We’re back.
On today’s ‘To the Contrary” podcast, The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum joins me to discuss Trump's sale of early access to Truth Social posts, his doubling down on the reflecting pool vandalism lie, the looming Dem civil war, the fogs of Trump’s war with Iran, and the way the far right weaponized the Spanish border crisis.
You can read her latest piece here: “The Far-Right Playbook in Action” which describes the bizarre story of what happened in Morocco and Spain this week:
Despite the fact that [the Moroccan migrants] could not reach the Schengen zone, the European Union’s zone of free movement, a whole series of far-right politicians wrote dire, fear-mongering messages claiming that they would.
Nigel Farage, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, of the UK’s Reform party, said they would soon arrive in Britain. Alice Weidel of the AfD, the German far-right, said Germany was their “likely destination.” Vance declared that “These images out of Spain are an unfortunate reminder of the consequences of mass migration and the radical left-wing globalist policies that have enabled the Invasion of the West.”
Not only were they wrong, none of the people posting angry messages looked closely at what had actually happened, or asked why some 60,000 people had suddenly made the risky decision to swim to Ceuta. As I wrote in The Atlantic,
Last week, according to El Pais as well as other Spanish, international, and Moroccan media outlets, many Moroccans saw a TikTok video nevertheless claiming that “the Spanish border is open and you can cross without papers,” meaning they could reach the European continent. The video appeared to reference a recent ruling by the Spanish supreme court making it harder to return migrants who arrive by sea, but it was not the only encouragement. Other messages, many of which have now disappeared, told people where to buy wet suits, flippers, goggles, floats, and even waterproof bags for documents and cellphones. Screenshots from Google Maps told them which sections of the Ceuta beach might have fewer police. Moroccan border guards were either unwilling or unable to stop them.
By Sunday, after they learned that they could not, in fact, get to mainland Spain, the vast majority of the migrants had returned to Morocco. Spanish police were escorting the few who remained to the border. Neither Vance nor Farage nor anyone else acknowledged the resolution of the crisis. Nor did they talk about the tragedy that unfolded alongside it. On Monday, the morgue in Ceuta contained 88 bodies of people who died during the crossing. The Moroccan government said it had recovered an additional eleven.
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Some highlights of my conversation with Anne Applebaum
In re: Trump’s latest scheme to sell early access to market-moving White House announcements via “Truth API” (some background in the footnote).1
Trump’s blatant— and unprecedented — corruption.
Trump’s regime of incompetent loyalists.
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Saturday dogs
Eli would like a word.
Via Nellie Bowles:
And in the scam of the week, we have the team at Truth Social selling early access to market-moving White House announcements, calling it Truth API. See, Trump often makes presidential announcements on Truth Social, his social media platform, and now you can buy government announcements a tiny bit early to trade on it. If this sounds at all sketchy, then you probably don’t get what an API is, and that’s fine. This is what real men do for work, and you shouldn’t worry your little head about it, kitten.
The statement from Trump Media and Technology Group interim CEO Kevin McGurn: “Markets already move on Truth Social posts. Truth API delivers a direct, licensed, real-time feed of the platform’s most market-moving Truths while advancing our strategy to monetize proprietary assets through a high-margin, recurring revenue stream.” The idea is to give algorithmic trading tools a few milliseconds of advantage to trade on whatever the latest Trump announcement is. And they’re spelling that out! Martha Stewart went to jail for a minor trade based on some tidbit her broker had allegedly gleaned (the original James Comey villain story), but anyway. Here we are. Explicitly selling presidential trading tips. Major banks are hesitant to subscribe right now, which means a new type of man is about to get really rich. Men who aren’t scared of a little political crime….
