On a warm evening in May, a small galaxy of MAGA stars in tuxedos and floor length sparkling gowns stood around a pool sipping cocktails, eating plates of risotto and clinking champagne glasses under perfect palm trees.
They had gathered there, at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, not for a campaign fundraiser or a holiday affair; but, rather, for a glitzy film premiere.
Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative provocateur, was releasing his documentary, “2000 Mules,” the most recent addition to the cannon of right wing conspiracy flicks questioning the well-established outcome of the 2020 election. And for the first formal viewing, he had chosen the site dubbed by the 45th president as the “Winter White House.” In doing so, D’Souza joined a growing list of those dabbling in MAGA film noir to turn to Mar-a-Lago for their coming out party.
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“I mean, if you’re going to do a movie about the 2020 election, I don’t think you’re going to do it at the Javits Center in New York,” said conservative activist Charlie Kirk, one of the main figures in the D’Souza documentary.
The transformation of a Palm Beach club into a MAGA movie destination is yet another way in which Trump has managed to keep himself at the epicenter of modern conservatism. Barack Obama may have joined Netflix to help produce documentaries about climate change and the planet. Trump is convincing the documentarians to cover his election gripes and to come to him.
Well guess what?One theory Trump has cited often, based on a report he shared six times and deemed “fully verified,” outlines an “avalanche of irregularities” in five swing states. The document’s author and origin are unnamed and much of its evidence disproved. A more well-known lie he has frequently shared on Truth Social is the debunked “2,000 Mules” conspiracy theory, which he referenced eight times.
As Election Day 2022 approached, elections officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, were grappling with an unanticipated problem. Voters returning ballots to official drop boxes were being harassed and confronted. In one incident, men dressed in tactical gear were stationed near a drop box in Mesa.
There was an obvious trigger for the pattern: the release earlier that year of the film “2000 Mules.” The film asserted that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by “mules,” people hired to stuff drop boxes with ballots. The claim, filling demand for a narrative explaining Donald Trump’s loss that year, was taken seriously by his supporters. As NPR reported at the time, one Republican official in Arizona, responding to the film, encouraged state residents to police drop box locations in precisely the manner that was demonstrated in Maricopa.
But there was never any reason to take the film’s claims seriously. Over the weekend, one notable figure belatedly acknowledged that the film misled its audience: its creator, Dinesh D’Souza.
One theory Trump has cited often, based on a report he shared six times and deemed “fully verified,” outlines an “avalanche of irregularities” in five swing states. The document’s author and origin are unnamed and much of its evidence disproved. A more well-known lie he has frequently shared on Truth Social is the debunked “2,000 Mules” conspiracy theory, which he referenced eight times.
Never mind…