President Donald Trump, America’s most prominent white supremacist, has celebrated the so-called “Trump boat parades” that have popped up across the country, a frightening symbol of 21st century fascism and the people who are normalizing it. But just like everything else tinged with politics in 2020, there’s a lot of fake information floating around on the internet about these pro-Trump boating events.
Yes, at least five boats sank in Texas over the weekend during a Trump boat parade. But some of the images being shared on social media about those boats are old and taken out of context.
A video from Oregon went viral over the weekend, purporting to show a boat from one of President Trump’s boat parades sinking into the water. But the video is actually from a few weeks ago and shows a family that had nothing to do with Trump. That being said, there are plenty of other images showing catastrophe for Trump supporters on the high seas, and those are 100% real.
Trump Boat sinking.
So many jokes… pic.twitter.com/FcAej3JL0y
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) September 5, 2020
The viral video, re-shared by Rex Chapman over the holiday weekend with the caption “Trump boat sinking,” was actually recorded on the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon on August 17. Oddly enough, the people who can be seen sinking in that video had nothing to do with the pro-Trump boat parade. If you pay close attention to the video, it’s obviously just an innocent family with no Trump flags of any kind.
Apparently, the Trump boaters in the area were going too fast and caused innocent bystanders to sink, according to witnesses who spoke to BuzzFeed News last month:
He said the Trump boaters were going very fast and were creating wakes in a “no-wake zone,” turning the calm river into a “torrential storm-like atmosphere.”
While that particular video is old and out of context, there were at least five boats that sunk over the Labor Day weekend. On Saturday, the sheriff’s office in Travis County, Texas reportedly received 15 emergency calls about boats that were sinking in Lake Travis.
The Lake Travis boat parade was organized on Facebook, which will come as no surprise to anyone with whiny Trump supporters in their family. Facebook is Ground Zero for Trumpism.
“It was like an ocean out there. I’m surprised I survived it,” one participant told local NBC affiliate KXAN. “We didn’t make it all the way around the parade, because it was just too much. The boats were mainly just teeter-tot-erring. A lot of them took on water by the nose. After that it was over, especially for the smaller boats.”
Photos from Saturday also went viral from the Lake Travis event and these are very, very real.
Computer, enhance.
Computer, enhance.
There we go. Hard to come up with a better visual example of what Trump’s doing to the country.
