Totals for today’s 29 stories are 17 noise, 1 signal 1, 2 signal 2, and 8 normal. If you haven’t yet read how the Trump tracker works and what the true signals are, please read this article. The previous day’s tracker is here.
We’ve completely revised the graph. Above is the day 4 version. April 26 is day 3. Looking at the graph for April 26, it has 1 signal 1: Trump is destroying the American economy. The very good news is it also has 2 signal 2s: Trump is destroying American democracy. The press is beginning to wake up and go deeper into what matters, but not as deep as it went the day before, where it reported on signal 3.
The signal stories were:
6. U.S. Fed survey finds global trade fight, policy uncertainty top financial stability risks - The story is all about how Trump’s tariffs could harm the US economy. Signal 1.
12. 19 states sue Trump administration over push to end diversity programs in public schools - This is all about eroding democracy one small cut at a time. Here the small cut eliminates one small aspect of public school self-management: Use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs to create a more productive and fair educational environment. Signal 2.
18. Sen. Chris Murphy's 'emergency' message about Trump is connecting with Democratic voters - The story covers the Democrat response to Trump’s erosion of democracy. “Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy emphasized the necessity of mass mobilization to protect democracy, stating, 'There’s not going to be an election in 2028 if we don’t win this fight right now.'” Signal 2.
19. Only about half of Republicans say Trump has focused on the right priorities, AP-NORC poll finds - The highlight of the poll is shown below: Signal 1.
Compared to the previous day, normal news stories stayed the same, while signal news stories decreased from 6 to 4. But these are usual fluctuations due to the random variation of complex social systems. The real story here is that we now have 3 days of data, and the data is starting to show a strong trend. Noise dominates over signal, just as our hypothesis predicted.
Our hypothesis is that the ratio of noise to signal is so high that Trump’s true intentions and motivations are extremely well hidden. Each day that passes shows that the public and the press have not caught on to what really matters, the signal. Until this happens, American democracy is doomed.
Noise - The distraction pattern is Trump’s outrageous behavior. His high tariffs have, as expected, caused a high increase in US government income. What the story doesn’t cover is this will also cause damage to the US economy due to higher prices. Thus, it’s no surprise that nearly all the articles reporting this story are from right-wing sources (as shown below) who tout the record customs and excise tax haul. Note how no sources are from the left.
18 articles - 36% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is lying to hide true behavior. Trump’s exact words in a social media post, from this left article, were:
There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days. It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through “Banking” or “Secondary Sanctions?” Too many people are dying!!!
Yet one day earlier Trump said that the two sides were “very close to a deal” after his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Putin in Moscow on Friday. This is more of Trump’s trademark on-again off-again behavior, a consistent noise pattern.
Because of signal number 4, that Trump has been a Russian controlled asset since 1987, everything Trump is doing regarding the so-called negotiations is under Putin’s direction. This is why ALL proposals strongly favor Russia and are essentially a complete capitulation of Ukraine to Russia. To maintain his cover as a Russian sleeper agent who has risen to the top, Trump must play the consummate actor role tell lies to cover up the fact he is a Russian agent, such as “he’s just tapping me along.”
Note the huge number of articles reporting on this story, 312. Every one of them missed the signal, and reported only the noise. That’s how good Russia’s intelligence operation is working.
312 articles - 83% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is Trump’s outrageous behavior. From the story summary:
Officials from the United States and China recently communicated conflicting messages regarding the status of their trade negotiations. These conflicting statements followed President Trump's suggestion that talks were active while China called such claims groundless.
50 articles - 86% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is false common enemy. LGBT behavior has long been a target of animosity by the US right-wing, so much so that almost all articles reporting on this story are on the right. Frequent article on topics like this are red meat for the Republican base.
41 articles - 25% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is Trump’s outrageous behavior in the form of tariffs suddenly imposed on many countries for no good reason. The story summary is:
Spiking trade uncertainty is compounding rising debt and sluggish growth problems facing emerging markets and developing countries, but cutting their own tariffs could provide a big boost, said Indermit Gill, the World Bank's chief economist. Gill said global economists were rapidly lowering their growth forecasts for advanced economies and somewhat less so for developing countries, at least for now, in the wake of a tsunami of tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Buried in the story is implication of how damaging the tariffs will be for the US economy. Instead the story is about ALL economies. Totally missing is the fact that Trump has exempted Russia from tariffs. I wonder why.
