It was almost like a test to see how many people would be willing to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears in the most Orwellian fashion.
Anyone not already a member of the cult of Donald Trump knows better than to believe a single thing that passes between his lips or typed by his tiny Twitter fingers.
There is still a third of the country, however, who are blind to his pattern of prevarication and diligent deception.
Last night’s tweet from the White House strained credulity beyond even what is typical for the most dedicated falsifier in presidential history.
On a day where the unseasonably warm temperature in the nation’s capital hit as high as 68 degrees, the White House decided to post this obviously erroneous photo and caption.
First snow of the year! ❄️ pic.twitter.com/kgSLQX6QxK
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 13, 2020
The reaction on Twitter was swift and furious.
It's 52 degrees.
It's snowing in DC to the same extent that Trump is innocent.
These folks aren't even competent at lying. https://t.co/yviQcyY5B0
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) January 13, 2020
Narrator: it’s 53 degrees in Washington DC right now. https://t.co/gFH3HOqYUK
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) January 13, 2020
This is the dumbest lie and I am furious. https://t.co/eeRJpRzlP7
— Emily Keller (@egkeller) January 13, 2020
Early entry for stupidest Trump lie of 2020. https://t.co/amEKgkjveV
— JoeMyGod (@JoeMyGod) January 13, 2020
This White House lied about rain at Trump's inauguration. They used a Sharpie to change a weather map to lie about a hurricane headed to Alabama. And they continue to lie about climate change. Why wouldn't they lie about the first snow of the year when it's 53 degrees in DC? pic.twitter.com/QmunL6ySjA
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) January 13, 2020
First snow of the year! ❄️ pic.twitter.com/VF0IpARVtn
— Matt Ford (@fordm) January 13, 2020
https://twitter.com/Cosmichomicide/status/1216554341940723712?s=20
It was 70 degrees in DC. WTF is wrong with these people. They literally lie about the dumbest things. https://t.co/Lt9mXUw6d0
— Josh Kail (@THATJoshKail) January 13, 2020
This is indeed the truest form of gaslighting, to lie about the stupidest, most disprovable thing, only to cause division and prove to the most suggestible in society that there are no such things as objective facts. https://t.co/OxJMCtUuse
— E.J. Kalafarski (@ejkalafarski) January 13, 2020
With over 15 thousand lies to his credit — or more properly, his disgrace — the Trump White House’s misleading tweet about the current weather is among the least significant of the president’s statements that are totally disconnected from reality.
Luckily, the nation has yet to reach that point of no return where such blatant misrepresentations of the truth are simply accepted as the norm and not even worth pointing out.
In case anyone was interested in the actual truth, the first snow in Washington DC actually came several days earlier, last Tuesday, when the photo tweeted out by the White House was apparently taken, according to HuffPost.
Perhaps the photo got caught up in the classification process while the administration decided whether it was subject to executive privilege.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Ed Mazza at HuffPost.
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