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In propaganda, a big lie is a persuasive technique in which a figure regarded as trustworthy makes a large distortion of the truth, presenting it as a fact to suit their own goals and get the public to back them up. Beginning in 2016 when he was first elected president, Donald Trump paradoxically made a big lie about a big lie. He claimed that the November 2020 election would be tampered with by members of the Democratic party and people from other countries, attempting to illegitimatize a potential political loss and make himself appear more legitimate than his opponents. Trump is known to be an entertaining individual, incorporating humor and memorable phrases into his speeches and taking advantage of internet culture and memes to boost his popularity, so swaying his supporters into believing the lie was fairly easy.

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A major theme of Trump's presidential campaign was his view that the United States had long been treated unfairly or taken advantage of by other countries, including by some traditional U.S. allies, and that under Obama's leadership the United States had ceased to be respected in world affairs. In numerous speeches, tweets, and interviews, he threatened to impose tariffs on countries that engaged in what he deemed unfair trade practices; harshly criticized the World Trade Organization (WTO); and promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he called "the worst trade deal" the United States had ever signed. He also criticized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), dismissing the alliance as "obsolete" but also insisting that other NATO countries devote more of their budgets to defense spending. In January 2017 he withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim countries that had been a major foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration; Trump's action was largely symbolic, however, because the Senate had never ratified the treaty.

In January and March 2018 the Trump administration announced steep tariffs on imports of solar panels (worth $8.5 billion per year) and washing machines (worth $1 billion), aimed particularly at China and South Korea, and on imports of aluminum and steel (worth $48 billion) made in several countries, most of them U.S. allies (initial exemptions from the aluminum and steel duties granted to Canada, the European Union [EU], and Mexico were lifted in June). Dismissing warnings and criticisms from economists and business leaders that the tariffs could ignite a trade war, Trump insisted in a tweet that "trade wars are good, and easy to win." In April China imposed retaliatory tariffs on a variety of U.S. goods worth $2.4 billion annually, approximately the dollar amount of Chinese aluminum and steel imports affected by the Trump tariffs. The EU followed suit in June with tariffs on U.S. imports valued at $3.2 billion, as did Canada in July with tariffs on $12.8 billion of U.S. goods. Following its official finding that the Chinese had engaged in unfair trade practices, in June the Trump administration announced plans for tariffs on an additional $50 billion of dollars worth of Chinese products, prompting China to announce comparable duties. Threats and counterthreats of additional tariffs soon followed, and by July the two countries were engaged in a full-blown trade war.

Trump's tariffs and his antipathy to the WTO overshadowed the meeting in early June of the Group of 7 in Quebec, Canada, which was marked by tense disagreement between Trump and other G7 leaders over language regarding free trade in the meeting's final communiqué, usually a bland formality. Following Trump's early departure from the meeting, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated his country's reluctant determination to respond in kind to Trump's tariffs on aluminum and steel. Reacting to Trudeau's remarks during a flight to Singapore aboard Air Force One, Trump withdrew his endorsement of the communiqué and called Trudeau "dishonest" and "weak." In Singapore Trump held a historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, the first face-to-face encounter between sitting leaders of the two countries. Although Trump declared after the meeting that "there is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea," it was unclear what concrete commitments North Korea had made to nuclear disarmament. In July Trump attended the annual summit meeting of NATO in Brussels, where in a speech he called other NATO countries "delinquent" and insisted that they increase their defense spending "immediately." The meeting ended with a joint communiqué in which member countries agreed to continue their efforts to devote 2 percent of their GDP to defense spending by 2024, a goal they had agreed to in 2014.

In May 2018 Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from a 2015 accord between Iran and five major powers-formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)-that had limited Iran's uranium-enrichment activities and required it to submit to frequent international inspections of its nuclear facilities in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. After the United States killed Iran's highest-ranking security and intelligence official in a drone strike ordered by Trump, Iran announced in January 2020 that it would no longer observe the JCPOA-imposed restrictions on its enrichment activities, though it stopped short of formally exiting the agreement.

Ukraine scandal

In August 2019 an anonymous whistleblower, later determined to be an official of the CIA, filed a complaint with the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, alleging that in a July 25 phone call with the newly elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump had attempted to extort a promise from Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election on Trump's behalf. Specifically, according to the complaint, Trump strongly implied that some $400 million in congressionally mandated security assistance to Ukraine would not be provided unless Zelensky carried out two requests, which Trump introduced by saying, "I would like you to do us a favor though...." The first request was that Zelensky search for a computer server used by the Democratic National Committee that supposedly had been hidden in Ukraine after the Internet security firm CrowdStrike determined in 2016 that it had been broken into by hackers based in Russia. According to the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory, which originated as a disinformation campaign by Russia, the missing server contained evidence that the hackers were in fact Ukrainian and that Democrats and CrowdStrike had conspired to falsely blame Russia for interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

The second request was that Zelensky investigate Biden's allegedly corrupt motive for pressuring the Ukrainian government in 2015, while Biden was serving as vice president in the Obama administration, to fire the country's prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin. According to the Burisma conspiracy theory, as it came to be known, Biden called for Shokin's removal only in order to halt an investigation of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, Ltd., that threatened to uncover wrongdoing by Biden's son Hunter, who was then serving on the company's board of directors. No serious evidence of wrongdoing by Biden or his son was ever produced, however. In his phone conversation, Trump also repeatedly suggested to Zelensky that in planning or conducting the requested investigations he deal directly with Attorney General Barr and Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

In September 2019, after the press began reporting that Trump's conversation with Zelensky may have involved a "quid pro quo," the aid to Ukraine was finally released, and the White House later issued what it called a "rough transcript" of the phone call, which nevertheless did not support Trump's assertion that there had been no quid pro quo. Later that month Pelosi changed her stance on the impeachment question, announcing that Trump's attempt to extort a foreign leader to interfere in a U.S. election constituted a betrayal of his oath of office and therefore warranted a formal impeachment inquiry. In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee and later the House Judiciary Committee, career civil servants in the State Department and other witnesses confirmed the outlines of the whistleblower's account of Trump's phone call and further indicated that Trump had been attempting to conduct what amounted to a separate "back channel" foreign policy through Giuliani, Barr, and others. In December the Judiciary Committee drafted two articles of impeachment against Trump, one for abuse of power and the other for obstruction of Congress. Those articles were adopted in two party-line votes by the entire House on December 18, making Trump the third president in U.S. history to be impeached. Trump was acquitted by the Senate in February 2020 after a majority of senators voted to find him not guilty on both charges. For additional discussion, see Ukraine scandal.

COVID-19 pandemic

( Read about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Soon after the first known case in the United States was identified in mid-January 2020, Trump was privately informed by officials within his administration that the pandemic could result in massive numbers of American deaths and severe damage to the U.S. economy. Those warnings were repeated to Trump for several weeks through February and early March as the numbers of positive tests for the coronavirus and confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country continued to rise.

After WHO's global pandemic announcement, Trump declared a national emergency, suspended travel to the United States from several European countries, and recommended that Americans practice social distancing for the remainder of March (he later extended that period to April 30). At the end of March he invoked the DPA to officially direct the automobile manufacturer General Motors to produce ventilators. By then, many states had already closed businesses and schools, restricted public gatherings, issued stay-at-home orders, and mandated mask wearing in public spaces. States and individual hospitals were also redoubling their efforts to find increasingly scarce ventilators and respirators after Trump told state governors in a conference call that they should make their own arrangements to obtain such equipment.

The widespread business closings and the shift to work-from-home arrangements in some industries resulted in massive layoffs, eventually producing unemployment levels not seen since the early 1930s and a deep recession. In late March Congress passed, and Trump signed into law, a $2.2 trillion economic relief package, the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act, which included a loan program for small businesses, an increase in unemployment benefits through July, one-time direct payments to households, increased funding for food-stamp and child-nutrition programs, and financial aid to state and local governments, which had been overwhelmed by unemployment claims and unprecedented demands for emergency services. Two months later the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives adopted a more extensive ($3 trillion) relief measure, the HEROES (Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions) Act, whose provisions included a vote-by-mail option in all federal elections beginning in November and additional funding for the U.S. Postal Service, which was then handling greatly increased numbers of mail-in (or absentee) ballots cast by primary-election voters wishing to avoid exposure to the coronavirus in voting lines and polling stations. Senate Republicans, however, refused to take up the measure, in part because it failed to protect reopened businesses against potential lawsuits by workers who contracted COVID-19 on the job. In late December, after several months of inaction, Congress finally passed scaled-back relief legislation, including a modest temporary increase in unemployment benefits.

