Thoughts on the 13 families hoax

So I had to mute a prominent lefty account a couple of days ago, because he repeated the myth that @realDonaldTrump went to Arlington and filmed a campaign video. So I called @joshtpm out and muted him, and my notifications blew up.

Trump didn't film a campaign video, but not a single flamester was able to send me the link, because it doesn't exist.

This is what a campaign video looks like, its Biden from 2020, you can tell from the last frame:

https://x.com/i/status/1829208962706842000

So what did happen?

The 13 families have felt, since the pullout of Afghanistan ignored and slighted. Biden went to Dover to receive them, but he looked at his watch several times. The BH administration doesn't want to be reminded of how they screwed up; that they gave up Baghram, that they released 5,000 Taliban prisoners, they want it all to go away. When the families try to get benefits they feel like the crazy uncle no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving.

At some point, one of them reached out to Trump back in 2021, and he agreed to meet with them at Mar A Lago, and he spent six hours with them, four times what he originally promised. So he made them Trump fans.

The families planned a reunion at Arlington, and invite Trump, Kamala, and Joe. Trump went. The families coordinated with Arlington, and Arlington asked there be only one videographer. So far so good.

Some staffer doesn't know about the arrangement, but the staff just push past him, and he gets miffed.

So Trump goes to Arlington, he lays a wreath down, and then he visits with the families and takes photos and videos. Those are shared with the families.

The families go home and post those videos to YouTube and Facebook.

Devil is in the Details

Devil is in the details is a clinche because it's true. Especially in an election year, you have to double check things. But campaigns are often run by true-believer 20 year olds. Who don't know that. So one of the KW interns sees those videos when they go viral, or hears the piece on NPR, and decides the KW campaign needs to respond. They're already feeling punchy because it turns out anyone with any sense knows that 24 years of 11 weekends and 2 weeks year is much less than 4 years as a Marine who went out on patrol all the time...

So they decide to punch out ahead of time at Trump.

People who hate Trump, see these posts, and assume that the campaign is telling the truth (Never do this, have you met the internet? Have you met American Politics?) So perfectly reasonable people get incensed.

But none of it was true.

So this was an unforced error.

Why this is a Theme with KW

I 've observed this kind of thing has been a theme with Kamala Harris, of only reading the Executive Summary of any briefing. Of blindly accepting the input of experts, and it's led to the debacle of leaving Afghanistan, spending $230M on a pier that got destroyed by waves and wasn't even necessary, and claiming they've whipped inflation.

Summary:

Trump didn't go to Arlington and shoot a campaign video.

He did bring a videographer and photographer with him, which was more or less what Arlington asked for.

Campaign did share videos with the family members themselves, who uploaded them on their own to TikTok, because that's what people do these days.

KW campaign claimed he did, and attacked him on Social Media

@realDonaldTrump has posted videos from all the family members stating how low key it was.

Don't trust anyone in an election year.