So, lemme talk about this for a moment.

First of all, the obvious - Trump is fear-mongering. We know that, it's obvious, he's been doing that all along.

Second, he is definitely parroting things he's heard from somewhere else. https://twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1300624929071788032

A lot of people have said that he sounds delusional here. No. Not the case.

Trump isn't an eloquent speaker. He is smart enough to know that he needs to appeal to his followers, and wise enough to know that making people afraid works for him. But he doesn't have a way for words.

What Trump is trying to do in this interview, in his own stilted way, is to repeat a story that he has been told. And yes, we can all notice, that story has strong antisemitic roots. Let's pit a pin in that, but look at the story Trump is trying to tell first.

The crux of his story, malformed as it is, is that someone boarded a plane and found that it was filled with people dressed in dark clothing.
Trump can't express who boarded the plane, which plane, where they were going or why, who the people were or why they were on the plane...

Like I said, Trump's a poor speaker. If you ask anyone who is a poor speaker to recall a film, they will do what Trump does - tell you the highlights of that story, divorced from the context. That's why their recall might sound rambling. So no, Trump isn't being delusional here.

The question we should be asking should, in fact, be -
- WHAT story did Trump hear?
- WHERE did Trump hear this story?
- WHO told him said story?

Now, I don't tread in conspiracy theory and far-right talking circles, so I don't know the story. The 'What' is open for anyone to suggest.
But I definitely know the 'Where' - Trump got the info from the same place his followers get theirs; unfiltered online conspiracy theorists.

At this point, the idea of a free and unfiltered online world has become, let's be honest here, the worst fucking thing to ever happen to humanity.

When I was a youngster and the internet was new, you still had conspiracy theorists, creepy cults, snake-oil salesmen, scam artists and far-right neo-nazis. They have ALWAYS existed online. But before about 20 years ago, they kept to their own little isolated dark corners.

It's not that case now. Everybody has an online presence. Bad ideas, scam artists, people looking to push and sell every awful thing, they don't sit in little geocities pages any more. Now they connect to you on Facebook. Think about that.

Twenty years ago, you would have to crawl through an essay-long page to find out someone's holocaust-denialist theories. Now you get it advertised to you on livestream. Now you too can sit there and listen to it between meetings, just like World Leaders do!

You can buy miracle cures for your illnesses on amazon. Hey, didn't they used to sell black salve?

THIS IS THE PROBLEM. This is why the President of the United States is (badly) repeating stories he heard on white nationalist podcasts on international television.

Over the last 20 years, the internet has become more and more dominated by corporate giants. Google managed to drive out most other search engines, which makes sure that when you search for content online your best results are the ones that are most profitable to Google.

Amazon out-competed every other shopping website, to the point where if you want to set up your own shopping website, your most profitable way to do so is to sell things on fucking Amazon!
Do you... do you notice what's missing yet?

For an entire generation of people, 'the internet' means 'Facebook'. Y'know, 15 years ago when I was at university our class discussed making a Facebook page, I said it wouldn't be worth the time because 'hot' websites fizzle out after a few years. HOW WRONG WAS I?

If you want content online that is similar to the non-corporate structure, you can head to one of the many thousands of chan-type boards, which seemingly exist to let their users be the worst type of human beings imaginable all without censorship.
See what's missing yet?

So like, here in the UK we have Trading Standards, companies aren't allowed to mis-sell you their products. On television, advertisers are not allowed to outright LIE to the public.
The internet doesn't have that.

Frankly, it fucking should. Websites that host the type of content that Trump gets his information from should be held accountable for mis-selling and lying to the public.

It should, but it won't. Could you fucking imagine the Daily Stormer being pulled because of that? Just IMAGINE how much they would cry "censorship!" But that doesn't matter, because there's NO CENTRAL BODY who hold web content accountable for predatory, illegal or harmful acts.

And do you know why there isn't such a body, organisation or agency?

Because there's no profit in it.

There's profit for websites to host content, though. Even if that content is literally made by and for neo-nazis, it still brings in the money for corporations.