Hillary Clinton delivered a speech midday in Cleveland yesterday, reflecting on Americans’ efforts to come to terms with the massacre in Orlando a day earlier. “Democratic and Republican Presidents have risen to the occasion in the face of tragedy,” she said. “That is what we are called to do my friends, and I am so confident and optimistic that is exactly what we will do.”

Clinton’s remarks included literally no references to her GOP opponent. In fact, the speech didn’t mention Republicans at all, except to offer occasional bipartisan praise. The point was to emphasize Clinton’s belief that this is a “moment when we all need to stand together,” with a “sense of common purpose.”

A few hours later, Donald Trump delivered a speech of his own in New Hampshire. It was, to my mind, arguably the scariest American speech of my lifetime.

In a speech reacting to the massacre in Orlando where 50 people were killed, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump doubles down on his proposal to ban immigration of Muslims, and he expanded his proposal to “suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or allies.”

Speaking at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics Monday, Trump did not mention foreign policy, discuss the fight against terrorist group ISIS, or propose solutions to combat hate or extremism, instead he said the attack early Sunday morning at the Pulse nightclub was the result of the U.S.’s immigration policies.

In December, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was asked about Trump’s call for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” The Wisconsin Republican wasn’t pleased. “This is not conservatism,” he said, adding that Trump’s proposal “is not what this party stands for and, more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.”

That may have been true once, but in 2016, Donald Trump is the dominant figure in Republican politics. Confronted with a brutal massacre – committed by an American on American soil – the presumptive GOP presidential nominee had an opportunity to show what kind of leader he intends to be. He did exactly that – which is precisely the problem.

Relying on a prepared script and trying to read from a teleprompter, Trump relied on a combination of demagoguery, ignorance, and lies to present a platform that assaults American values in ways that should be disqualifying.

The falsehoods in his remarks came so often and so quickly, it was enough to push professional fact-checkers into retirement. Trump said the Orlando shooter was “born in Afghan,” for example, which is both untrue – the gunman was born in New York, not far from where Trump was born – and bizarre given that “Afghan” is not a place.

Then again, for a presidential candidate who believes people born in Indiana are “Mexican,” perhaps this wasn’t too surprising.

But this was just the tip of a mendacious iceberg. Trump lied about the number of refugees coming to the United States. He lied about the vetting process for refugees. He lied about NATO’s counter-terrorism efforts. He lied about Clinton’s approach to gun reforms. He lied about the Obama administration’s policy on intelligence gathering.

This, however, isn’t what made Trump’s speech so frightening. Rather, more important than his uncontrollable lying was the desperation with which the Republican candidate hoped to sow the seeds of distrust, suspicion, and fear. Consider this excerpt from the remarks:

“Now, the Muslim community, so important. They have to work with us. They have to cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are bad. They know it. And they have to do it, and they have to do it forthwith…. But the Muslims have to work with us. They have to work with us. They know what’s going on. They know that he was bad. They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what? They didn’t turn them in. And you know what? We had death, and destruction.”

In Trump’s mind, American Muslims are “they,” while everyone else is “us.” He also believes – without any evidence at all – that American Muslims are aware of the dangerous people in their midst, but they refuse to tell “us” about would-be terrorists before it’s too late. There was also this:

“Altogether, under the Clinton plan, you’d be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of the children and their children. Not only their children, by the way, they’re trying to take over our children and convince them how wonderful ISIS is and how wonderful Islam is and we don’t know what’s happening.”

Trump is brazenly lying about the details – Clinton isn’t talking about “hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East” and there is absolutely a vetting system in place – but note how he also wants Americans to believe scary Middle Easterners are coming to indoctrinate your children.

In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in American history – literally one day after the bloodshed – Donald Trump wants as many people as possible to distrust their Muslim neighbors, to see them as “The Other,” and to question their loyalty.

This included oblique threats, too. “When people know what’s going on and they don’t tell us, and we have an attack, and people die, these people have to have consequences,” Trump said. “Big consequences.”

This is the kind of language from an ostensible political leader that gets people hurt.

Two hours after Clinton urged Americans to “rise to the occasion in the face of tragedy,” Trump urged Americans to fear immigrants, Muslims, and refugees.

To be sure, we’ve all heard ugly and divisive speeches from political demagogues, but remarks like these from a major-party presidential nominee aren’t normal. On the contrary, they’re terrifying, Trump is the first nominee in generations who desperately wants Americans to be afraid – if that means a near-constant stream of lies, so be it – so that they’ll put aside their better judgment and invest their trust in his authoritarian instincts.

Republican insiders were reportedly unhappy with Trump’s latest tirade, largely because he strayed so far from the GOP’s post-massacre script. But more important than election-year messaging is the nightmare of the candidate’s policy prescription.

