Early Tuesday, President Donald Trump posted the brazenly ludicrous conspiracy theory on Twitter that an elderly man who’d been assaulted by police in Buffalo may actually be a secret Antifa agitator. Trump’s paranoia has reached staggering levels of inhumane delusion — the man in question, 75-year-old Martin Gugino, was shoved by police as he peacefully walked up to them. Gugino fell to the ground after police rushed and shoved him, and his head began to clearly bleed. Subsequently, two cops responsible for the incident have been charged with assault. Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney roundly condemned the president on Tuesday for his ridiculous conspiracy that maybe Gugino was some kind of secret conspirator.
the old man was a spy with a crime ray and the policemens used Super Shoving Power and they stopped the crime Ray i'm the president! https://t.co/dDAyNx4crt
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) June 9, 2020
Romney told reporters on Capitol Hill:
‘I saw the tweet, it was a shocking thing to say, and I won’t dignify it with any further comment.’
ROMNEY on Pres Trump's tweet this morning: "I saw the tweet, it was a shocking thing to say, and I won’t dignify it with any further comment."
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) June 9, 2020
In the original post, Trump wrote that “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur,” and he cited a report from the far-right “news” outlet One America News Network. Trump claimed that Gugino “was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment,” and the president claimed that the elderly man, who’s worked in peaceful social justice initiatives for many years, “fell harder than was pushed.” Thus, Trump suggested, the whole incident “could be a set up.” His description of the situation has no relationship to reality.
To Mr. Gugino, we’re praying for a speedy recovery for you and your family.
Pres. Trump should go back to hiding in the bunker instead of tweeting baseless conspiracies about peaceful protestors and further dividing America.
What are Senate Republicans going to do about this? https://t.co/fjUNpGrEol
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) June 9, 2020
CNN reporter Daniel Dale noted that the conspiracy theory seems to have emerged on a random conservative blog before it got picked up by One America News Network and peddled by one of their anchors who happens to have a background in spreading propaganda for the Russian government. The current president of the United States is so committed to his relentless egomania that he doesn’t even seem concerned enough about the flow of that information to check his sources.
Apparent information flow:
– Some people on the Internet →
– The website Conservative Treehouse →
– A Russian state media veteran now working for One America News Network →
– The president of the United States— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 9, 2020
Featured image is edited and comes from Gage Skidmore on WikiMedia Commons, available under a Creative Commons License.