Through the spring and summer, while occasionally acknowledging the real scope and seriousness of the pandemic, Trump continued to predict the imminent disappearance of the coronavirus; to dispute or misrepresent official numbers of positive tests, confirmed cases, and deaths in the United States; to promote conspiracy theories that attributed high official numbers to a variety of patently false causes; and to criticize public health officials whose assessments or recommendations did not reflect positively on his leadership. In April and May, as the numbers of new COVID-19 cases and deaths nationwide began to plateau, Trump pushed the states to quickly rescind the public health measures that had helped to slow the spread of the coronavirus, portraying state-imposed business closings and especially mask mandates as violations of economic freedom and individual liberty. Trump's misrepresentations inspired many of his supporters to hold anti-lockdown demonstrations and to flout state and local mask-wearing orders and limits on public gatherings. Trump's own refusal to wear a mask in public, a pointed signal of his contempt for such regulations, led many of his supporters, including several Republican governors and lawmakers, to regard the refusal to wear a mask in public as a kind of political statement-an expression of allegiance to Trump and the Republican Party.

In May and June the governors of several states, mostly in the South, responded to Trump's pressure by relaxing or lifting pandemic-related restrictions-in particular, mask-wearing orders. Partly as a result of those premature changes, a second surge of the pandemic-a spike in positive test rates and in numbers of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths-occurred in those and a few other states, forcing governors to reimpose restrictions they had declared unnecessary only a few weeks before.

In early October, during the final weeks of his presidential campaign, Trump himself tested positive for the coronavirus and developed COVID-19. He was admitted to Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, with respiratory symptoms and was reportedly treated there with advanced experimental drugs unavailable to almost all other Americans. Released at his insistence after only three days, he eventually resumed his campaign rallies before mostly unmasked supporters in several states. As before, Trump declined to wear a mask in public. Meanwhile, a third surge of the pandemic, which experts had warned would be far more deadly than the second, had begun. By the end of December 2020, more than 350,000 Americans had died of the illness.

Presidential election of 2020

Campaigns and litigation

Facing no serious challengers in the Republican presidential primaries of 2020, Trump became the party's presumptive nominee in March, having by then collected the minimum number of delegates necessary to win the nomination. He was formally nominated at the Republican National Convention in late August. In an unusual decision, the Republican National Committee declined to write a platform for the 2020 election, instead adopting the same platform it had issued in 2016 (despite its ironically dated criticisms of the "current" president) with an accompanying resolution declaring that "the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President's America-first agenda." Shortly before the start of the Republican convention, the Trump campaign released a list of Trump's "core priorities" for a second term, including "Create 10 Million New Jobs in 10 Months," "Develop a [COVID-19] Vaccine by The End of 2020," "Return to Normal in 2021," "Protect Social Security and Medicare," "Bring Violent Extremist Groups Like ANTIFA to Justice," and "Require New Immigrants to Be Able to Support Themselves Financially." Throughout his campaign Trump also kept up a steady stream of insults and name-calling aimed at Biden, who became the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee in April and was formally nominated at his party's national convention in mid-August. Biden promised that as president he would, among other things, bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control, reverse Trump's policies on immigration and the environment, repair the country's frayed relations with foreign allies, repeal the 2017 corporate tax cut, strengthen voting rights, and expand access to health insurance under Obamacare.

The COVID-19 pandemic was understandably a dominant issue in the election. Biden accused Trump of ignoring the early spread of the illness in the United States, mismanaging the nation's pandemic response, and resisting appropriate input and leadership from government scientific and health experts. Trump, for his part, initially accused Democrats of perpetrating a "hoax" by exaggerating the extent of infection and the danger of the illness. Through the remainder of his campaign, he continued to allege that Biden and other Democrats were overstating the severity of the health crisis for political advantage. A parallel issue was the adequacy of pandemic-related economic relief for individuals, businesses, and state and local governments.

The pandemic also prompted governors and election officials in several states to postpone primary elections or to implement changes in election procedures to enable voters to cast their ballots safely. Such changes included extending voter registration deadlines and early voting periods; loosening or eliminating requirements for obtaining or casting mail-in ballots, which millions of voters were expected to use as an alternative to in-person voting; authorizing the use of drop boxes for returning mail-in ballots; and extending postelection deadlines for receipt of mail-in ballots, whose delivery was expected to be slowed by postal service delays and overwhelming demand. A smaller but still significant number of states declined to change their election procedures or did so in ways that arguably made voting more difficult or less safe than in other states. In October 2020, for example, the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, issued a directive that limited mail-in ballot drop boxes to one per county.

Pandemic-related changes to state election procedures were intensively litigated. Some were adopted in response to orders issued by federal or state courts, whose rulings were then upheld or struck down on appeal; others were initiated by state authorities and then challenged in the courts. In general, challenges to such changes were lodged by Republican election and government officials, state Republican parties and the Republican National Committee, and the Trump campaign, usually on the grounds that the changes usurped the constitutional authority of state legislatures to establish electoral laws and procedures or that they invited voter fraud (none of the suits, however, presented any evidence of significant fraud). Democrats generally defended the changes as both constitutional and necessary to ensure the opportunity to vote amid an extraordinary public health emergency; they also alleged that Republican opposition to the changes amounted to a form of voter suppression that could unfairly turn the election in Trump's favor in swing states. In all, more than 300 election-related lawsuits were filed by both Democrats and Republicans prior to election day. The vast majority of Republican challenges were eventually dismissed.

Underlying the strategies of both parties was the accurate perception that Democratic voters were more likely to use mail-in ballots than Republican voters. Trump's oft-repeated but baseless claim that mail-in voting was rife with fraud and abuse only magnified Democratic concerns about alleged Republican voter suppression. So too did the appointment in May 2020 of a new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a major Trump donor, who immediately implemented service cuts and other operational changes in the U.S. Postal Service that slowed mail delivery throughout the country.

Trump's attacks on mail-in voting and on the postal service itself were one element of a broader accusation that he had emphasized during the 2016 presidential campaign and continued in the 2020 campaign and beyond: that the November election would be "rigged" by Democrats, resulting in "the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history," as he stated in a July 2020 tweet. In dozens of other tweets and at numerous campaign rallies, interviews, and press encounters, Trump claimed that thousands of mail-in ballots would be stolen or forged by foreign countries and that Democratic election officials would neglect to send mail-in ballots to Republicans and would commit election fraud by intentionally miscounting mail-in ballots. In the summer and fall of 2020 Trump notably refused to commit himself to accepting a Biden victory in November, which seemed likely, given Biden's consistent and sizable lead over Trump in nationwide opinion polls. Trump insisted, to the contrary, that the only way the Democrats could win would be through fraud, at one point suggesting in a tweet that the election should be delayed "until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" On other occasions he asserted that he should be permitted to extend his first term to make up for the distraction of the Russia investigation.

Trump's promotion of what amounted to a conspiracy theory of Democratic vote rigging prompted criticism and varying levels of concern among Democrats as well as Trump's conservative critics, including a small but vocal minority of Republican pundits and journalists. Some believed that Trump was merely setting the stage for a face-saving end to his presidency; others speculated that he would use lawsuits alleging election fraud in a dubious strategy to invalidate mail-in votes in swing states or to delay certification of state elections long enough to enable Republican-controlled state legislatures to take the extreme (albeit constitutional) step of replacing slates of pro-Biden electors chosen by voters with the legislatures' own slates of pro-Trump electors. Still others feared a scenario in which Trump would simply refuse to leave office, provoking a constitutional crisis in which (in a worst-case scenario) the U.S. military would become involved. An abiding and widely shared concern, particularly among historians and political scholars, was that Trump's apparent conspiracy mongering would undermine Americans' trust in democratic institutions. American democracy would be severely damaged, they argued, if a significant segment of either major party consistently refused to accept defeat in elections for president or any other high office.

The 2020 presidential election was unique and historic for the vast number of voters who cast ballots-whether in person or via mail, whether through early voting or on election day-and consequently for the vote totals of both the winning and losing candidates, Biden and Trump, respectively. Trump ultimately received more than 74 million votes and Biden more than 81 million-the latter figure being the highest for any presidential candidate in U.S. history. On the eve of the election, Trump continued to trail Biden in opinion polls in most swing states, though by thinner margins than in polls the previous summer. As voting proceeded, however, it became clear that the vote totals in some states would be far closer than polls had indicated. For a few days after election day (November 3), the outcome remained uncertain, in part because of the vast number of mail-in ballots (more than 65 million nationwide), which naturally took longer to count than in-person ballots. On November 7 the Associated Press and the major U.S. television networks called the election for Biden, who, in their analysis, had by then secured 270 electoral votes, the minimum number needed to win the presidency. The eventual vote of the Electoral College, which took place on December 14, was 306 for Biden and 232 for Trump.

Aftermath

At a press encounter in the early morning of November 4, Trump declared himself the winner of the election and denounced the counting of mail-in ballots as a "fraud on the American people." During the next several weeks he continually accused Biden and the Democrats of having stolen the presidential election and repeated far-fetched conspiracy theories about ballot stuffing, dead voters, and malicious voting-machine software that had deleted or changed millions of votes for Trump. In addition, he personally pressured election officials and other authorities in Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania to delay certifying or to overturn elections in their states and later attacked those among them who declined to cooperate.

