Politics - News Analysis

Trump is Angering Far-Right Activists After He Opens His Big Mouth About Something He Knows NOTHING About

Former President Donald Trump has drawn ire from far-right activists after referring to Bitcoin as a “scam.”

During an interview Monday with Fox Business host Stuart Varney, Trump blasted Bitcoin, saying he believes it competes against the U.S. dollar, Right Wing Watch reports.

“Bitcoin just seems like a scam,” he told Varney. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar. I want the dollar to be the currency of the world, that’s what I’ve always said.”

Trump’s comments rubbed a fair number of right-wingers the wrong way. This includes conspiracy nutter and huge Islamophobe Laura Loomer and Stop the Steal movement founder Ali Alexander. They upped their crazy level by questioning Trump’s anti-Bitcoin stance and claimed that Trump’s support for the COVID-19 vaccine was the real scam.

“Since we are on the topic of scams, I’d say COVID vaccines are also a scam,” Loomer wrote in a Telegram post Monday. The reality is Trump’s base is pro-cryptocurrency and anti-COVID vaccine.”

Alexander agreed fully, saying “Trump is so passionately pro his experimental vaccine and anti-Bitcoin, yet his base is the opposite on both issues.”

Right here I’m going to say I know as much about Bitcoin as I do about calculus, which means I don’t know anything about it at all. But I do know quite a lot about vaccines and the fact that Trump supporters are against one while supporting the other indicates to me that once again, Loomer and Alexander are very definitely logic-deprived. Loomer has been permanently banned from Twitter due to her racism and anti-Muslim stance. For his part, Alexander organized the Jan. 6 rally that spurred the siege that day and then urged supporters to “gather together once again to fight” in the aftermath.

But Alexander had additional criticism for Trump:

“He has terrible advisors and needs to re-examine these issues of freedom,” Alexander wrote in his own Telegram post, which has nearly 20,000 followers. “Like dude… get over it. We the People chose freedom.”

Trump has long been critical of Bitcoin, claiming that cryptocurrencies are “highly volatile” and are often used for illegal activities.

“Unregulated crypto-assets can facilitate unlawful behavior and other illegal activity,” he wrote on his since-deleted Twitter account in 2019.

However, a report from the blockchain data firm Chainalysis shows that’s not necessarily true. It found illicit activity made up just 0.34 percent of all cryptocurrency transaction volume in 2020.

I have no idea why Trump thinks cryptocurrency spawns illegal activities, but according to former national security adviser John Bolton, in his book The Room Where It Happened, Trump demanded that former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin “go after” Bitcoin instead of brokering a trade agreement with China. So Mnuchin imposed new regulations on the cryptocurrency industry.

But not everyone in Trump’s base was upset over his Bitcoin stance. Some of his QAnon conspiracy fans believe Bitcoin is a deep state ploy.

Noted one adherent on a QAnon Telegram channel followed by over 20,000 people:

“I think Trump doesn’t like [Bitcoin] because of its nefarious/evil origins. It’s going to go, hopefully with a dirty, great bang.”

Logic is in short supply among Trump supporters. It’s worrisome that thousands ingest this misinformation without question. Unfortunately, we’re going to be dealing with these people for years to come.

meet the author

Megan has lived in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida and she currently lives in Central America. Living in these places has informed her writing on politics, science, and history. She is currently owned by 15 cats and 3 dogs and regularly owns Trump supporters when she has the opportunity. She can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GaiaLibra and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/politicalsaurus

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