In a biting column for the conservative Bulwark, the former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee claimed that fans of Donald Trump -- including his own children -- are frantically drumming up fake "scandals" involving Democrats in an effort to drown out the daily news reports of the president's failures.
According to Tim Miller, who also worked for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Donald Trump was all over the place over the weekend, tweeting out conspiracy theories about the coronavirus and his impeachment and encouraging protesters to cause a ruckus over stay at home orders due to the coronavirus pandemic that has now claimed over 90,000 American lives.
Noting "One of the president’s large adult sons grotesquely suggested that Joe Biden is a 'pedophile' and "Another of his large adult sons claimed that the virus was a hoax perpetrated by the left and the media and that it will disappear after the election," Miller wrote that this all part of a greater strategy to distract the public -- and the media -- from the problems bedeviling Trump.
"Three and a half years into the Trump experiment, the president is still using chaff to prevent people from zeroing in on any one of his actions. He veers from incident to incident—at any point in U.S. history, any of the above seven items would have been an all-encompassing scandal, a few could’ve been career enders," Miller wrote. "Meanwhile, Trump’s defenders run content farms of counter 'scandals' which they litigate and re-litigate and then litigate some more. Which has the effect of paralyzing the mainstream media, which has produced a great deal of good journalism, but has been unable to change its fundamental priorities, which create recency bias, kabuki balance, and an evolutionary imperative for clicks."
Taking up the "scandal" du jour -- known as "Obamagate" -- Miller wrote, "The very creation of this fake 'scandal' is, as I wrote last week, being largely treated as a sideshow by those who either think it too stupid to be taken seriously or don’t understand how the Department of Justice and director of National Intelligence are leveraging government assets in order to aid the president’s reelection campaign."
Meanwhile, he wrote there is another fake scandal being whipped up by the administration headed our way.
"The Department of Justice has deputized U.S. Attorney John Durham to oversee a team of investigators aimed at looking into whether the Russia investigation was actually a Deep State plot. Durham has access to a grand jury and the resources to scour the globe. Meanwhile the acting director of National Intelligence, someone whose main experience for the job was pleasing President Trump with his aggressive trolling of reporters on Twitter, is selectively leaking innocuous intelligence gathering efforts in order to advance this conspiratorial narratives," he explained.
"This is the most outrageous and pernicious lie that a president has levied against his opponent in my lifetime," he wrote. "And despite the president himself elevating this lie on Saturday, it was not discussed on front pages across the country. Forget front pages, it’s hard to find any article at all addressing the President’s insane charges."
"Trump’s actions combine the politicization of intelligence, the misuse of tax dollars, and the creation of a phony investigation using the Department of Justice in order to advance the president’s reelection campaign. And that’s just the nuts-and-bolts, the stuff you can probe with your hands. The president has also created a propaganda campaign that will lead millions to believe that one party actively spied on the other, further tearing the fabric of our country in ways that won’t be repaired for a generation. Or maybe ever," he charged. "Put all this together with beyond the pale defamation and the COVID lies and the Trump family went exponentially further than any previous president in eroding our norms rhetorical, political, and legal — and that was just one weekend."
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