In February 2023 a judge in Georgia ordered the partial release of the final report of a special-purpose grand jury convened in 2022 to investigate possible criminal interference in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia by Trump and his allies. In the released portions of the report, the grand jury concluded that "no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election." The grand jury also reported its belief that "perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it."

Although nearly all preelection Republican lawsuits had been dismissed, Trump and his allies mounted scores of new challenges on similar grounds. As those efforts also failed, the Trump campaign conceived a more ambitious legal strategy. In late November a team of Trump-supporting lawyers drafted a complaint designed to be submitted directly to the Supreme Court on the basis of its original jurisdiction in cases involving disputes between the states. Eventually filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in early December, the complaint alleged that pandemic-related changes to electoral procedures in four swing states that had voted for Biden-Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin-were illegal and unconstitutional and had so increased the potential for voter fraud that Biden's victories in those states must be overturned. On December 11 the Court tersely dismissed the suit for lack of standing.

Trump's legal efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, but his postelection narrative of election fraud and conspiracy, thematically continuous with the false claims of vote rigging that he had been making for months, was accepted by his base of dedicated supporters. Even the less ardent among Trump voters were sympathetic to the notion that Biden had somehow cheated to win the presidential election. According to an opinion poll taken in mid-November, more than 50 percent of all Republicans believed that Trump had "rightfully" won the election; another poll, in December, found that 77 percent of Republicans believed that there had been widespread election fraud.

As vote counting continued, various groups of radicalized Trump supporters quickly coalesced around the idea that forceful protests and even violent direct action were necessary and justified to stop the counting of fraudulent ballots and prevent Biden from taking office. A short-lived Facebook group calling itself "Stop the Steal" was created on November 4 and grew to some 320,000 members in less than 24 hours before the social media company shut it down because of posts containing disinformation and calls for violence. Stop the Steal enthusiasts soon migrated to other (renamed) Facebook groups and other social media venues, where they repeated and elaborated conspiracy theories about the election and organized on-the-ground demonstrations in several cities, including at polling stations where supposedly fraudulent vote counting was underway.

After the electors from each state cast their votes for president and vice president on December 14, giving Biden an Electoral College victory of 306 to 232, Trump and his allies, as well as leaders of Stop the Steal and other pro-Trump groups across the country, turned their attention to the last, formal step in the election of a U.S. president, the ceremonial opening and counting of the electoral votes of each state in a joint session of Congress presided over by the vice president, Mike Pence, on January 6. Some Trump allies reportedly advised the president-incorrectly-that the vice president's role in the ceremony entailed that Pence would have the constitutional authority to determine which slate of electors, Democratic or Republican, to accept from any given state. A federal lawsuit seeking a judgment to that effect, filed in late December by Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert, was dismissed for lack of standing.

Meanwhile, in several tweets beginning in mid-December, Trump encouraged his supporters to attend a rally-initially planned by a pro-Trump group, Women for America First-in Washington, D.C., on January 6 to protest Congress's confirmation of Biden's victory. In one of the tweets, Trump stated, "Be there, will be wild!" At the rally, held at a public park near the White House, a crowd of thousands, including members of white supremacist and right-wing militia groups, listened to speeches by Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump's sons Donald, Jr., and Eric, among others. In his own address, Trump repeated well-worn falsehoods and conspiracy theories about election fraud, called on Pence to block Congress's confirmation of the Electoral College vote-declaring that if Pence failed to act, the crowd would not let the confirmation take place ("We're just not going to let that happen")-encouraged the crowd to "walk down Pennsylvania Avenue" to the Capitol building, and urged his audience to "fight like hell" or "you're not going to have a country anymore." Although Trump did not explicitly direct those in attendance to commit illegal acts, his generally incendiary language suggested to at least some of his supporters that they would be justified in violently attacking Congress to prevent Biden's victory.

Even before Trump finished his address, a violent mob began storming the perimeter of the Capitol building, where the House and Senate were then debating a doomed challenge by Republican lawmakers to the slate of electors from Arizona, which had voted for Biden. The mob grew larger as more people arrived from the rally at which Trump had spoken. Capitol police were quickly overwhelmed, and for the next several hours rioters vandalized and looted various parts of the complex, including the Senate chamber and the offices of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others. One rioter was shot and killed by police, and four others, including a Capitol police officer, later died of injuries sustained in the assault. After the complex was cleared that evening, Congress resumed the confirmation process, and Biden was certified as the winner of the presidential election of 2020 in the early morning hours of January 7. On January 8 Trump was permanently banned from Twitter for having posted tweets before, during, and after the assault that the company deemed to be in violation of its policy against glorification of violence. (Trump's Twitter account was later reinstated by the South African-born American billionaire Elon Musk, who purchased the company in 2022.)

Less than one week later the House of Representatives, by a vote of 232 to 197, adopted a single article of impeachment against Trump for "incitement of insurrection," making him the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. At his Senate trial in February, which began three weeks after he left office on January 20, there was some debate about whether the Senate could try a president who was no longer in office. Trump was ultimately acquitted after only 57 senators, 10 short of the required two-thirds majority, voted to find him guilty.

Postpresidential activities

Two days after the insurrection of January 6, which had failed to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump announced that he would not attend Biden's inauguration. He thereby defied a tradition nearly as old as the United States, one understood to symbolize the peaceful transfer of power and thus the strength and continuity of American democracy. (Trump was the first U.S. president to decline to attend his successor's inauguration since 1869, when Pres. Andrew Johnson refused to witness the swearing in of Ulysses S. Grant.) Trump and first lady Melania Trump left the White House on the morning of January 20, a few hours before Biden's inauguration ceremony, and returned to their residence at Mar-a-Lago.

Unlike most former presidents in the months following their departure from office, Trump did not attempt to keep a low public profile in deference to his successor. Indeed, beginning with an address at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February 2021, Trump delivered several public speeches in which he sharply criticized the new Biden administration, denounced Republican officeholders who had criticized or opposed him (including the 10 Republican House members who had voted to impeach him for inciting the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack), repeated his well-worn narrative of voter fraud in the 2020 election, and hinted that he intended to run for president again in 2024.

Despite his real-life electoral defeat and the ignominious circumstances of his departure from office, Trump retained a sizable base of dedicated supporters, which he continued to cultivate at his own campaign-style rallies and other events. Trump took advantage of his popularity among Republican voters to become an effective kingmaker within the party, a role that he exercised by granting or withholding endorsements of individual Republican candidates for federal, state, and even local offices, many of whom traveled to Mar-a-Lago to seek his approval. (Trump's endorsed candidates tended to fare well in the primary elections of 2022 but were only partially successful overall in the November midterm elections.) Trump also amassed huge sums of money from millions of individual donors through his political action committees (PACs) Save America and Make America Great Again Inc. and other organizations.

2024 presidential campaign

Soon after the midterm elections of 2022, Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He initially faced several challengers within his party; by June 2023 nearly a dozen Republicans other than Trump had begun their own presidential campaigns. They included Nikki Haley, who had served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump (2017-18) and as governor of South Carolina (2011-17); Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida (2019- ); former U.S. vice president (2017-21) Mike Pence; Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota (2016-); and former New Jersey governor (2010-18) and 2016 Republican presidential primary contender Chris Christie. Mindful of Trump's continued popularity among Republican voters, most of his primary challengers avoided criticizing him directly or forcefully. They instead presented themselves as reliable conservatives who did not face any of the serious legal challenges that threatened to eliminate support for Trump among independent voters. As Trump's indictments were handed down, however, his popularity among Republicans did not decline significantly, as his challengers had expected. Indeed, some polls showed that his support had increased.

During the remainder of 2023, Trump continued to dominate his rivals in polls of Republican voters, despite his refusal to participate in presidential primary debates sponsored by the Republican National Committee and the steady progress of the legal cases against him. A significant proportion of Republican voters continued to accept Trump's oft-repeated (but unsupported) claims that the criminal and civil charges against him were false and politically motivated, and many reacted positively to Trump's suggestions that he would seek retribution for the prosecutions if elected president. By the end of the year, most other Republican presidential candidates, including Pence, Burgum, and Christie, had abandoned their campaigns. After Trump easily won the Republican Iowa caucuses in January 2024, DeSantis, who had long been the second most-popular Republican presidential candidate after Trump, also dropped out of the race. Haley, the sole remaining Trump challenger, continued her campaign through January and February, despite suffering losses to Trump in subsequent Republican primaries and caucuses in New Hampshire, Nevada, the Virgin Islands, Michigan, and her home state of South Carolina. After Trump defeated her in 14 of the 16 Republican presidential primaries held on Super Tuesday (March 5, 2024), Haley finally suspended her campaign, though she declined to endorse Trump.

On September 15, 2024, the FBI announced that it was investigating an apparent attempted assassination of Trump earlier that day while he was golfing with a friend at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, near Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. Trump was not injured, and the suspect, the presumed owner of a semiautomatic rifle abandoned at the golf course, was soon apprehended.
Read about assassination and attempts involving U.S. presidents and presidential candidates.

