Eternally drawing on fears and fantasies, mocking, discrediting, humiliating with disregard for facts and truth… On November 5, 2024, the Trumpic potion worked. Once again, three years after leaving the Oval Office of the White House, Donald Trump was elected president of the 244 million citizens of the United States.
In his meetings, facing his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, and on social networks, the businessman cheerfully used the weapon of disinformation. His outing about Haitian migrants eating domestic animals is one of the most striking and absurd examples.
Donald Trump's plan to twist the arm of Europe
During the debate on September 11, CNN identified 33 false information from candidate Trump. American radio NPR listed 162, or 3 per minute, during one of its press conferences last August. During the four years of his first term, 30,573 lies and misleading statements were uttered by Donald Trump, according to the Washington Post. Twenty-one a day!
Let's stop the figures there: the Republican who has now become president again is indeed a professional in fake news, an inveterate liar, doped with the algorithms of social networks, who began his career well before moving to the White House.
Flood of misinformation
Mexicans rapists » et « criminals » to Kamala Harris who would divert money intended for hurricane victims to house illegal migrants in luxury hotels, through false figures on crimes committed by black Americans published on Twitter in 2015, children who would suffer forced gender transitions at school to Barack Obama who was not born in the United States, Donald Trump “ lies without limit ».
Translation ? He lies without limit, writes New York Times in its November 2 editorial. And finds a significant resonance through social networks. False information claiming that Democrats smuggled migrants in to vote in the presidential election has been spread more than 3 billion times.
Semiconductors: what political line for Donald Trump?
Donald Trump loves fiction, that's where he was born, on the small screen of millions of Americans. Long before entering politics, he was the hero of his own reality TV show The Apprenticewhich began broadcasting in 2004. For 14 seasons, Donald Trump portrayed himself in his own way, an intractable businessman, a man of power, with makeup, hairstyle, he overplayed authority and repeated, from episode to episode, his famous “ You’re fired » – you're fired.
The businessman sells his image to Americans, and Americans buy him. His popularity exploded, a legacy he never let go. “ He still looks at the world through the prism of reality TV, fame and Hollywood », explains Ramin Setoodeh, author of the book Apprentice in Wonderland in an interview with Grand Continent.
Conspiracy theory
The reality TV actor plans to enter politics in the late 1980s. This will be done in 2011. For his big baptism, he immediately attacks Barack Obama: he then propagates a conspiracy theory which was already circulating about his citizenship, a false information according to which he was not born in the United States, but in Kenya.
Trump's bad faith, his biased arguments resonate… the method works wonderfully. And it doesn't matter if he is ridiculed by Barack Obama at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, Donald Trump, invited to the event by the Washington Post now counts in the American political game.
Attack, counterattack, deny the facts, admit nothing and continue to hit, Trump will always apply the same method throughout his political career, learned less than thirty years ago.
Founding episode
In 1973, Donald Trump and his father were prosecuted by the American courts for racial discrimination. Their real estate company is accused of putting a “C” in front of “colored” people who would like to rent accommodation. Despite the government's evidence, Trump won't give up and is looking for a lawyer to counterattack. This man will be Roy Cohn, a lawyer, former adviser to McCarthy, known for his aggressiveness and his anger. anti establishment.
Donald Trump is seduced by the man and his speech which encourages him to never admit his guilt, guilty or not. To never give up. Trump will ultimately have to accept an amicable settlement, but the main thing has been learned: aggressiveness pays, and victory is always possible if you reject the facts and turn against your attacker.
« The world is divided between those who have a killer instinct and those who don't. »
Victory, a pillar of Donald Trump's family history. An imperative that must guide everything. “ In life there is only one winner, everyone else is a loser. If you stop winning, you become a loser “, his father, Fred Trump, repeated to him. It is with him that Donald learns the trade, businessman, real estate developer, he inherits a multi-million dollar company.
The penultimate of five children, Donald learns his lesson, later during his on-camera interviews, he will slightly adapt the family mantra by repeating: “ The world is divided between those who have a killer instinct and those who don't. »
America of “alternative facts”
Politics is a show and Donald Trump wants to be one, to stay in the spotlight as long as possible. In the Oval Office of the White House, he advises his colleagues to treat each day as an episode of reality TV. The Apprentice is never far away.
When he loses to Joe Biden, he admits nothing, disputes and attacks again. The January 6 insurrection illustrates this determination, that of Donald Trump to claim his truth and live in an alternative reality. A reality into which America has now plunged again.
