Trump Insists Clearly Edited Pic of Abrego Garcia's Tats Is Real in Testy Interview
www.rollingstone.com
Donald Trump repeatedly insisted that a clearly edited picture of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's tattoos is real in an ABC News interview with Terry Moran.

This should be the sticking point to invoke the 25th. Officials need to be loud and make a stink about how Trump can’t tell fact from clear fiction and therefore cannot perform the duties of the office. Make the people of America see the image on the news everyday and make those on his side say out loud if they think it’s fake or real. Half of the masses will never be convinced that he lacks the morality to lead until they’re already in his camps. This is the earliest clear as day moment to act on that which cannot be held to subjective scrutiny or partisanship.

  • Lyrl@lemm.eeEnglish
    7·
    1 day ago

    Birthers claimed for years that seeing Obama’s long form birth certificate would alleviate their citizenship concerns. Spoiler: it didn’t, they moved the goal posts.

    Once people are identity-level invested in something being true - in this case that deportations are about public safety and not racism, because no way could they or people they respect be racist - sinking time into producing evidence for them is futile. It is no longer about facts, it’s about identity. Sometimes people break out of these self-imposed mental prisons if a main trusted person who helped lead them there loses their trust for an unrelated reason (not one that had become identity-latched). Sometimes being welcomed into a different community that fulfills those identity needs will let them see their previously identity-latched falsehoods as false. But evidence is always futile.

    • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
      1·
      16 hours ago

      How do you know that we’re not invested in that though?

      That’s what I’m asking. I’m not asking to prove them wrong. Why are we not asking “is this true”

      Maybe I’ll wrong, have you seen any one verifying anything?

      Years ago I feel like we did question things and verify things. But lately I feel we are as invested as the trumpets are

      • Lyrl@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        5 hours ago

        Being invested at an identity level is a human trait, not a Republican or MAGA one. It’s not “lately”, it’s all of human history.

        We all readily recognize the blind spots in people we consider part of an out-group. Becoming more aware of the blind spots of people we consider fellow in-group members, and especially in ourselves, is more difficult, but I believe important to strive for. Having blind spots is natural. Recognizing them and trying to compensate for them in our thinking can benefit decision-making.

        In the case of “are the tattoos on this guy’s fingers MS13-related”, there is way more substantive discussion to be had than demanding the guy’s girlfriend dig up and share publicly a years-old couple’s picture without the emoji. Some quotes below if they are of interest, and the article has a picture with the full fingers and their tattoos fully visible in case that really was what you were going for. https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/01/politics/abrego-garcias-tattoos-explainer

        “I see a bunch of symbols that could be interpreted any number of ways,” Jorja Leap, a University of California, Los Angeles professor who has served as an expert gang witness in court, told CNN.

        …“These are definitely NOT MS-13 tattoos,” Thomas Ward, a University of Southern California professor who spent years embedded with MS-13 researching the gang, and is the author of an ethnography that studies MS-13, said in an email.

        …While some gangs will opt for more low-profile or ambiguous means of identifying members to evade detection from law enforcement or rival gang members, MS-13 tattoos, according to Leap, aren’t exactly subtle. They are used to market the gang’s brutality.

        “MS-13 members have tattoos that say ‘MS-13,’” Leap said. “They’re not head-scratchers; they’re billboards. There’s no ambiguity.”

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
        2·
        11 hours ago

        We’re not asking if it’s true because it doesn’t fucking matter. That’s up to a court and a jury, which Abrego Garcia never went in front of.

        Also, please tell me you’re not asking if the ms paint arial black 12 pt font letters are really on his hands. If you are, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.