US Government Censorship program on social media being unearthed.

[Tom]

Please don't feel the need to defend your partisan biases to us.

[TheDrake]

Trump told everyone to drink bleach to cure Covid

Nobody ever claimed that Trump told people to drink bleach in those words, but his carelessness was palpable.

"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning,

So instead he's suggesting injecting disinfectant, which may or may not be bleach.

30. That’s how many calls about consuming household disinfectants reportedly went to the New York City poison control center in the hours after Trump made his comments. That’s more than twice the number of calls the poison control center handled on disinfectant consumption a year earlier.

This was the immediate result of his stupidity. We're not wrong to have been concerned that he would be so careless, and if we amped it up to be "drinking bleach" rather than "injecting disinfectant", sorry/not sorry.

Its the apologists that treated this like, that was just Trump riffing on experimental jazz medicine, man. Sometimes it grooves and sometimes it doesn't. Every President and really most every politician should ask themselves "what's the worst thing that might happen if I do X?" Sometimes that is not what you intended, but you'd better account for every darn moron, especially when they are Trump supporters.

[cherrypoptart]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/08/24/some-americans-are-tragically-still-drinking-bleach-as-a-coronavirus-cure/?sh=4a6275376748


Some Americans Are Tragically Still Drinking Bleach As A Coronavirus ‘Cure’

-----------------------------------------------------------------


"Nobody ever claimed that Trump told people to drink bleach in those words, but his carelessness was palpable."

Oh, people claimed it alright.

So it was actually the people lying about what Trump said that were getting people confused, hurt, and killed.

[Tom]

So it was actually the people lying about what Trump said that were getting people confused, hurt, and killed.

In what sense? Are you imagining this scenario?

"Trump, that idiot, said people should drink disinfectant. Of course you shouldn't drink disinfectant."
"What?! Trump said we should drink disinfectant!? I'm going to run right out and buy some to drink!"

That's only a little more coherent than the recent "the Left is to blame for right-wing violence" take.

[cherrypoptart]

That's an amusing way to look at it. Humor in truth.

So Trump supporters believing the lies told about Trump by the left get themselves killed. Worse than Idiocracy.

[msquared]

Or they mistake what they hear Trump say.  He says something like "can we inject it maybe?" and his follower know they do not have needles, so they say, Hey, drinking is like injecting, right? And they drink it.

But the basic effect would be the same if they did what he said, which was to inject it.

Maybe he should have let the medical professionals do the talking.

[Tom]

But the basic effect would be the same if they did what he said, which was to inject it.

In fairness, it would actually be a lot worse to inject bleach than to drink it.

[cherrypoptart]

"Nobody ever claimed that Trump told people to drink bleach in those words, but his carelessness was palpable."

Just heard it again today the claim that "some people" meaning Trump "... made wildly irresponsible claims during the pandemic. The idea for example that anyone should inject Clorox into their body to kill the virus. It was wrong then. It is wrong now."

It was said on the All Things Considered segment "Should we declare a pandemic amnesty" at the 6:20 mark.

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/04/1134429414/should-we-declare-a-pandemic-amnesty

So again, though we can always blame not so bright people for doing something dangerous because they believe Trump told them to do it, it was the media lying about what Trump actually said that tricked them in the first place. And the media is still lying about it.

And the hutzpah of saying that "some people made wildly irresponsible claims", blaming Trump, when she is the one making the wildly irresponsible claim that he or anyone besides the media lying about what Trump said ever made any such claim in the first place.

You can bet the truth commission spawned from the collusion of Biden and social media companies won't be acting any time soon to shut down those dangerous lies or the people and organizations still promulgating them literally today.

By the way, it's either a very peculiar synchronicity that we just talked about this earlier today and then I heard it later the same day while driving down the road or I suppose an alternative explanation is that the media keeps repeating that same lie so often that it's not surprising to hear it on any particular day.

[Tom]

To be fair, we have to acknowledge that Trump's sentence structure is and has for over a decade been haphazard to the point of inscrutability, and highly dependent on things like physical gestures to be comprehensible at all. He also has a worrisome tendency to just kind of wander off the reservation with "speculation" while speaking in official and formal settings, meaning that it can be very difficult for anyone to distinguish between things that his brain has just farted out and he's just kind of daydreaming about before taking a nap and something he'd actually like to see become policy. So I have very little problem with people reading a transcript of his words and concluding, "Yeah, he wants people to ingest disinfectant." It's almost certainly the case that he was just speculating aloud and in public, in a particularly idiotic way, about potential "cures" -- but that people took him seriously was an entirely self-inflicted wound.

[TheDrake]

"Nobody ever claimed that Trump told people to drink bleach in those words, but his carelessness was palpable."

Just heard it again today the claim that "some people" meaning Trump "... made wildly irresponsible claims during the pandemic. The idea for example that anyone should inject Clorox into their body to kill the virus. It was wrong then. It is wrong now."

It was said on the All Things Considered segment "Should we declare a pandemic amnesty" at the 6:20 mark.

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/04/1134429414/should-we-declare-a-pandemic-amnesty

So again, though we can always blame not so bright people for doing something dangerous because they believe Trump told them to do it, it was the media lying about what Trump actually said that tricked them in the first place. And the media is still lying about it.