Criminal investigations and civil suits

Meanwhile, the district attorney of Fulton county, Georgia, pursued a parallel criminal investigation into efforts by Trump and his associates to pressure Georgia government officials into reversing or invalidating Biden's electoral victory in the state. Another state criminal investigation, focusing on the falsification of business records related to the hush-money payment to Daniels, was revived by the district attorney of Manhattan in November 2022 after the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, in a plea bargain with prosecutors, agreed to testify against the firm in a trial on charges of tax fraud and other crimes. The Trump Organization was convicted on all counts in December.

In September 2022 the attorney general of New York state filed a $250 million civil suit accusing Trump, three of Trump's children, and the Trump Organization of business fraud in connection with misrepresentations of properties and other assets designed to secure favorable loan and insurance rates and to minimize tax liabilities. Trump also faced a civil suit accusing him of sexual abuse and defamation brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who alleged that Trump had raped her in a department-store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

In February 2024, after being found liable in the civil business-fraud case, Trump was ordered to pay more than $350 million in penalties and interest and barred from serving as an officer or director of any company in New York state, including the Trump Organization, for three years. He was granted a 30-day grace period for either paying the penalties and accumulated interest himself or submitting a bond that would guarantee full payment should he lose his appeal. As the grace period came to a close in late March, a New York appeals court panel reduced to $175 million the amount of the bond that Trump would need to secure. Trump submitted the bond in April.

In May 2023 Trump was found liable in the civil sexual-abuse and defamation case and was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million. Despite that ruling, Trump continued to publicly insult and disparage Carroll, who then filed a second defamation suit. In January 2024 Trump was again found liable and was ordered to pay Carroll more than $83 million.

Criminal indictments

In March 2023 Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal the Trump Organization's reimbursement of Cohen for the latter's payment of hush money to Daniels. Under New York state law, the acts of falsification amounted to felonies rather than misdemeanors because they were intended to commit or conceal other crimes, including violating federal campaign contribution limits, falsifying additional business records used to effectuate the hush money payment, influencing the 2016 presidential election through illegal means, and violating state tax law. The indictment marked the first time in U.S. history that a former president was charged with a crime. In June 2023 Trump was indicted by a grand jury in Miami on federal criminal charges related to his removal of classified documents from the White House upon leaving office. The indictment marked the first time in U.S. history that a former president was charged with a federal crime. In August 2023 Trump was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, D.C., on federal criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The indictment charged him with obstruction of an official proceeding and three counts of conspiracy: to obstruct an official proceeding, to defraud the United States, and to impede the free exercise of the right to vote and to have one's vote counted. Later that month, Trump and 18 of his associates were indicted by a grand jury in Fulton county, Georgia, on criminal charges related to Trump's efforts to reverse Biden's electoral victory in that state.

The ensuing trials in three of Trump's criminal cases-the federal and state cases concerning his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the criminal business-fraud case-were originally scheduled to begin in March and May 2024. (On May 7, the judge in the federal case concerning Trump's removal of classified documents from the White House indefinitely postponed the start of the trial, which had been scheduled for May 20.) In each instance, however, Trump's legal team filed numerous motions or appeals arguing for dismissal of the charges or requesting court actions or judgments whose execution would effectively delay the start of the trial. In January 2024 the federal case concerning Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, whose trial date had been scheduled for March 4, was indefinitely postponed after Trump appealed the district court's ruling rejecting his contention that he should be immune from prosecution for actions he committed while serving as president. In February a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed with the district court that Trump did not possess absolute, or permanent, immunity and thus could be prosecuted as a private citizen for his efforts as president to overturn the 2020 election. Trump then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put the panel's ruling on hold while he filed a petition for review by the full appeals court. The Supreme Court instead chose to hear the case itself, scheduling oral arguments for the end of April 2024.

In July the Court issued a general decision ( Trump v. United States) in which it ruled that former presidents are entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions that involve the exercise of their "core constitutional powers" and to "presumptive immunity" for all other official acts. The Court did not provide a specific definition of an official presidential act but instead offered a set of general principles and observations for use by the district court, to which it remanded the case to determine which of the acts for which Trump was being prosecuted qualified as official. ( See Major Supreme Court Cases from the 2023-24 Term.) The Court did conclude, however, that Trump should be "absolutely immune from prosecution" for allegedly pressuring the Justice Department to support his claims of voter fraud, because any president's interaction with members of the Justice Department would constitute an official act. The remanding of the case to the district court further delayed Trump's trial, virtually ensuring that it would extend beyond the presidential election in November 2024.

In August 2024 special counsel Smith filed a superseding indictment of Trump with the district court on charges related to Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In keeping with the Supreme Court's ruling, the new indictment dropped specific counts relating Trump's pressuring of the Justice Department but preserved the original indictment's general charges of obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, to defraud the United States, and to impede the free exercise of the right to vote and to have one's vote counted. In October 2024, the district-court judge in the case, Tanya Sue Chutkan, publicly released redacted portions of the superseding indictment, which provided additional details in support of Smith's contention that Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election did not constitute protected official acts.

In April 2024, the Supreme Court also heard oral arguments in a case challenging the conviction of a participant in the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack under a federal law-18 U.S. Code §1512(c)(2)-that prohibits the obstruction of an official proceeding. In Fischer v. United States, the plaintiff in the case argued that the law was intended to apply only to evidence tampering and thus could not be violated by other acts, such as physically assaulting police officers, which the plaintiff did during the attack. In June 2024 the Court decided in the plaintiff's favor, holding that, to obtain a conviction, the government would have needed to establish that "the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or...other things used in the proceeding, or attempted to do so." The Court's ruling did not make the plaintiff's conviction impossible but did require that the government prove that the plaintiff's physical assaults negatively affected the "availability or integrity" of the relevant records, documents, and so on. Fischer v. United States thus made it likely that the charges and convictions under the law of more than 300 participants in the January 6 attack would have to be dropped or reversed. Notably, two of the four federal charges related to Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election-obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding-were also potentially invalidated.

(In yet another case concerning Trump's role in the January 6 attack, Trump v. Anderson, the Supreme Court in March 2024 overturned a ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court that had removed Trump from the state's Republican primary ballot on the grounds that Trump had disqualified himself under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment [1868], which prohibits any person from "hold[ing] any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state" if that person has "previously taken an oath...to support the Constitution of the United States" and subsequently "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof." See Major Supreme Court Cases from the 2023-24 Term; United States presidential election of 2024.)

In March 2024 the criminal business-records case, whose trial date had been scheduled for March 25, was postponed to April 15 following a request by the Manhattan district attorney's office to allow Trump's legal team to review a set of records from an earlier federal investigation focusing on the role of Cohen in the hush-money payment to Daniels. The judge in the case rejected Trump's motion for dismissal, disputing his claim that prosecutors had improperly withheld federal records from Trump's attorneys. As the starting date of the trial drew closer, Trump performed various legal maneuvers aimed at dismissing the case or significantly delaying the trial, including filing a civil suit against the judge for issuing and then expanding a gag order preventing Trump from verbally attacking witnesses, jurors, and the families of the judge and the Manhattan district attorney, among others. None of Trump's tactics were successful, and the trial began as scheduled. On May 30, 2024, the jury in the trial found Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records. Trump thus became the first former president to be convicted of a crime.

Following the Supreme Court's ruling in Trump v. United States, Trump's attorneys in the criminal business-fraud case requested that his sentencing be delayed to allow the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, to consider overturning Trump's conviction on the basis of the Court's finding that presidents are presumptively immune from prosecution for acts determined to be official. Merchan agreed to postpone the sentencing until September 18. Early that month, however, following another request from Trump's attorneys, Merchan agreed to delay the sentencing again, this time to November 18, nearly two weeks after the scheduled date of the 2024 presidential election.

In July 2024 the judge in the classified documents case, Aileen Cannon, dismissed Trump's indictment on the basis of her finding that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointment of Jack Smith, the special counsel responsible for Trump's indictment, was illegitimate under the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution. The appointments clause (Article II, Section 2) states in part that the president

shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States...but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

While accepting for the sake of argument that a special counsel qualifies an "inferior officer" under the Constitution, Cannon contended that Smith, who had been serving as an officer of the International Criminal Court, was not properly appointed, because no existing federal statute authorizes U.S. attorneys general to appoint as a special counsel "an attorney from outside the United States government."

Style and rhetoric

Trump's personal style is unusual, if not unique, among national political figures in modern U.S. history. In part reflecting his experiences as a prominent figure in the New York real estate industry, Trump is fiercely competitive as well as intensely concerned with demonstrating his success and accomplishments to others. Indeed, from the very beginning of his career, he has cultivated and cherished his reputation as a shrewd businessman, an image that often aided him in his real estate dealings and which he eventually exploited as a brand beginning in the 1990s. That concern, however, has been accompanied by an unusual sensitivity to criticism and a tendency to retaliate harshly against those who, in his view, betrayed him or treated him unfairly. His longtime mentor, friend, and legal adviser Roy Cohn (who had assisted Joseph McCarthy's investigations of alleged communist subversion in the U.S. government in the 1950s) encouraged him in the latter regard, counseling him on numerous occasions never to apologize (because it is a sign of weakness) and always to hit back harder than you are hit, as Trump put the lesson in The Art of the Deal. As he declared in a tweet in 2012, "When someone attacks me, I always attack back...except 100× more. This has nothing to do with a tirade but rather, a way of life!"

