Presidential daughter-in-law Lara Trump has been circulating a debunked article linking Democrats to totalitarianism.
Newsweek reports that on Sunday morning, Trump tweeted a dark message to her 326,000 followers: “America: Keep your eyes open… there are people in the USA trying to make this a reality…Never stop fighting to save our country…#MAGA.” Attached to the tweet was an image of an article titled “Beware the useful idiots,” which linked Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to Saul Alinsky, a Chicago community organizer, and a manifesto on government that Alinsky never actually wrote.
The statement reads: “1) Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people 2) Poverty — Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live. 3) Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty. 4) Gun Control — Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state. 5) Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income). 6) Education — Take control of what people read and listen to — take control of what children learn in school. 7) Religion — Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools. 8) Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.”
America: Keep your eyes open ? there are people in the USA trying to make this a reality??Never stop fighting to save our country ?? #MAGA pic.twitter.com/vsFUw8VYNz
— Lara Trump (@LaraLeaTrump) November 5, 2017
Newsweek notes that the fact-checking site Snopes has debunked this and similar viral lists attributed to Alinsky: “This list is simply a modern variant of the decades-old, apocryphal Communist Rules for Revolution piece that was originally passed along without attribution until Alinsky’s name became attached to it (presumably because someone out there thought it sounded like something Alinsky might have written).”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Ben Carson said that Alinsky was one of Clinton’s heroes and that she had written her senior college thesis on him.
The New York Times reported that Clinton did write her undergraduate Wellesley College thesis on Alinsky but noted she was not a complete disciple: “Ms. Rodham endorsed Mr. Alinsky’s central critique of government antipoverty programs — that they tended to be too top-down and removed from the wishes of individuals. But the student leader split with Mr. Alinsky over a central point. He vowed to ‘rub raw the sores of discontent’ and compel action through agitation. This, she believed, ran counter to the notion of change within the system.”
Lara Trump, a former producer for “Inside Edition” who is married to the president’s youngest son, Eric, previously ran into criticism when she launched a “real news” show on President Trump’s Facebook page, which relayed positive stories related to the administration and omitted any less-than-stellar developments. She gave birth to son Eric “Luke” Trump in September.
