The Devil Makes Them Do It

Recent reports on CNN are astounding as examples of blatant lying. They illustrate what happens when someone commits to a vice. Not only do they lie: their lies tend to become the very opposite of the truth, and they become preoccupied with accusing others of exactly what they are doing.

The topic is this tweet by Donald Trump:

The tweet was never actually shown by CNN, but was introduced by Don Lemon as “this crazy conspiracy theory.” “Conspiracy theory” seems to have become the stock cliché by which it is referred to in the mainstream media.

But in what sense can it be so described? Antifa is a known conspiracy, not a theory. The question is only about the significance of the actions of one individual. By definition, one cannot have a conspiracy of one.

Stelter: “he takes in this BS and poisoned information.”

Stelter: “This all started from a right-wing blog called Conservative Treehouse, which traffics in hyperpartisan, often-times made-up information.”

The Conservative Treehouse piece is here.

No evidence is advanced that Conservative Treehouse has ever made up information. Even had they, this is a perfect example of the ad hominem fallacy. If it is true, it does not matter where the story originated.

Stelter: “there was a post, from SOMEONE, making up this claim anonymously…”

Stelter is perhaps being slippery in not being clear what “this claim” means. The only clear claim made in the Trump tweet is that the protester fell harder than he was pushed. Something anyone can judge for themselves by watching the video.

And the author of “this claim,” whatever else is being referred to, is “anonymous” only in the sense that the site’s editorials, like those of most newspapers, are anonymous. The post was by “Sundance,” who appears to be the site’s owner or editor. He writes the site’s mission statement. I expect any competent and honest journalist could track down his legal name, if they wanted to. They might also find that George Orwell was not a real name; nor Mark Twain.

And his claims are heavily documented, not “made up.” Including tweet threads from the man himself, showing a strong left-wing and anti-police bias, eyewitness testimony, and a statement by the mayor of Buffalo identifying him as a known provocateur.

Specific claims made in the Treehouse article, although not made by Trump: “professional activist, agitator and Antifa provocateur.”

The one item that might be questionable, given the evidence presented, is that he was a member of Antifa. Given the nature of that organization, any such claim can probably rarely be either proven or disproven. They are a loose association of other groups. Let’s rely on CNN’s own definition: “"[t]he term [antifa] is used to define a broad group of people whose political beliefs lean toward the left -- often the far left -- but do not conform with the Democratic Party platform.” By their own definition, then, it seems profoundly disingenuous of them to claim there is any serious doubt that calling Gugino a member of Antifa was a fair observation.

By contrast, CNN, Stelter, and Lemon do not document their claim that the Trump tweet was false in any way. They seem to have just made it up. They are blaming Trump for doing exactly what they are doing, while they are doing it.

“One America News repeated THE LIE from Conservative Treehouse…"

Here is the One America News coverage:

Stelter inadvertently admits that neither Trump nor OANN actually even said the man was a member of Antifa--only that he could be. “It’s always with a shroud of mystery,” he explains. He suggests they failed to make the claim only so that it could not be disproven. In other words, he is blaming them for NOT making a claim he says is false.

Their supposed motive is of course ridiculous. If Stelter can disprove the claim, he can disprove it equally well whether or not anyone has made it.

Stelter concludes “but this is clearly a kooky theory with no evidence to back it up.”

Lemon then says, “Some people are connecting this to Russian trolls. Now why is that?”

That’s remarkable: the idea that Gugino, the old protester, fell harder than he was pushed, they describe as a conspiracy theory without evidence. Even though it’s all on video, and everyone has seen it. Yet their only source for a claim that some unspecified “this” is all a Russian conspiracy is “some people.”

Stelter does give one additional piece of evidence: apparently the talking head who covered the story for OANN had worked for Sputnik News in the past—and Sputnik News is run by the Russian government.

This is again pure ad hominem, and doubly irrelevant since the OANN reporter was only reporting on the story in Conservative Treehouse, just as CNN is doing now. Interestingly, Stelter offers no evidence that Sputnik News has ever reported on the story—an obvious bit of journalism he ought to have done before claiming any special Russian interest in the matter.

Having worked for Sputnik probably says nothing about the ideological interests of any journalist in any case. RT, the Russian government TV/video service, hosts the widest conceivable range of ideological voices.