In keeping with his bellicose and confrontational style, Trump in his business career characteristically used blunt language as a weapon against his rivals and adversaries, pointedly insulting or belittling them in the press in retaliation for their real or perceived slights. Perhaps surprisingly, Trump did not significantly alter his style or temper his rhetoric upon his entry into politics, notwithstanding the conventional view that success in politics is necessarily a matter of persuasion and compromise rather than "hitting back harder." The advent of Twitter in 2006 eventually gave Trump (who joined the service in 2009) a larger platform for his unfiltered political comments, once he began regularly tweeting about politics in about 2011. During the presidential primaries and in the 2015-16 election campaign, Trump frequently used his Twitter account, which had more than 40 million followers, to angrily attack individual Democrats, his Republican rivals and critics, members of the news media, and others in comments that were widely perceived as aggressive, boastful, petty, vindictive, juvenile, and vulgar. Trump similarly declined to filter himself in speeches, once even mocking the physical disability of a reporter he disliked.

Another unique feature of Trump's rhetoric is the extremely large number of his public statements that have been shown to be false or misleading by the press or by independent fact-checking organizations (The Washington Post counted more than 30,500 such claims during Trump's presidency). Although Trump's detractors, including some in the Republican Party, admonished him for what they considered his undignified behavior, their criticism only provoked him to make fresh attacks. Despite some speculation after his election that the weight of the presidential office and his eventual need for tangible political and diplomatic successes would lead him to adopt a more conventional demeanor, his confrontational style and rhetoric continued unchanged during his presidency, and, indeed, the targets of his abuse only expanded. Trump's frequent expressions of contempt for Democrats, along with his general unwillingness to compromise with Democratic leaders in Congress, considerably worsened partisan divisions in American politics, according to many analysts. In any event, Trump certainly distinguished himself from previous U.S. presidents by his heavy use of social media. He was the first president to rely on Twitter as a primary means of communication with his political supporters and the press, using it even as a venue for semiofficial presidential statements.

Trump's rhetoric has also raised serious concerns among members of both parties about its potential damage to Americans' faith in democratic institutions, particularly freedom of the press and the rule of law. From early in his presidential campaign, Trump has dismissed unfavorable press reports about him as "fake news," implying that the news organizations in question knowingly published falsehoods. After his election, Trump frequently condemned most major news organizations as "the enemy of the American people," a phrase reminiscent of totalitarian societies. The effect of his accusations was to engender distrust and hostility among his supporters toward major media outlets other than Fox News, which generally supported Trump in its reporting and which he regularly watched. Many political scientists and media scholars also pointed to more general problems, claiming that Trump's efforts to portray the press as untrustworthy had created broad confusion and uncertainty among the electorate about what was true-or even a passive and resigned attitude about the possibility of ever knowing what was true. They also worried that Trump's rhetoric would so diminish public confidence in the press that it would cease to effectively serve as a check on governmental power, the role that the founders of the country had envisioned for it. Analogous concerns were raised about Trump's treatment of his perceived enemies in the FBI, the Justice Department, and the judiciary. His rhetoric, critics feared, would encourage some people to view those traditionally apolitical and independent institutions as untrustworthy and incapable of carrying out their responsibilities objectively and impartially.

Another controversial feature of Trump's rhetoric, one that drew especially heavy criticism from civil rights organizations, was his regular appeals to racist stereotypes, his frequent indulgence in racist slurs aimed at non-European minority and immigrant groups, and his refusal to consistently condemn violence aimed at minorities, including several acts of police brutality against African Americans that prompted large protests in cities across the United States in the summer of 2020 ( see Black Lives Matter). Indeed, Trump repeatedly mischaracterized the mostly peaceful demonstrations against police brutality and for racial justice as mob violence by anarchist thugs. Trump's detractors condemned him for such behavior and warned that he was stirring up racial animosities among his supporters and other Americans and encouraging those who already harbored such prejudices to express them more freely in public or even to act on them violently. In the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign, in the period shortly after Trump's election, and during the first three years of Trump's presidency, there were notable increases in hate crimes throughout the country-ranging from vandalism and assaults to bomb threats and mass shootings-particularly against Jews, Muslims, African Americans, Latinos, and LGBTQ persons, as indicated in various studies, including the FBI's annual hate crime report. Although the validity and implications of such statistics were disputed, many researchers and journalists agreed that Trump's rhetoric had changed the country's political culture by making the public expression of hate-based and extremist attitudes more acceptable. Trump himself, meanwhile, denied that his speeches had had any such effect, proclaiming on more than one occasion that he was "the least racist person" in the world.

Brian Duignan

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Donald Trump - Foreign relations | Britannica

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Donald Trump - Foreign relations: A major theme of Trump's presidential campaign was his view that the United States had long been treated unfairly or taken advantage of by other countries, including by some traditional U.S. allies, and that under Obama's leadership the United States had ceased to be respected in world affairs.

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This article by Dayvon Love of Maryland Matters critiques the "woke" caricature of leftist political culture by right wing politicians. Love writes that some rightist politicians use "wokeness" as a straw man argument as a means of representing leftists as extreme. The example used in the article is that Maryland senator Michael Hough said “There is a mindset particularly in the far-left in the General Assembly that the criminal is the victim and no matter how heinous the crime is, somehow society has failed the individual.”

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The writer is director of public policy for Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle in Baltimore, a grass-roots think tank that advances the policy interests of Black people.
Political tides have shifted drastically over the past 10 years in Maryland politics. One of the major shifts has been the increased viability of progressive and more left-leaning policies. This shift is part of a national trend and is often tied to this notion of "wokeness." Woke has become a caricature of aspects of leftist (mostly social media) discourse used to smear those of us who are advocating more radical politics. What has emerged is what I am calling the woke straw man argument.

As social justice issues have become more mainstream, the worst and least substantive versions of it have become most visible. People and organizations genuflect and virtue signal toward social and racial justice issues, usually without regard for movement history or the traditions that produced them. Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, in his piece "Building Resilient Organizations," describes this tendency in social justice spaces. He says:
"Certain phases and words carry cultural currency and cachet. We often find words like 'revolutionary' employed non-ironically in the service of bourgeois individualistic demands. Decontextualized or uncritical use of intellectual material, like the Tema Okun essay on white supremacy culture, has at times served to challenge accountability around metrics and timeliness or the use of written language. Yet metrics and timeliness - and the ability to communicate in writing - are not in and of themselves examples of white supremacy... "The profligate and unexamined use of social media has amplified this particular trend. These platforms - owned and controlled by mega corporations - reward us for our ability to articulate or reshare the sharpest, pithiest, pettiest, most polemic, or most engaging 'content.' There is no premium on nuance, accuracy, and context. There is little room for low-ego information sharing or curious and grounded political education. These platforms are ideal for, and give immediate reward to, uninformed cherry-picking, self-aggrandizement, competition, and conflict."
Those of us who are advocating more revolutionary political perspectives grow frustrated with those characterized accurately by Maurice Mitchell, who provide fodder for conservatives and moderates to demonize those of us engaged in substantive challenges to the status quo.

The major political difference between moderates (and conservatives) and folks like myself who are in pursuit of more radical politics is that I am clear that American civil society is structured on a system of white supremacy. This is a sociological fact. Having individual Black people in positions of political leadership does not negate all the indexes of quality of life that indicate that Black people, as a people, are at or near the bottom of every category (poverty, exposure to the criminal justice system, homelessness, unemployment, wealth, etc).

This inequality is not a series of mistakes in an otherwise just system. As Derrick Bell argued, racism is a central and permanent feature of American society. This is the fundamental debate between moderates and radicals like myself. This is a worthy debate to have, but moderates tend not to have the intellectual goods to be effective when the conversation is on these terms. It's easier to use the kinds of advocates described by Maurice Mitchell and use their political behavior to justify ignoring the substantive arguments made by those of us who have radical politics. This is the woke straw man argument.

In Maryland, Republican former state senator Michael Hough and Democratic former state senator Bobby Zirkin have made statements condemning the "far left." For instance, in an interview on WFMD on Feb. 18, 2022, Senator Hough said:

"There is a mindset particularly in the far-left in the General Assembly that the criminal is the victim and no matter how heinous the crime is, somehow society has failed the individual."

Additionally, Senator Zirkin once characterized me and other advocates who were pushing back against his policies of mandatory minimums and sentence enhancements as the "criminal lobby." These mischaracterizations are used to fuel the narrative of the left having unsound arguments that contribute to political polarization. Again, this is the woke straw man argument.

