*sigh*
Ya know, I remember not long after Trump's election (when I was still calling him Biff Tannen and bemoaning the apocalypse he'd bring), I randomly came across a montage of videos of him mocking various people. He was making a childish retarded-guy voice and flailing his hands around during his "impressions" of all of them. I couldn't believe this clown had become the most powerful man on earth. And while rolling my eyes at this buffoonery (fueling my hate with confirmation bias) it occurred to me: "Wait. That's the same thing he was doing while making fun of that disabled reporter that time". I'd remembered that incident well because I often cited it to people as evidence for how awful and heartless he was. And every "authority" that I respected (and usually agreed with) also said that's what he was doing. But at that moment I realized that apparently no. He wasn't mocking that reporter for his disability. He was just doing his default "dumb guy" impression to insult someone. Only this time he just happened to do it to a guy that fit the description.
Yet I never saw a correction about this anywhere. I never saw respected people and media change their tune about it once seeing the evidence. It's as if no one cared about the truth unless it fit the character arc they already expected. And this type of thing, I found, was a daily occurrence. A daily distortion.
Similarly, I was on board with that "evidence of racism" of him calling Mexicans "criminals and rapists". Yet, again, upon closer evaluation, it was obvious that the comment was merely evidence that he believes many criminals arrive in the US by illegally crossing the border. Whether that's true or not is besides the point. The point: that's not a racist opinion.
So, when I see articles that begin by citing things like that, the disability guy, or a long list of other misrepresentations, I have trouble trusting anything else the source says. Because if they can't even get these simple things right...
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