On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump tweeted about the case of Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old peace activist who was shoved by two Buffalo cops, resulting in his hospitalization, during a protest last week. The ludicrous use of performative police force was caught on video, which you have probably already seen, but it resulted in Gugino lying motionless on the ground bleeding from the head. It also went bananas online and led to the two officers being suspended and then charged. Because the incident was literally taped, it’s tough to make Gugino out to be something that he’s not. But that didn’t stop Trump from … whatever this is … trying?
A secret police scanner! A trick fall! A potential ANTIFA setup! It’s like the Triple Crown of Trump crazy all jammed into one cockamamie tweet. But maybe he’s on to something, so perhaps let’s track down the pseudo-sourced allegation, which originated from the pseudo-news organization OANN. So what kind of reporting was Trump relying on from the far-right propaganda outlet? Take a look for yourself. Seriously.
It literally sounds like it was narrated by a Russian-accented computer program. It’s like Siri went to Moscow and had a stroke. Let’s leave aside the veracity of the report, which, come on, and drill down on the fact that Trump watched this piece of creepy video spam and thought: That’ll play. People are saying, just asking the questions, after all.
To quote our new Russian cyborg overlord: “an old trick.” Yes, indeed, comrade.
