Trump Supporter Couldn’t Find Black Fans, So He Turned to AI

Fake MAGA images are latest battle in war against reality

When I first saw images of former President Donald Trump surrounded by smiling, young Black people, I knew there had to be something wrong. Were these people being paid? Or were they Christian fundamentalists? No, they weren’t real.

This is the same person who recently said Black people liked him because he was being persecuted by the law and made sneakers. The former president has a long history of racism going back 50 years. Racism was embedded in his campaign for president, administration and current campaign. MAGA is synonymous with white supremacy, and some of his advisors, such as Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Mike Davis, are actual neo-Nazis.

Trump likes to be around Black celebrities, not regular Black people. He likes the company of rappers, entertainers and pro athletes, not Black journalists, doctors and bus drivers.

Fake Black People

He’s also so clueless he thinks winning over rappers will bring him Black support. Because Snoop Dogg is a leading thought leader in the African-American community! (I wrote about this in the previous article.)

So those pictures of Trump with Black people smelled fishy. And not surprisingly, they were fake. Trump couldn’t find enough Black people to be around him, so his followers turned to artificial intelligence (AI.)

“The co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a group which encourages black people to vote, said the manipulated images were pushing a ‘strategic narrative’ signed to show Mr.Trump as popular in the black community,” said Mark Kaye, who created the images in a BBC interview.

But this latest attempt at manipulating reality is typical of Trump. He has long waged a war on reality. He’s a master gaslighter, who told about 30,000 lies in the White House. Trump firmly believes in the Nazi ideology, if you repeat a lie enough times, eventually, it becomes the truth.

AI Genie Is Out-of-the Bottle

Again, this is not surprising because the organization, Blacks for Trump, is mainly white, MAGA people.

But, to anybody who’s been paying attention to this technology, the use of AI in propaganda is not surprising. When I first heard about the concept of deep fakes, about five years ago, my blood ran cold.

In a previous article, I said deepfakes are like Photoshop on steroids. And these are not just stills, they’re moving images that have been altered by algorithms. We’re at the point where we literally can’t trust our own eyes.

And it’s only getting worse. Now you can create deepfake porn, which inserts people’s images into hardcore pornography scenes. And there is technology that takes regular photos of women and “nudifies” them! A scandal broke out at a Beverly Hills middle school when male students used the technology on some female students.

“‘It’s very scary, because people can’t feel safe to, you know, come to school,’ a student at Beverly Vista Middle School who did not want to be identified told NBC Los Angeles.’ They’re scared that people will show off, like, explicit photos,’” according to a recent news report.

Yes, it’s like an episode of “Black Mirror,” a dystopian sci-fi series.

Pixelated Propaganda

AI has been used to create false images and audio of President Joe Biden, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinsky.

And AI is being heavily used in the 2024 election. This is why there have been calls for technology companies to set up mandates that bar AI political images from being used on social media.

But until that ruling comes down, it’s the digital Wild West out there. And that’s how you end up with these pro-Black Trump images.

The pro-Black Trump images were very good. And unlike most AI artwork, you almost couldn’t tell there were fakes. But they just seemed wrong. Trump surrounded by ordinary Black people? You know that can’t be right.

Trump hates poor, white people, even though that encompasses most of his supporters. A poor Black person is a double negative.

Trump’s War on Reality

But this latest attempt at manipulating reality is typical of Trump. He has long waged a war on reality. He’s a master gaslighter, who told about 30,000 lies in the White House. Trump firmly believes in the Nazi ideology, if you repeat a lie enough times, eventually, it becomes the truth.

Practically every day, Trump tells a new, even more outrageous lie. (Another Nazi tactic.) And he still claiming the 2020 election was stolen, even though his campaign lost 60 cases!

His most recent lie is cannibal immigrants are crossing the border. Of course, there are no facts to back this up. But who needs facts when you create your own reality, aided by bizarro world “news outlets” such as FOX News Channel (FNC) and One America News. The $800 million Dominion judgment hasn’t dimmed FNC’s penchant for lying.

MAGA Supporters will Believe Anything

Trump is also aided by a gullible group of followers who believe whatever he says, and fact-check nothing. A recent MSNBC interview featured a North Carolina Trump supporter who was Muslim. He said he liked Trump because of his honesty!

“He’s straightforward. Honest, and he speaks his mind,” said Mohammed Yasin.

What multiverse is he living in? Trump being honest is about as likely as him being surrounded by a group of poor Black people!