Trump is crossing every line, abandoning every norm, and thumbing his nose at every American principle presidential hopefuls have traditionally honored. If this works, and voters decide to reward such deceitful fear-mongering, the country will never be the same.

A Twitter Bot Is Beating Trump Fans
Ever feel like you’re arguing with a brick wall? Scores of Trump supporters have been doing something just like that—fighting with an automated Twitter robot that spouts nonsense.

Many Donald Trump supporters on Twitter spent Tuesday afternoon unknowingly arguing with a robot.

@Assbott, which mostly tweets about professional wrestling and baseball, was created to immediately reply to Trump’s tweets, then respond with nonsense sentences to any user who interacts with it. But many of the presumptive Republican nominee’s fans didn’t recognize it wasn’t a person and continued fighting with it until they finally abandoned the conversation. About 10 users per hour continued tweeting at @Assbott well into Tuesday night.

@Assbott is the brainchild of a Kentucky man named Forrest, who identifies himself as @Nasboat on Twitter and declined to give his last name so his employer would not find out.

“The bot is just a mishmash of my tweets. @AwfulJack is the one who started the account. I’m clueless on the technical side,” he told The Daily Beast. “There had been a few other bots made from other users we know and follow, and I thought it was a funny concept and wanted one of my own. I sent him my archive, and he got it up and running.”
AwfulJack is manned by Jack Kirkland, who is currently unemployed in Indiana and says he created Forrest’s bot because it’s a “good exercise to learn programming.” @Assbott is running “constantly on the Heroku platform and is coded in Ruby,” he said. It uses Markov chains, which string sentences of @Nasboat’s tweets together into one larger whole.

That’s how @Assbott comes up with sentences like this:

“He likes to lick em, he likes to ride hogs, bro, you seem v nice.”

That beauty was in response to a Trump user who tweeted, “Why when he has way more likes and retweets than @HillaryClinton? Huge amount of likes in comparison! Ha!” That user, @Kanam78, appeared unaware she was arguing with a robot.

@Assbott has been around since May 2015, but the real fun started when Kirkland added functionality to it that would respond “Delete your account” to every tweet Trump sent out. Hillary Clinton famously tweeted the phrase at Trump after he criticized President Obama’s endorsement of the presumptive Democratic nominee last week.

Since @Assbott is automated, the entire world sees its reply first, before anyone else’s. @Assbott tweets instantly. So, mere seconds after Trump tweeted a “Thank you to the LGBT community!” on Tuesday, a sea of his fans were trapped in a war of words they could not win with a lifeless clump of code in a computer.

Tuesday afternoon wasn’t the first time this happened with a celebrity.

“Once John Popper from Blues Traveler was arguing with it all night long, which happened within the first six months, I figured anything was possible,” said Forrest.

But wasn’t Forrest a little surprised that an automated version of himself with no scruples or social graces was winning internet arguments with real live humans?

“Not really, because I’ve learned never to underestimate the gullibility or lack of awareness of people online, especially on Twitter,” he said. “Plus, the bot tends to get pretty inflammatory and makes no sense, which I think clearly speaks to the kind of person who supports Trump.”

The best comeback Forrest saw from his robot son on Tuesday afternoon came after someone named Alfredo Perez tweeted back at @Assbott: “Let me correct you: delete your account, Mr. President.”

@Assbott wasted no time, because @Assbott is a robot programmed not to waste time.

“I like bad tweets so I really enjoy your account is bad and your content is shit,” it replied.


“The best ones are where it seems the most sentient,” said Forrest. “It was too perfect. It replies to everything and never shuts up, just like me.”

Asked for comment on the scores of Twitter users who mistook it for a human Tuesday, @Assbott responded immediately:

“Lol yeah. It was witnessed by multiple other wrestlers?”

Probably.

Trump is much, much worse than Bush.

Bush had actual experience as governor of Texas, and as much as we hated him them, in hindsight Trump makes him look like fucking FDR

he's gone full Palin

Maybe he's talking about Belgium, Wisconsin?

remember people , you can DO anything and everything no matter how awful and it will be forgotten and forgivin.

but dont SAY anything that upsets the _____ because it will never be forgooten and thier rage and tears are eternal

i dont bully or try to manipulate people people into my opinions.

ok i understand you are afraid to answer any questions.

it is a self defense mech for your type.

ok i understand you are afraid to answer any questions.

it is a self defense mech for your type.

carry on expressing your eternal tears in any and all unrelated threads, because you know that proves how upset i am.

i dont bully or try to manipulate people people into my opinions.

November 8th we will elect someone, and will know that day (or the following day if it's a tight race).

i have an opinion that all opinions are equal