Those of us advocating criminal justice reform and police accountability understand the importance of addressing crime and violence in our community. We are clear that sentence enhancements and mandatory minimums are not effective tools to do this. Additionally, we are advocating the more effective crime fighting courses of action, including more resources for community based anti-violence interventions and police transparency efforts that would help to build trust between community members and police needed to go after the drivers of violence in our community. There is nowhere on the record where either of them actually engage these arguments; in fact the only time Zirkin has been confronted publicly by me, his position essentially fell apart.

There are others besides Zirkin and Hough who will claim that the Maryland General Assembly has gone too far left. And they will use the woke straw man argument to avoid having to address the most substantive version of the arguments made by those of us who advocate radical politics that are actually engaged in the policy making arena.

The reality is that Maryland is a deeply unjust place and will require radical political activity in order to address the conditions of our communities. We need policies that are intentional about investing in collective Black wealth creation (ie. recreational cannabis regulation that incentives this), major investments in community-accountable, Black- and Brown-led anti-violence inventions that protect Black and Brown people from the abuses of law enforcement and the immigration system, and many other policies that would constitute moving toward racial justice.

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Dayvon Love: Let's kill the woke straw man argument - Maryland Matters

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Woke has become a caricature of aspects of leftist (mostly social media) discourse used to smear those of us who are advocating more radical politics.

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Advertising’s toxic effect on eating and body image

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Advertising’s toxic effect on eating and body image

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Beautiful people is a propaganda technique that uses celebrities and attractive people to sell a product. I specifically looked at what the idea of promoting an "unrealistic picture" of a person does to normal people's self-image and its negative impacts. Jean Kilbourne says, "The American ideal of beauty has become so pervasive that 50% of three- to six-year-old girls worry about their weight." This is because on average people view 3,000 ads throughout their day. Many of them have celebrities or models who have unachievable bodies. She believes that there needs to be more oversight when it comes to this section

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March 18, 2015 - People often claim to ignore advertisements, but the messages are getting through on a subconscious level, pioneering author and ad critic Jean Kilbourne told an audience at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health on March 3, 2015. Kilbourne, best known for her groundbreaking documentary on images of women in the media, Killing Us Softly, went on to deconstruct the subconscious messages in food and body image-related advertisements and to describe how they create a "toxic cultural environment" that harms our relationship with what we eat.

The event was sponsored by the STRIPED program (Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders), which is based at Harvard Chan and Boston Children's Hospital, and co-sponsored by the School's Health Communication Concentration and Department of Nutrition. Kilbourne praised the work of STRIPED in her talk, calling it "a terrific program that is making a difference."

The average American encounters 3,000 advertisements every day, and spends a total of two years watching TV commercials in their lifetime, Kilbourne said. At the center of many of these ads is an image of idealized female beauty. Models are tall, slim, and light skinned, and digitally altered to ever-more unrealistic proportions.

"Women and girls compare themselves to these images every day," Kilbourne said. "And failure to live up to them is inevitable because they are based on a flawlessness that doesn't exist." The American ideal of beauty has become so pervasive that 50% of three- to six-year-old girls worry about their weight. And on the island of Fiji, the arrival of television heralded a boom in dieting among women and girls who before then hadn't realized that there was something wrong with them.

While advertising creates a disconnection between women - and men, to a lesser extent-and their bodies, it also offers food as a comforter and a proxy for human relationships, Kilbourne said. She showed images of ads offering chocolate as a substitute for a lover, and cookies presented as a way to get love from your children.

Alongside the chocolate ads are others that shame women for having an appetite for food, such as one that showed a pair of cinnamon buns hanging off a slim model's hips. These images normalize disordered behaviors around food such as bingeing and guilt. "The bulimic is the ideal consumer," said Kilbourne.

Kilbourne called for a transformation in the way we think about food. "The solution to obesity isn't to make girls hate themselves," she said. Instead of focusing on weight or BMI, they should be helped to turn their focus on being healthy and having energy. "If we learn to eat healthy, natural, preferably local food with pleasure, and if we exercise with pleasure, our bodies will get to the weight and shape and size that they were genetically meant to be."

But real change won't happen child by child, Kilbourne said. Public health practitioners need to focus prevention efforts on the environmental level. She called for warning labels and taxes on diet products, greater transparency in the use of Photoshop in advertising and fashion spreads, and media literacy education in schools, among other measures.
Photo: Emily Cuccarese

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Advertising's toxic effect on eating and body image

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March 18, 2015 - People often claim to ignore advertisements, but the messages are getting through on a subconscious level, pioneering author and ad critic Jean Kilbourne told an audience at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health on March 3, 2015.

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Stereotyping During Debate Leads to Negative Issues

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Stereotyping During Debate Leads to Negative Issues

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Stereotyping is when someone makes a generalized assumption about a group of people, which is usually made in a negative way. An example of this is explained from an NPR article and CNN, around a month ago, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were on the stage for their presidential debate. During the debate, former president Donald Trump made a claim once they reached the topics of immigrants, "They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats.." Obviously this was meant with absurdity, but because of these words and statements Trump decided to spread on national television there were negative consequences, according to CNN, "Threats in Springfield, Ohio force colleges and schools to close." Two different colleges and elementary schools later in the week were forced to close due to threats over the claims of "..pets eaten by Haitian migrants." With all of this new found dramatization, stereotypes have been reenforced with these claims it has also created just another thing to the list for immigrations to worry about.

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The stereotype of immigrants eating dogs and cats is storied — and vitriolic as ever

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Immigration was always going to be part of Tuesday night’s presidential debate. More surprising was that the conversation veered into bizarre falsehoods about migrants eating pet dogs and cats.

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Operation Overload: Russia's plan to distract Americans

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Operation Overload: Russia's plan to distract Americans

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Information overload and the use of false information go hand in hand when disseminating too much information. According to cyber security company Recorded Future, Russia has been behind the posts of many fake news cites, "fact checkers", and AI generated audio files. With this being produced in the masses, social media becomes flooded with so much information that it's hard to find truth in a sea of lies. They even impersonate heavily credible/trusted media companies which sway American voters towards ideals that most benefit Russia. For example, their rhetoric gives horrible depictions of Ukrainians in order to convince Americans to revoke their support. This even makes people more polarized than ever, as radical ideas can be seen more frequently.

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Operation Overload Impersonates Media to Influence 2024 US Election

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Discover how Operation Overload, a Russia-aligned campaign, uses fake news and AI-generated audio to manipulate the 2024 US election. Learn the tactics and risks.

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Calvin Klein Overstepping The Use of "Beautiful People" In Their Advertising When Involving Minors

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Calvin Klein Overstepping The Use of "Beautiful People" In Their Advertising When Involving Minors

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Companies such as Calvin Klein will typically use the propaganda of “Beautiful People” to promote their products in a way that will stick with the consumer and make the product more desirable.

Although this tactic is widely used among many different companies with little backlash, Calvin Klein took it to an extreme when their 1980’s campaign first aired featuring the 15 year old Brooke Sheilds. The ad consisted of a provocative script, with lines like “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” They also had her doing sexual positions that were really just “soft porn”, and at the time she was too young to know what any of it meant. It wasn’t until she was older that she realized the true nature of the campaign. When asked about her thoughts on it she says, “Sex sells. Sex has been selling since the dawn of time and it still does."

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Brooke Shields thought she "failed" when Calvin Klein didn't keep her on after her controversial ads.

She later learned she was let go because people started calling the pants "Brooke Shields jeans."

She previously called the "uproar" over the commercials "ludicrous" on Stephen Colbert's show.

Brooke Shields opened up to comedian Marc Maron about her controversial and iconic 1980s Calvin Klein ad campaign in which the then-teenaged Shields stated that "nothing" came between her and her Calvins. The ads were banned from airing on the CBS Network.

At about the 51-minute mark of the April 3 episode of the " WTF with Marc Maron" podcast, Shields said that she thought she'd "failed" because her contract was meant to be for two years, but she wasn't picked up for the second year after the controversy over her ads.

"I didn't get renewed for the second year, and my feelings were really hurt. I thought I'd failed," she said.

Shields told Maron she later learned from Klein that he attributed her campaign with changing his career in a positive way and that he had to let her go because she was too good at selling the jeans. She said Klein told her people were going into stores and asking for the "Brooke Shields jeans," which defeated the purpose of the ads for his namesake brand.

Maron called the campaign, featuring Shields delivering monologues related to her life and how it related to the evolution of jeans, "an atomic bomb" that "changed the world."

But it sparked controversy because Shields was a young teenager saying lines that could be interpreted as sexually suggestive. Plus, the commercials, directed by prominent photographer Richard Avedon, featured shots that lingered on her thighs and her butt at times.

In Shields' Hulu documentary "Pretty Baby," which explored how Shields was sexualized at a young age without knowing it, Klein laughed about being a "bad boy" for casting the young teenager in provocative ads in archive interview footage.

But Shields, now 57, told Maron she doesn't regret doing the campaign at all. It helped her and her mother Teri Shields, who was also her manager, afford multiple properties and cars. She's also proud of the work, which allowed her to combine modeling and acting.

