Widely circulated video of Pretti’s killing by federal agents undercut earlier assertions of him being a gunman
White House officials sought to rapidly distance Donald Trump and top officials from their initial portrayals of the man fatally shot by federal officials in Minnesota as a gunman, as they faced a deepening backlash after video footage was widely seen to undercut their assertions.
The move came as Trump advisers appeared to realize that the caustic portrayals of the man, Alex Pretti, who was reportedly licensed to carry a gun, had turned the killing into an even larger political liability for the president.
Over the weekend, senior administration officials including Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, called the victim “a domestic terrorist who tried to assassinate law enforcement”, while Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, accused him of perpetrating “the definition of domestic terrorism”.
I’m fairly sure the reason this latest incident is blowing up in their faces is not the blatant lies, it’s that they tried to spin it so that Pretti deserved to die because he was carrying a gun. Which pisses off the 2A crowd. If they had shot an unarmed protester that wouldn’t be a problem, he didn’t comply, FAFO, etc., apply thought terminating phrase of choice. But because the conversation has become whether you should be executed for carrying a gun, that’s touched a nerve.
Sure, I absolutely agree with you.
In my previous comment I was trying to highlight a slightly different topic: the fact that “the official story” and what has happened are often mutually exclusive and that it’s not important the official story is correct but that it’s believed.
Maybe I didn’t frame it right but I’m talking about the same thing. They lied, egregiously, obviously, repeatedly. The issue now isn’t that the story was a lie, and that their supporters are outraged at having been lied to. No, the issue is that it was a poorly chosen lie and not what they wanted to hear.
I guess selling the big lie was always an effective strategy, only now it’s being taken to extremes. The fascists don’t care about objective reality. They get their reality from the leader and the in-group, and as long as it gives them the right feels it doesn’t matter how obviously untrue it is. Those of us who see the lies can point out that the lying liars have lied again, but that’s boring, it happens every day. So any backlash is minimal.
But as you say, it also works on the masses who just aren’t thinking critically, and given the sheer volume of that flood of lies, that’s a big problem.