By ann summers

Trump continues to claim that the media covered protests of his Pittsburgh visit as riots. Nobody covered the protests as riots.

The reality is that Trump deliberately tried to incite violence in Pittsburgh on Tuesday by forcing his presence on the city. There was no violence. But he still wants to get mileage from his original intentions by continuing to project the fiction of violence onto MSM.

It is as if lying about media reports was more acceptable than lying about reality. Gaslighting begets meta-gaslighting “when a terrorist comes to your town”.

“…read the New York Times or the Washington Post or if you saw any of the networks, you would say it was violence, it was, it was riots.”

He now insists that there were riots (or “riots” reported by the media) as he confabulates some bizarre projection to his base. It follows his recent speech claim that there are or have been sanctuary city riots. Strange how he defaults to rule by fear even as a community grieves.

He knows that some segment of his base and even others will believe “reported riots” as news, but the media just wasn’t even hinting at such a message framing. There wasn’t even “fake news”.

It’s probably his most twisted lie to pimp his “media is the real cause of violence” meme, even as no media outlet, not even the ones favored by RWNJs reported “riots”.

Only the NY Times resident RW opinion writer Bari Weiss argued “as if it’s a riot” as a hypothetical without evidence in a piece supporting the victims in her hometown.

When a terrorist comes to your town, it will become a cable news circus. Anchors with glossy hair and dirty boots will report on a peaceful, respectful protest of the president as if it’s a riot. Your dad might show up on “Anderson Cooper.” Your mom might make chili for reporters. 

Darn those peaceful protests and thousands of peaceful protesters, caring about others, thanking the police for their service. Trump’s usual attempt to polarize a community against police by praising them couldn’t be deployed, especially considering the domestic terrorist involved claimed the same villains as Trump’s proposed fictional villains George Soros and refugees.

Trump himself wouldn’t have gone to PIttsburgh but for a commitment forced by Jarvanka, making his need to foment violence awkward if he couldn’t threaten it as a feature of his message of division. He was stuck talking about respect even as protesters objected to his presence, because he needed that photo-op.

Antisemitic violence, on top of the Khashoggi murder, has made his plans even more complicated, partially because of his connection to these events. Not for lack of trying, Trump’s failing to deflect attention from the hatred promoted by him and acted on by both GABshooter and MAGAbomber.

But we all have a wet pant leg because he told us it’s raining.

In a verbatim Google search for the terms violence, Trump, Tuesday (the day he visited), Pittsburgh — one finds no evidence of any “violence.” There were no police responses to “riots’ in sanctuary cities either, said @CalChiefs to @PolitiFact. Pure fiction.