"The copy was beautiful," the "Endless Love" star said. "The hidden meaning in all of it was so smart to me." She added that the commercials were a "revelation" to her because she was able to be intelligent and sell a product at the same time.

"Did I clock that the camera was panning up my thigh? It was for jeans," she said to Maron, noting that she always knew she was selling a product. She said that in retrospect, she knows what people are talking about when they criticize the ads, but said that Klein knew he was "provocative" and never tried to be anything else.

In an earlier March 2023 interview with Stephen Colbert, the model also addressed why she thought the "uproar" about saying "nothing" comes between her and her "Calvins" in the ad was unnecessary.

"It was a phrase. It wasn't 'I'm not wearing underwear' or 'come' wasn't spelled differently, it was c-o-m-e, I was like, 'what's the problem?'" she joked, calling the backlash "ludicrous."

Shields' documentary "Pretty Baby" is streaming now on Hulu.

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Brooke Shields thought she 'failed' Calvin Klein when her contract wasn't renewed after her controversial jeans commercial in the 1980s

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Shields previously said she didn't get the controversy over the dialogue in her 1980 Calvin Klein ads: "It wasn't 'I'm not wearing underwear.'"

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This article talks about social media content overload, explaining what it is and how to manage it. Although it is useful and informative, it is a good example of information overload. It's ironic because as soon as you enter the site a plethora of information, like advertisements, links to other articles, etc., is thrown at you in an instant. As a first-time viewer of the site, I was overwhelmed at all the things I was seeing at once, all while trying to read the article. Not only that, but I have to manually exit out the Ad to be able to properly view the entire article, making me have to view the ad.

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Council Post: Social Media Content Overload: What It Is And How To Deal With It

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Information has become increasingly abundant with the emergence of social media platforms, which has led to a serious explosion of the same information repackaged and repurposed over and over again.

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fear-mongering is the act of intentionally inciting feelings of fear by using exaggerated rumors of impending danger. It is rooted deeply in human evolutionary anthropology, one example being the famous Daisy advertisement for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, which basically said that if you do not vote for Johnson, nuclear war is imminent. In the ad after the fake nuclear explosion, Johnson said, "We must either love each other, or we must die."

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How Propaganda from WWII Influenced more Racism and Stereotyping

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How Propaganda from WWII Influenced more Racism and Stereotyping

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WWII is when the majority of propaganda posters were created. Countries like the USA and Germany were the two countries that created the majority of propaganda poster. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the USA created many different propaganda posters aimed to dehumanize and instill fear in the minds of USA citizens. These posters created by the USA would exaggerate the Japanese people and show them as weak and not as strong as Americans. These poster created negative stereotypes against Japanese people and would end up leaving a negative impact on them.

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WWII Propaganda: The Influence of Racism

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Images created in times of war reveal the tensions and fears ignited by the conflicts between nations. Close analysis shows that the attached World War II propaganda poster is one such image. This 1942 poster, titled This is the Enemy, circulated in the United States following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Its purpose was to embody the entire Japanese nation as a ruthless and animalistic enemy that needed to be defeated.

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This LinkedIn Post focuses on the effect FUD and oppositioning has within political campaigning and commercial marketing. It talks about how some parties or people prioritize negative strategies of campaigning instead of constructive and how focusing on diminishing opponents and spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt often lessens public trust. Thus leading to decisions and opinions based more off of fear rather than the issues at hand.

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HOW TO USE OPPOSITIONING AND FUD TO BOLSTER CUSTOMER PREFERENCE

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On election day, I posted an article about an approach to political campaigning that is also employed in our world of commerce—the employment of oppositioning and FUD. Read more here: http://bdn-intl.

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I understand the logical fallacy or lie of 'Beautiful people' to be that of celebrities or conventionally attractive people using their fame and influence to help sell a product or service. This link includes a list of a few celebrity endorsements, including Rhianna with Louis Vuitton, Timothee Chalamet with Chanel, Dua Lipa with Versace, etc.. Often it is in fashion or beauty product industries that they often recruit these famous people who are so popular and well-known not only for their acting, music, or other potential careers, but their appearances. With this in mind, the placement of this celebrities drives home the idea that this product is used by such beautiful people, consumers will want this product to maybe become beautiful or disillusioned as such. Overall, this fallacy isn't as harmful as some of the others, but just requires that consumers be smart, and deliberate with how they digest and act on these advertisements.

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Celebrity endorsements have been an advertising tradition for centuries. Seriously. In fact, the first celebrities to ever promote products were Roman gladiators who would recommend oils and wines to their fans.

And over the past thousands of years, not much has changed. Brands still leverage the massive amount of love that celebrities have earned to build awareness, improve sentiment, and increase sales for their products or services.

However, just getting a random celebrity to be the face of your product won't automatically lead to sales. Instead, brands should focus on stars who genuinely love their products, which will lead to authentic endorsements. Check out these 12 brands that have done it right with the best celebrity endorsements in 2023.

The top celebrity ads we've seen so far this year

1. Jameson x Regina Hall

Earlier this year, Jameson Irish Whiskey successfully partnered with actress Regina Hall for St. Patrick's Day. The Girls Trip actress collaborated with the brand to encourage fans to take the day off and celebrate the holiday.

Through humorous videos directed by Lauren Palmigiano, Hall showcased how the custom Jameson "Desk Decoy" allowed her to navigate work while enjoying the festivities. Her genuine brand affinity for Jameson made the partnership a seamless fit and helped the brand reach a younger, more diverse audience.

Additionally, the brand's commitment to donating all Desk Decoy proceeds, and an additional $25,000 to the Restaurant Workers' Community Fund reinforced their socially responsible collaboration.

2. Louis Vuitton x Rhianna

Just because you're running a menswear campaign doesn't mean promoting it is a man's job. Just ask Pharrell Williams, who partnered with Rihanna for his first Louis Vuitton menswear campaign to promote the luxury brand's new leather bag collection.

As a global superstar and fashion influencer, her presence brought plenty of attention to the campaign. Being pregnant with her second child, Rihanna's inclusion challenged traditional maternity fashion norms, showcasing bold and inimitable looks. This choice aligned with Williams's creative vision beyond fashion, making a powerful statement about breaking barriers and embracing individuality.

3. Chanel x Timothée Chalamet

Chanel chose Timothée Chalamet as the face of its men's fragrance, Bleu, to align with the evolving concept of masculinity in the beauty industry. Chalamet's embrace of challenging gender norms in his roles and unique red-carpet style resonated with audiences craving a more fluid and inclusive era of style.

The partnership tapped into the growing trend of male celebrities and influencers embracing beauty and grooming, with makeup and gender-neutral brands gaining traction. The appointment of Chalamet may drive growth in the competitive men's fragrance market, which is expected to reach $19.6 billion by 2025. Chanel's early adoption of makeup for men further reflects the brand's commitment to inclusivity and self-expression.

4. Versace x Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa recently collaborated with Donatella Versace to co-design Versace's 'La Vacanza' collection, a high summer, holiday-inspired line. As a longtime friend of Versace, Dua Lipa's star power and genuine affinity for the brand add credibility and excitement to the collection.

For Versace, this collaboration represented a strategic move to appeal to a broader audience, tapping into Dua Lipa's global influence and popularity in the music industry. By combining fashion and music, Versace gained exposure to Dua Lipa's dedicated fan base. At the same time, the pop superstar got to fulfill her dream of designing and empowering women through her collaboration with the fashion powerhouse.

5. Under Armour x Steph Curry

Under Armour's partnership with Steph Curry is another win-win deal for both parties. For one, Curry gets to design his own signature basketball shoe line, which has become a major hit for the brand.

But it's not just about the shoes. Curry also gets stock options from the company, tethering his success to the company's.

On the flip side, Under Armour gets an all-time great on their team, which boosts credibility among basketball lovers and helps the brand compete in a tough sportswear market.

Overall, Curry's collaboration with Under Armour goes beyond a typical athlete endorsement, showcasing a true partnership that benefits both parties and has contributed to his influence as an athlete and fashion icon.

6. LOEWE x Aubrey Plaza

Coming off a wildly popular second season of White Lotus, Aubrey Plaza partnered with LOEWE to promote its pre-fall 2023 clothing line. Aside from its gripping storyline and unforgettable cast, White Lotus was known for showcasing chic summer looks that inspired viewers worldwide. LOEWE's partnership with Plaza served as the perfect match to keep the trends flowing into the summer season.

7. Dior x Robert Pattinson

In a recent campaign, Robert Pattinson continued his long-standing partnership with Dior Homme Sport as one of their most popular brand ambassadors. This time, The Batman star embodied the image of a boxer, effortlessly portraying the essence of an active, intense, and strong man that Dior Homme Sport wants to represent.

8. SKIMS x Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian's partnership with SKIMS goes beyond just being a co-founder. She is also the face of the brand and actively promotes its products through her social media channels and other marketing campaigns. Being a highly influential figure with a massive following on platforms like Instagram, Kim's involvement significantly contributed to SKIMS' early success and popularity.

