During the Capitol riot perpetrated by Trump supporters—with White nationalists, White supremacists and QAnon adherents well represented—President Donald Trump released a video that got his Twitter account locked for 12 hours and the post removed by the social media platform. To end his suspension, Trump had to delete the inflammatory video.
In it, Trump repeated his debunked claims he won the election. He justified the violence at the Capitol that resulted in five deaths—including Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick—ending with telling the bomb-wielding rioters he loved them and they were "very special."
After his suspension was lifted, a very different video was loaded on Twitter.
In this new video, Trump denounced the violent domestic terrorists who smashed windows and broke into offices and committed other acts of vandalism in the Capitol complex. No claims of a stolen election were included in Trump's clearly scripted video read directly from the teleprompter—without any of the ad libs his speeches are known for.
People are referring to the video as Trump's concession speech. It's likely as close as the United States' voters will ever get to Trump admitting he lost by over 7 million votes and by 74 electoral votes to President-elect Joe Biden.
You can see the video here:
Many people were reminded of the speech Trump was forced to give after praising White supremacists and White nationalists—calling them "very fine people—after violent demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia that lead to the death of Heather Heyer early in his presidency.
But Trump's most fervent supporters had another explanation for Thursday evening's stilted, awkward speech.
After some QAnon Trump fans criticized his so-called concession speech...
Madbritish72/Parler
...his ride or die supporters began to claim the video must be a deepfake.
CNN fact checker Daniel Dale shared the latest leap of logic QAnon believers created to avoid reality on Twitter.
A review of Gab, Parler, 4chan and Twitter confirmed Dale's tweet.
@NeonRevolt/Gab
@MajorPatriot/Twitter
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Jason/Parler
One Parler user reminded their fellow Trump supporters that "Gid" is on their side.
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President Elect Joe M/Parler
Although not everyone was convinced and began to question their life choices.
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For those who have been following the QAnon movement, the further break from reality came as no big surprise.
Whether QAnon fervor will soon die down like the surges in popularity of organizations like the Ku Klux Klan or movements like McCarthyism and the Tea Party remains to be seen.
But the refusal to believe anything that doesn't fit their worldview reminded many of a quote from George Orwell's dystopian classic 1984:
"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
After all, their leader Donald Trump once told a 2018 gathering:
"What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."
However Trump's fans won't be hearing much from him on Twitter for the foreseeable future.
On Friday afternoon, Donald Trump's personal Twitter account was suspended.
@realDonaldTrump/Twitter
In an official blog post, Twitter stated:
"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them—specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter—we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence."
The move by the social media company follows Trump's suspension on Facebook and Instagram earlier in the week.
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@BillAckman/Twitter