Stelter: “this is looney tunes stuff; this is crazy maddening stuff.” "It’s a form of poison…going straight to the president’s brain.”

“Maddening” instead of “mad” may be a Freudian slip here.

Lemon: “it’s really shameful.”

Interestingly, he looks down at this point. Run the video for yourself and see. Just as someone would do if they were themselves ashamed. This seems to me further evidence that he is projecting. He feels ashamed at the lies he is telling, so he expresses it as an accusation towards someone else.

He can’t look the viewer in the eye.

Lemon: “even when you present to them all the evidence, and the fact-check, they don’t care.”

Neither Lemon nor Stelter has offered much if any evidence or facts for their claims in the segment. Conservative Treehouse had offered a lot of evidence; they have just ignored it.

Lemon: “they don’t care, because they want to believe it.” This sounds like a bit of self-revelation; and it indeed expresses the common idea on the left. Everyone simply “chooses their narrative,” believes what they want to believe. He is projecting the same motive onto Trump and his supporters.

“… and then the president has this fixation on scary words and terms, right?”

Let’s look at the scary terms Lemon and Stelter have just used to prejudice viewers against Trump and his tweet: looney, crazy, poison, poisoned, BS, conspiracy, shameful, maddening, trolls, Russians, kooky, lie, made up.

What scary terms is Trump accused of using?

Lemon offers “unmasking.”

Significantly, there is nothing intrinsically scary about “unmasking.” Just the reverse: “masking” suggests something sinister, something to hide; “unmasking” is the opposite of that. Trump is simply using the accepted term. If it seems bad to the general public, it can only be because what it describes is that bad. If it is frightening to Lemon and Stelter, the reason would seem to be that they are aware of having something to hide.

And they are accusing Trump of exactly what Lemon and Stelter have been doing all through the interview: merely throwing out scary words and terms.

Then Lemon cites “defund the police.”

Perhaps Trump has used the term. But it comes from the left, not from Trump.

Stelter then says “Antifa,” perhaps to suggest that it too is a scary term Trump is promoting.

But that term is crafted to sound as unscary as possible: “anti-fascist.” Who isn’t against fascism?

If it has come to sound scary, like “unmasking,” this can only be because of the actual activities engaged in.

Stelter: “researchers say” Antifa is involved in the disturbances only in small numbers in large cities. He cites NPR.

Yet this is not a contradiction of anything said on the right, much less by Trump. It is spectacularly unlikely that you would find anyone on the right claiming Antifa has wide support. The assertion has been that small numbers of Antifa provocateurs have been trying to turn the protests towards violence.

And, of course, it is improbable that any researchers have accurate numbers. Mark Bray, an Antifa apologist, writes at their Wikipedia entry that “members hide their political activities from law enforcement and the far right." So if, as seems likely, researchers rely on either police reports or depositions from those arrested, their figures are worthless. What other sources might they have?

Lemon suggest the current alarm about Antifa resembles past hysterias on the right: a past obsession with “The New Black Panthers.” Odd; I follow the news pretty closely, and the organization name barely rings a bell. A Google search suggests they were active circa 2000-2013. I now remember charges of voter intimidation during elections.

But I do remember quite recent obsessions with “Russian collusion,” “The Proud Boys,” “white supremacists,” “the alt-right,” “the Koch brothers,” “Russian bots.” All, it seems, on the left. Continuing a longer and storied tradition that includes and included “rich capitalists,” “the Trilateral Commission,” “the Skull and Bones Society,” “Wall Street,” “Big Oil,” Blackwater,” “the Jews,” “the kulaks,” “the military-industrial complex,” and on and on.

Lemon ends with the sage advice that one must not seek simple solutions; that real people and real life are more complicated than that.

If anyone is listening, however, that looks like a Freudian admission that there might be more than one side to the claim of “police brutality” in Buffalo that has been the subject of this very segment.

Given that Lemon, Stelter, Anderson Cooper, and just about everyone in the old legacy media is in lockstep on this, all openly denying easily seen facts, all even using the same stock term “conspiracy theory” about the tweet, it might itself suggest a conspiracy: on the left.

I don’t think so. I think this is an example of how evil manifests an independent will and intelligence, once an individual commits to it. The way, in alcoholism, the bottle comes to command the man. The easiest way to think of it is to call it the Devil.