Thread by @SethAbramson

Trump supporters are writing me to say they know for *sure* Omar married her brother to get *her* citizenship. (These people won't even *read* the Mueller Report.)

The truth? The "brother" claim is unproven and has *nothing* to do with Omar's citizenship. snopes.com/fact-check/ilh…

Journalists in America are torn—understandably—between disproving every bad-faith lie Trump supporters spread online *because they won't even read major media to find the truth* (because they don't *care* about the truth) and refusing to acknowledge their systemic disinformation.

Whether or not Trump pushes the disinformation himself—and he often does—what he and his crew routinely do is push Trumpists toward the fake-news websites they *know* either are currently or will shortly be spreading disinformation (e.g. the claim Omar's citizenship is in doubt).

I decided to share the Snopes de-bunking of Trump/Trumpists' false claims about Omar because tonight I learned the top excuse Trump's super-fans are using to defend his racism: that Omar actually *should* be deported because she received her citizenship fraudulently—a filthy lie.

Those who never scan Trumpist filth don't realize that while racism is a part of it, so is *disinfo*: Trumpist sites alter a fact—was Omar's supposed "marriage" about her brother's citizenship or hers?—switch "maybe" to "definitely" (did she marry her brother?) and go from there.

In other words, Trumpists include both self-conscious racists *and* those sufficiently latently racist to be open to *suggestion* on implicitly racially motivated grounds if pumped with enough *systemic disinformation* and Trump's vile rhetoric. It's a toxic, indeed *evil* brew.

PS/ The key SNOPES quote: "We found no public records or credible sources contradicting Omar’s account of her past, nor any substantive evidence corroborating claims that Elmi is her brother... In addition, some of the claims offered in support of the rumor don’t seem to add up."