1/ Notice the last line in this thread about those staged "liberate" protests ⤵️

"So there's a big push to get a new story moving."

In other words, "Well, that didn't work. Let's try something else."

It's cynical. It's manipulative. It's the Trump administration. https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1252076751796273152
2/ The other part that's pure Trump is that the protests were staged. Fake. Not real. Manufactured.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1252073445728419841

Brought to you from the “fake” successful businessman who governs by bringing you new spectacle each day.
3/The question is: What will he try next?

He’s losing support right now.

Covid-19 is the wrong kind of crisis because he can’t control it.

I explained in Feb. why fascist leaders need a manufactured crises. They can't control or manipulate a real one👇 https://twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield/status/1233414643369955328
4/ He’ll come up with something else sensational to grab headlines and divert attention and keep the fighters fighting.

I don’t know what it will be, but I guarantee it will enrage his critics. It will send you into a spin. You’ll be horrified.

Watch for it.
5/ We can't stop the Firehose of Outrageousness, but we can put on raincoats so that the tactics don't work, and it all rolls off.

Raincoats keep us from feeding the Outrage Cycle and wearing ourselves out.

We stay focused on getting absentee ballots. https://twitter.com/meandmrsjones2/status/1252247305329262592
6/ When we're spinning with outrage we are more likely to give up and conclude that "it's no use."

@TimothyDSnyder explains it as a way of looking at time: Outrage keeps us in the present and causes us to lose sight of the fact that there IS a future. https://twitter.com/i/status/1252245563682115584
7/ Here it is. We knew it was coming. The staged protests were not working, and there was a "push to get a new story moving."

Here it is 👇

Carefully calculated to excite his base and enrage his critics.
8/ I think it's quite clever, when you consider his goals.

Someone worried that his next attempt to distract would involve the military, but a military operation isn't Trump's style.

He's a coward. Wars cause property damage and that terrifies him . . . https://twitter.com/heislying2u/status/1252434549981671425
9/ The last thing he wants is to get into a war with another country and have someone attack his properties. He also doesn't want a bomb falling anywhere near him.

Consider what keeping a story like this in the news will do for him . . .
10/

🔹He accomplishes something he wants to do: Close the borders
🔹It will fire up his base
🔹It will enrage his critics
🔹It isn't a real crisis. It's entirely manufactured, so he won't have to worry that it will get out of hand
🔹There's no actual danger to him.
11/

🔹We will be talking about this and not his abysmal handling of Covid-19

He lost support with his base the past few weeks, and this appears calculated to build it back up.

He'd much rather have the national conversation be about this.
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