Eric Trump’s Attempts to Spread Disinformation Backfires After Social Media Shoots off Sharp Responses

Eric Trump made another attempt to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election on Saturday morning, but it is already backfiring. The president’s son rhetorically asked: “Does anyone believe that Biden got 15 million more votes than Obama in 2012?” The overwhelming response was basically: “yes.”

Eric’s tweet followed a familiar format for the Trump family — pointing out that President-elect Joe Biden ran an unconventional campaign in 2020 with few live events. However, as critics were quick to point out, this is not substantive evidence of Eric’s conspiracy theories about election tampering, but instead a sign of Biden’s respect for coronavirus pandemic safety protocols. In addition, many commenters thought that Eric was simply underestimating how badly Americans wanted his father out of office.

President Donald Trump is still posting lies about the 2020 presidential election on social media, and family members like Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are doing the same. The tweets are often marked as “disputed information” by Twitter, although this particular post by Eric was not, likely because it made no objective claims.

The 2020 presidential election did break records for voter turnout, in spite of the coronavirus pandemic. This may be in part because the virus led many states to expand their mail-in ballot eligibility, allowing busy American workers to vote without sacrificing work time or staying up late in long lines.

All of Trump’s election conspiracy theories have been disproven, and so far there is no real evidence of voter fraud or election tampering, in spite of his prolific posts online. Here is a look at what social media had to say to Eric on Saturday.

Yes

The majority of top responses to Eric’s tweet simply read: “yes,” either in replies, quote-tweets or screenshots. The rhetorical question set Eric up perfectly for this monosyllabic comeback.

Against Trump

Negative Advertising

Former Star Trek star George Takei argued while Biden didn’t campaign in the usual way, Trump campaigned for him. He said that Trump’s ads and rallies were “negative advertising,” pushing Americans towards Biden by default.

Charity

Like most of Eric’s posts, this one got responses claiming that he “stole money from children’s cancer charities.” According to a report by Snopes, this claim is basically false — however, the Trump Foundation was found to be “in persistent violation of state and federal laws governing New York State charities” by the state’s attorney general, Barbara Underwood. Eric and Ivanka Trump were named personally in this case, which led to the Trump Foundation being dissolved in an out-of-court settlement.

Trump Votes

While Eric was surprised by the number of votes Biden got, many responders said they were more surprised by the number of votes Trump got, in light of his performance as president over the last four years. Many were concerned to find that so many Americans still supported him.

Republican Voting Policies

Many critics argued that Republicans have no right to be surprised by increased voter turnout in 2020 based on their preferences for voting policy over the last few years. Republicans generally opposed mail-in voting in the 2020 presidential election, and have pursued other policies that would make it harder for the average person to vote, not easier.

Population

Some commenters pointed out that the number of votes is likely to increase relative to population increase, so on the most basic level, it makes sense for there to be more votes in the 2020 presidential election than the 2012 presidential election.