And the hutzpah of saying that "some people made wildly irresponsible claims", blaming Trump, when she is the one making the wildly irresponsible claim that he or anyone besides the media lying about what Trump said ever made any such claim in the first place.

You can bet the truth commission spawned from the collusion of Biden and social media companies won't be acting any time soon to shut down those dangerous lies or the people and organizations still promulgating them literally today.

By the way, it's either a very peculiar synchronicity that we just talked about this earlier today and then I heard it later the same day while driving down the road or I suppose an alternative explanation is that the media keeps repeating that same lie so often that it's not surprising to hear it on any particular day.

Let me present again the quote from trump.

"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning,"

How is that NOT implying that disinfectant could be injected into the body? He freaking spells it out.

The problem is that they gave the Clorox brand name?

[Mynnion]

As horrified as this is I would not rank it as a lie.  Stupid and reckless but not a lie.  There are plenty of others to point out.

[Tom]

The original complaint wasn't that this was a lie, but that it was an example of the media misreporting something Trump said. Again, though, I don't think it's even a very good example of that, especially as most instances of contemporaneous reporting I've found directly quotes him.

[cherrypoptart]

But I'd wager the people who hurt themselves or died did so after hearing the media's lying about what Trump said, not after hearing what Trump actually said himself.

That was well put the way it was crafted by Tom:

"Trump, that idiot, said people should drink disinfectant. Of course you shouldn't drink disinfectant."

"What?! Trump said we should drink disinfectant!? I'm going to run right out and buy some to drink!"

They aren't reacting to what Trump actually said. They are reacting to the distortion of it by the media, and example of which we just heard again on NPR.

Y'all actually do have the true sense of what Trump meant and what he said too, just whimsical ramblings about what might be nice while science is nowhere near that level of sophistication and probably won't be in our lifetimes. I can see the point then of how it's meaningless to speculate, but that's Trump's mind and personality. Without the media blowing it up like something out of Saturday Night Live with their "I can see Russia from my house" riff on Palin, it would have been harmless enough. But we get serious high profile journalists not even joking around when they repeat what Trump never said or meant, and nobody even calls them on it, which is me, nobody. Certainly not Biden's Truth Commission. And these are the very types of dangerous examples of misinformation they attribute to his Mighty Orangeness. Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor.

[msquared]

The problem is Cherry that ramblings of a man many see as the Savior, are taken at face value? And do you really think his followers would believe what the media said?  When his own words are right there on video?

There is a great responsibility for those with power, both social and political and monetary to be careful what they say in public, especially when they have the microphone of the most powerful position in the world.

It shows Trump lacks judgment.

[jc44]

To be honest I don't see why the media have to take all the blame for the drinking/injecting bleach confusion. Trumps own supporters are plenty capable of that grade of confusion without any external help.  And it's a common pattern of his speech - he often uses phrases along the lines of "I've heard it said that I'm the smartest man on the plant" when he wants his supporters to believe that he is in fact the smartest man on the planet. If carefully analysed you would probably come to the conclusion that he said it to himself whilst looking in the mirror and it is strictly true but meaningless. But this is how he so often phrases things that his minions take it as a true statement / command / direction.

[cherrypoptart]

Smarter people than me have already said it better.

“In my studies of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is ...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A variety of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.” - Theodore Dalrymple

"If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..." - Rudyard Kipling

-----------------------------------

For the first quote just take out communism and substitute in American mainstream media and he nailed it. In other words, I'm not saying anyone is a communist, obviously. But the part about sinking to the level of knowingly repeating lies and losing all sense of honesty and decency is spot on.

[rightleft22]

substitute in American mainstream media and he nailed i

It may be naïve to only point only to mainstream media, whatever that means in the 'information age', then that is also a tool of propaganda to direct your attention to the 'other' and never at one self or tribe.

[Wayward Son]

For the first quote just take out communism and substitute in American mainstream media and he nailed it. In other words, I'm not saying anyone is a communist, obviously. But the part about sinking to the level of knowingly repeating lies and losing all sense of honesty and decency is spot on.

Yes, cherry, we've seen it happening in the Republican party for years now, with the worst example being all those candidates who are willing to say that the last Presidential election was stolen because of voter fraud, even though it has never been proven despite over 60 court cases.  We truly no longer expect honesty and decency from most Republicans. 

[TheDrake]

Smarter people than me have already said it better.

“In my studies of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is ...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A variety of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.” - Theodore Dalrymple

"If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..." - Rudyard Kipling

-----------------------------------

For the first quote just take out communism and substitute in American mainstream media and he nailed it. In other words, I'm not saying anyone is a communist, obviously. But the part about sinking to the level of knowingly repeating lies and losing all sense of honesty and decency is spot on.

I assume you mean lies about stolen elections? About dead people voting, chinese ballot paper, and a vast network of ballot mules? That kind of propaganda, paving the way for the overturning or elimination of elections? These were all obvious lies and while it might be meant to erode the will of people who opposed them, sometimes the propaganda just works on people at face value.

I'm sure that plenty of Russians believe that Putin invaded Ukraine to get rid of Nazis. It might demoralize the intelligentsia that he gets away with it, considering his ironclad grip on the media. Which the democrats don't have. Fox News, OANN, and Breitbart repeated those election lies with wild abandon and shilled for every Trumpian that ever Trumped, repeating their words, amplifying them, and exaggerating them even further.