In a move by the Trump administration’s re-election campaign that can only be described nicely as “amoral,” a video was aired last week at the Trump National Doral Miami during a three-day conference for Trump’s supporters. According to video footage obtained by The New York Times, the video features a compilation of pro-Trump internet memes and videos, but the most callous one sees a body with Trump’s face superimposed onto it shooting and stabbing his way through the “Church of Fake News.” In actuality, it’s a reworked version of the church fight scene from 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, where Kingsman agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth), caught under the influence of antagonist Richmond Valentine’s (Samuel L. Jackson) SIM card “neurological wave,” brutally massacres a hate group church gathering.
The Times noted that this event was hosted by pro-Trump group American Priority, yet event organizer Alex Phillips, denounced the clip on record. Calling the video part of a “meme exhibit,” Phillips claims his organization will investigate how this particular clip made it into the conference. Nevertheless, the video is appalling, as amongst the faces faux-Trump murders include Mika Brzeninski, Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, as well as various news outlet logos who have called out his lies. Namely everyone but Fox News. We at Mxdwn have refused to link the video footage.
Ignore the irony of someone using a scene where one character murders a far-right, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, faux-Christian hate group to define Trump’s right-wing media vendetta. Having the faces of media outlets being “murdered” by anyone, especially a sitting president, is callous, disgusting and flat out wrong, regardless of political bias. Yet it is very much in tone with Trump’s behavior of calling media outlets “Fake News” for reporting things he doesn’t like. In other words, reporting the truth.