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83 years ago President Franklin Roosevelt went before a joint session of congress to ask for a declaration of war on Japan following the Japanese unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor. As you can witness by the reaction of congress, the people of the US were pretty well 100% behind Roosevelt.

Seeing this near unity in this country at that time makes one ponder what would happen if we were in a similar situation today. MAGA policies and their use of media to spread misinformation and disinformation (aka lies) would make any reports of some kind of an attack very suspect.

Following the first Trump administration attempts to claim that the Biden family was in some way taking payments from Ukranian sources that led to trump’s first impeachment is a very fine example of why most people would be very wary of information coming from a Trump source.

We also know that MAGAs in congress have spent much of their time trying to prove things that are lies. Covid being created in a Chinese lab leaps immediately to mind. Given that MAGAs are much more concerned about making Democrats and other citizens they hate look bad than they are concerned about finding truth makes anything they say suspect immediately.

Now that many areas of the media has decided that currying favor of the right wing is more important than finding the truth again makes believing anything they say suspect immediately. There are a few media outlets we can trust, but I would be leery of trusting anyone 100%. Get more. That one source.

If Donald Trump or one of his designees were going to the press or to congress claiming of some such attack I would immediately be suspect. I would wonder where they got the story. Based on Trump’s lifelong record of lies, suspicion seems to be a very smart reaction.

The second thing I would wonder is what is in it for Trump? What is in it for Elon Musk? Is one of Trump’s children or in-laws in line to make a killing on whatever happened. We have never had any reasoning behind the $2 Billion that Jared Kushner got from the Saudis while he was in government service (or shortly thereafter )

I would wonder if some aspect of Trump’s business empire would benefit from such a declaration? Would some extreme right wing dictator serve to benefit from Trump’s move? We have seen that almost everything Trump did in his first round benefitted himself to some degree.  

Also I would wonder who would be suffering because of his decision. Trump has already made it very clear that there is a list of groups and individuals that he (Trump) intends to attack, from Democratic office holders to people he claims are undocumented aliens to reporters who have uttered opinions against Trump to even MAGAs who are insufficiently loyal.

If a Franklin Roosevelt makes a statement I would have trusted it. If Joe Biden makes a statement I trusted it. When Herbert Hoover, Dick Nixon, Ronnie Reagan and both Bushes made a statement I was suspicious (remember W Bush’s lies leading up to his invasion of Iraq?).

But boy oh boy no one is on the level of distrust that Donald Trump has earned and I do mean earned. The assumption is that anything he says is a lie and designed to make money for himself. 

And yes, given her track record, I would believe Kamala Harris.

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