Alison Sullivan
Misinformation is one of the scariest things to combat online. It seems to be coming from every direction, but it’s especially prevalent amongst extremist groups, like white nationalists. And because we now live in a dystopia, the president is a big fan of the white nationalists. He considers them very fine people and he’s happy to retweet their videos and memes.
This most recent RT of a racist was so horrible that Twitter actually intervened! People have been begging the platform to do something about the Donald Trump live-tweeting the end of democracy, but he continues to have a public profile. This time he overstepped. Trump shared a video of Representative Ilhan Omar dancing—that’s not the bad part. The bad part was the tweet he RTd comedian Terrence Williams, who shared the video with the question, “You were seriously partying on the anniversary of 9/11?”
Trump captioned his tweet with, “IIhan Omar, a member of AOC Plus 3, will win us the Great State of Minnesota. The new face of the Democrat Party!”
IIhan Omar, a member of AOC Plus 3, will win us the Great State of Minnesota. The new face of the Democrat Party! https://t.co/aQFEygSa4D
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 18, 2019
Omar saw Trump’s tweet and shared it herself, saying the entire story was a lie. The dancing took place over the weekend during a CBC event for black women in Congress. It was completely unrelated to 9/11 in anyway. She wanted to know what Twitter would be doing about Trump spreading this dangerous misinformation:
This is from a CBC event we hosted this weekend to celebrate black women in Congress.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) September 18, 2019
The President of the United States is continuing to spread lies that put my life at risk.
What is Twitter doing to combat this misinformation? https://t.co/XdkRVrU7mZ
Twitter has deleted Williams’ tweet, but not Trump’s.
UPDATE: looks like @twitter has taken the step of removing the smear tweet the president had signal boostedhttps://t.co/fsaYVQmudQ
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 18, 2019
Others have come forward to corroborate Omar, which should be totally unnecessary, but here we are:
Our co-founder @AdamGreen posted this video from a CBC event on Sept 13, and @IlhanMN retweeted it. Today @realDonaldTrump tweeted that she "partied on the anniversary of 9/11." This is an abhorrent lie that endangers a Member of Congress. Twitter must remove Trump's Tweet now. https://t.co/zzeb1dXTzc
— BoldProgressives.org (@BoldProgressive) September 18, 2019
Omar herself shared the video on September 13th, celebrating dancing to Lizzo, as anyone would:
We couldn’t celebrate #breakingconcreteceilings without jamming to my hometown girl @lizzo 🤣 https://t.co/zAXsGTkeeR
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) September 14, 2019
This is part of a long history of attacks against Omar and the women Trump referred to as AOC’s three. They include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, or “the squad.” Having strong democratic women in Congress is clearly freaking the president out, and he’s resorting to lies and manipulation to smear them. Business as usual, but none of these ladies are going to sit and take it.