I wouldn’t call it a game, because there’s nothing fun about it. So let’s call it a thought experiment. I’ll ask you to imagine the response if the 44th president had done something that paralleled, however roughly, what the 45th president—the one who lost the popular vote and only got elected because the Electoral College denied the will of the voters—did this week.
To remind you, Donald Trump retweeted three videos initially posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of a fascist, ultranationalist, Islamophobic political party called Britain First. Fransen is currently awaiting trial on two separate charges, one of which was for religiously motivated harassment. These raw videos showed graphic incidents of violence purportedly being committed by Muslims. David Duke reacted to the retweet as follows: “Thank God for Trump! That's why we love him!” A pretty good rule is that if David Duke loves something you did, you’re probably not on the side of the angels.
The three videos were entitled, respectively: “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!”“Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!” and “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!” In reality, the “migrant” in the first video was, according to Dutch officials, “born and raised in the Netherlands,” and spoke Dutch in the video. Furthermore, there is no evidence in the video that the aggressor is Muslim, and officials have not released any information to that regard. It’s purely fake news. Finally, the perpetrator was arrested and convicted for his crime.
As for the other two videos, the New York Timesanalysis concluded that they “offer no clear explanation of what is happening in front of the camera,” and “lack context about what is happening.” The Trump White House admitted that “whether it’s a real video” is essentially irrelevant. The end justifies the means.
These videos have one purpose: to inflame anger and hatred toward Muslims. Trump retweeting them has that same purpose, along with a larger political one: to feed red meat to his base while distracting them from the fact that he’s taking money from the middle class to give tax cuts to millionaires.