television say my dog was taken and used for food!\u201d Trump insisted, turning to the often make-believe world of television to buttress his own imagined fantasy.<\/p>\n
Abbie Cheeseman contributed to this report from Las Vegas.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In Donald Trump\u2019s imaginary world, Americans can\u2019t venture out to buy a loaf of bread without getting shot, mugged or raped. Immigrants in a small Ohio town eat their neighbors\u2019 cats and dogs. World War III and economic collapse are just around the corner. And kids head off to school only to return at day\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}