[FRIAM] Trump right again?

[Brent Auble]

Trump is entirely in the wrong on this, at least if speaking factually is what would determine whether he was right...
He watched, presumably, the following segment from the Tucker Carlson show on Friday night: Sweden Government Covering Up Immigrant Rape & Crime - Ami Horowitz - Tucker Carlson Tonight 2/17/17
  
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Sweden Government Covering Up Immigrant Rape & Crime - Ami Horowitz - T...
 Tucker Carlson interviews Ami Horowitz an independent filmmaker about why he went to Sweden to film about the ou...  |   |

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Then on Saturday afternoon, he said, "You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?”
He's clearly talking about something that happened "last night in Sweden," of which there wasn't anything of note (humorous memes notwithstanding).  Which means that he interpreted that news clip as talking about an actual incident, and then, without bothering to check with anyone else at his disposal (say asking a staffer to look into it, or the Swedish Embassy in the US, or any other news source, or maybe anyone in the US Intelligence Community), talked about there being some "happening".  That's really disturbing, and shows a concerning lack of critical thinking abilities on the part of Trump, who in a spectacular display of the Dunning-Kruger effect believes he's a really 'smart person.'
A few things to note.  First, the news ticker at the bottom of the screen during that video segment started talking about a Boko Haram attack in Nigeria -- it's entirely possible that Trump conflated the two stories, which doesn't make his confusion any better.  Second, some of the Swedish police officers interviewed by Ami Horowitz, the "documentary" filmmaker interviewed by Tucker Carlson have said that their comments were taken entirely out of context (see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/21/riots-erupt-in-swedens-capital-just-days-after-trump-comments/?utm_term=.129fed9b46a3), so there's reason to suspect the accuracy of anything he said on that segment. 
The riots last night are also interesting to look at.  First, the fact that they occurred after Trump made his incorrect statement doesn't make his statement any more correct.  If they truly were caused by immigrants, then that might give him a bit of vindication, but he was still wrong when he said it.  Second, if you look at the news stories about the riots, both in English like the Zero Hedge one and Swedish via the magic of Google Translate, there's no clear indication of who the rioters are.  They're generally described as about 30 youth in masks and hoods.  I have yet to find one saying whether the rioters were immigrants or native Swedes, either of which are plausible.
Brent

      From: glen ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com>
 To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> 
 Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2017 2:10 PM
 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump right again?
   

Ridiculous.  Trump was _vague_, then tried to clarify, badly.  But because he was _vague_, biased sources like that pseudonymous zero hedge author will exploit his vagueness and use _whatever_ might happen as evidence he was right.

Did you read the Lakoff article?  https://georgelakoff.com/2016/08/19/understanding-trumps-use-of-language/

Maybe try a reputable news source?  E.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/20/trump-asked-people-to-look-at-whats-happening-in-sweden-heres-whats-happening-there/?utm_term=.f40a5fee6e4c

On 02/21/2017 10:05 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:
> There's a meme floating around that Trump, as awful as he is, has been right and ignored for it. This from a retweet I happened across:
>    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-20/meanwhile-rioting-breaks-out-sweden
> 
> God this is a weird world. And accelerating!


-- 
☣ glen

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