With her influence and status in the fashion and entertainment industry, Kim has helped SKIMS gain substantial brand recognition and a strong customer base. Additionally, her focus on promoting body positivity and inclusivity aligns with SKIMS' core values, further enhancing the brand's appeal to a wide range of consumers.

9. Coach x Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez has been a Coach brand ambassador for years, making her a no-brainer for its recent Mother's Day campaign. Lopez's iconic status as a pop superstar, beauty entrepreneur, and mom resonated perfectly with the campaign's mission to celebrate a mother's strength and nurturing that helps children thrive.

The campaign's garden-inspired photo shoot showcased Lopez's natural grace and elegance, while her heartfelt insights about parenting and passing down learned lessons further strengthened the connection with Coach's audience. Overall, the partnership beautifully captureed the essence of motherhood and the bond shared by moms everywhere.

10. Mint Mobile x Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds acquired a 25% ownership stake in Mint Mobile in 2019 and became its pitchman, starring in witty and self-aware commercials in the Canadian actor's signature style. His active involvement and creative approach have helped Mint Mobile stand out in the competitive mobile industry and contributed to increased visibility and brand recognition.

In the ad featured above, Mint Mobile used a pre-game commercial during the Super Bowl to showcase its "Mintier" approach. Instead of spending millions on a game-time ad, Mint saved costs by airing an "upside-down" version of an old ad at an earlier time slot, reaching a massive audience without the hefty price tag. The visually attention-grabbing ad successfully highlighted their savings-focused strategy while still standing out on a day filled with high-production value spots.

11. Fabletics x Kevin Hart

Kevin Hart and Fabletics have been a match made in heaven for years. The comedian, businessman, and workout junkie is all about fitness and comfort, making his signature apparel lines a home run for the brand. Hart regularly appears on Fabletics' social media channels, showcasing the products in action and providing some valuable social proof for the brand.

12. Ring x Michael B. Jordan

Ring took advantage of the hype surrounding the Creed III release earlier this year by securing a creative partnership with the film's star, Michael B. Jordan. The smart doorbell company tapped the actor to provide pre-recorded greetings as his Creed III character, Adonis, that customers can download as responses for guests ringing their doorbell.

So how can small brands compete without celebrity endorsements?

Very few brands can afford to add a celebrity to their ambassador team, but that doesn't mean small businesses can't see the same results! Brands with small budgets can work with nano, micro, and macro creators to leverage the trust they've built with their fans. In fact, because they have fewer followers than a mega influencer or celebrity, they have more time to thoroughly engage with their fans, leading to more authentic connections.

Key takeaway on the best celebrity ads of this year: Partner with celebs to harness the power of earned media and major fan love.

Celebrities are known for having loyal fan bases who will go out of their way to support them. So when brands partner with these beloved figures to promote products they really use and truly love, businesses can see major returns.

And since celebrities and their comings and goings are huge parts of pop culture, brands are sure to get a lot of earned media for campaigns featuring people's favorite stars.

But don't stress if hiring Kim Kardashian for your campaign is way out of budget. Finding the right creators for your business (whether they're nano influencers or mega) can help you harness those authentic connections and drive some major brand love.

Frequently Asked Questions

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12 Best Celebrity Endorsements of 2023 | GRIN

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Check out our list of the best celebrity endorsements of this year and what we learned from them.

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 For example, a Democrat advocates for the dissolution of private industry and state control of everything, which people would counter by saying, "That's communism." The Democrat is not arguing for communism. The proper position of this Democrat is for a welfare state, not a communist dictatorship. This is an example of a straw man, which is someone creating false equivalencies for an argument to make it appear that you are addressing it. 

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 For example, a Democrat advocates for the dissolution of private industry and state control of everything, which people would counter by saying, "That's communism." The Democrat is not arguing for communism. The proper position of this Democrat is for a welfare state, not a communist dictatorship. This is an example of a straw man, which is someone creating false equivalencies for an argument to make it appear that you are addressing it. 

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Common logical fallacies in the use of the terms “socialism” and “communism” - Darrell P. Arnold, PH.D.

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Allegations of “socialism” or “communism” often provide examples of the following five fallacies: 1) ad hominem fallacies, 2) an appeal to emotions, 3) equivocations, 4) straw man arguments, and 5) the slippery slope argument. Often they are also accompanied by 6) a false dilemma.

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I had no idea that there was an actual term that encompassed Donald Trump's debate style, but apparently, ad hominem is that term. What also might surprise you is despite Trump being one of the first politicians I have personally seen using degrading terms and mean insults to get the better of his opponent, the method is was not invented by him; in fact, this debate style is credited as early as Ancient Rome, to a man named Marcus Tullius Cicero. He apparently used some horrific terms towards his opponents, and if you visit this website you can see the translated versions I found; Just a finding that surprised me. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/mehdi-hasan-win-every-argument-excerpt-1234685087/

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Is Donald Trump’s Name-Calling Actually a Good Debate Technique?

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In ‘Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking,’ MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan makes a provocative defense of ad hominems.

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This product advertises itself as a tea that they help reduce weight gain and build muscle. Their website shows the user attractive and fit women, to prey on the everyday person, thinking that if they drink this product, they can achieve that same look. However, there isn't actually any reliable data that suggests these actually work.

I actually heard about this one awhile ago, as it was a brand that heavily relied on social media sponsorship advertisement on accounts that had big followings. It was big drama at the time, as the whole thing was seen as a scam with it's claim to achieve "weight loss" when drinking these. It seems from other peoples experience, it doesn't actually make you lose weight permanently, but rather temporary due to water loss rather than actual weight loss.

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FitTea™ Detox Tea | Enjoy life confidently, best detox tea!

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The #1 selling detox tea in the world! Over 1,000,000 customers love FitTea. Boost health with FitTea™ an all natural diet tea. 100% satisfaction guaranteed!

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This article by Pew Research Center discusses how people feel they could get along with members of the opposite political party or those with different views. The most impactful piece to me was the statistics on how easy people said they could get along with their neighbors based on different metrics. For example, 24% of republicans said it would be harder to get along with someone who liked hip-hop and 41% of democrats said it would be harder to get along with someone who owned a gun. I think this shows people stereotyping others and saying it could be harder to get along with them when they could be very similar people and get along great despite their differences.

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4. Partisan stereotypes, views of Republicans and Democrats as neighbors

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Many Republicans and Democrats associate negative characteristics with members of the other party – and positive traits with their own. But the specific

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Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about Haitian Immigrants

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Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about Haitian Immigrants

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Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt are about making someone afraid and confused so they will pick your side. For example, if you were to argue with two sides, you would say the side you are not on is scary and should not happen. This tactic has a powerful effect on reactionary people who base their opinions on their reaction to what they are told. for a real-life issue, this is currently being used for immigration, specifically in Springfield, Ohio, where many bigots are claiming that Haitian immigrants are coming to take their jobs and their pets to eat them. This is a clear example of using fear to control a side because if they can get the reaction they want, they get the vote of people who are afraid.

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Fact-checking JD Vance’s claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio

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Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, continues to fuel the firestorm surrounding Springfield, Ohio, with false claims about Haitian migrants.

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Information overload and FOMO go hand in hand during remote work, which is a very common way to work these days. People might not like being bombarded with work due by the end of the day everyday that they might feel overloaded with information, whcih can cause many unhealthy problems like depression and anxiety, with FOMO(Fear.Of.Missing.Out) is a real thing because many people liked going to a workplace and having social interactions with people they all have somehting in common with. For some this is a great thing and they love doing remote work days, but for others it may be an at home prison.

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Information overload and FOMO are major risk factors for remote work - Workplace Insight

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While remote work has its advantages for most people, a new academic study found that there are at least two under-discussed risks

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A Big Lie refers to a seemingly trustworthy public figure spreading false conspiracies in order to justify actions/reactions. The conspiracies target the public by twisting truths or using fear. In this article, Rudy Giuliani has been disbarred due to repeated false statements regarding Donald Trump and the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. The courts found that during his time as Trump's attorney he continued to spread "demonstrably false and misleading statements," and that "These false statements were made to improperly bolster respondent's narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client."

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Rudy Giuliani disbarred over false 2020 election claims

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A New York court said he made repeated false statements about former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.

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Taking place at a rally before the riots began, President Trump falsely claimed that the election was rigged by democrats by destroying ballots, and other illegal means. Which stirred the crowd up to result in the riots to fulfil a attempt at a coup d'état.

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January 6 U.S. Capitol Attack| Background, Events, Criminal Charges, & Facts | Britannica

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United States Capitol attack of 2021, assault on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, by a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump. The attack disrupted a joint session of Congress convened to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the presidential election of 2020.

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project 2025 is a plan being pushed by the far right of their plan to change America when Trump is reelected. There is a ton of rhetoric feeding into fears the far right have created themselves that they're trying to "fix" like union busting, removing rights for queer communities everywhere, and removing immigrants. they sell a story that if this project doesn't happen these groups will take over America and destroy it.