7 articles - 60% high factuality - Ground News story.
SIGNAL1 - The story is all about how Trump’s tariffs could harm the US economy.
14 articles - 86% high factuality - Ground News story.
Normal - This is normal executive branch behavior.
13 articles - 82% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is lying to hide true behavior. From the summary:
The Cosmos 2553 satellite, launched by Russia in 2022, has been reported to be spinning uncontrollably, leading to concerns about Moscow's space weapon efforts, according to U.S. Analysts. Russia denies developing a nuclear weapon and claims that Cosmos 2553 is solely for research purposes, despite U.S. Assertions of its military implications.
Russia is lying, which creates a much larger story than if they admitted the satellite’s true purpose. If they told the truth few would care, and that would be one less noise story flooding the US with what the RAND think tank calls “The Russian ‘Firehose of Falsehood’ Propaganda Model”. All that noise covers up the signal.
29 articles - 83% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is false common enemy. Trump’s MAGA base is intensely racist. Some are antisemitic. Trump encourages this behavior. For example, at the Charlottesville 2007 “Unite the Right” rally, extremist marchers chanted “Jews will not replace us!” Trump commented there are “very fine people on both sides” rather than explicitly condemning this behavior. By supporting the visit by a far-right Israeli minister, who attended a Mar-a-Largo dinner, Trump encourages more division and more noise stories.
32 articles - 89% high factuality - Ground News story.
Normal - Legal decision like this are a normal part of state and national governance.
11 articles - 100% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is lying to hide true behavior, which is democratic erosion. On the surface this looked like a normal story but I couldn’t be sure. When I read this article I found a deeper story:
The documents in question are tied to Reynold’s Feb. 5 testimony before the U.S. House Oversight Committee, which was conducting hearings on government efficiency. At the time, Reynolds was questioned by U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, as to whether she agreed with Michael Flynn, a former advisor to President Donald Trump, that Lutheran Family Services was connected to a “money-laundering operation.”
Looking at further articles and searching, I couldn’t figure the situation out. So for the first time in this project, I asked ChatGPT for help using a long prompt describing the tracker project and the story. Its reply is below with italics added. This is clearly a story about democratic erosion.
While this story initially appears to be a routine public records dispute, it is deeply intertwined with broader Trump-aligned disinformation efforts. The emails Governor Kim Reynolds seeks to withhold are connected to her testimony before the U.S. House Oversight Committee, where she was questioned about claims made by former Trump advisor Michael Flynn and DOGE head Elon Musk accusing Lutheran Family Services of operating as a "money-laundering operation.” (source)
These unfounded allegations were amplified on social media platforms, contributing to a narrative that undermines trust in faith-based organizations and government institutions. Furthermore, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Musk, has been instrumental in executing significant federal workforce reductions and consolidating power, actions that critics argue erode democratic norms and oversight. Therefore, this incident reflects a strategic effort to suppress information that could expose the misuse of governmental authority and the propagation of disinformation, aligning it with broader anti-democratic objectives. (source)
However, none of the articles or the Ground News summary are reporting the story as part of democratic erosion. Instead, it’s just a “routine public records dispute.” But since disinformation was used to make it look this way, it’s not normal news. It’s noise using the pattern of lying to hide true behavior.
30 articles - 100% high factuality - Ground News story.
SIGNAL2 - This is all about eroding democracy one small cut at a time. Here the small cut eliminates one small aspect of public school self-management: Use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs to create a more productive and fair educational environment. The legality of DEI is grounded on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Bilingual Education Act of 1968, the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974, and related law.
In addition, a Washington Post article describes how two different suits “alleged that the government’s actions were unconstitutionally vague, penalized speech based on content and were improperly implemented, among other things.” Courts issued injunctions in favor of both suits, and pointed out the Trump administration’s directive:
was “textbook viewpoint discrimination” given that a professor would run afoul of the agency if she were to teach that structural racism exists in America, but not if she were to deny that it exists. McCafferty wrote that while the letter outlaws DEI, it “does not even define what a DEI program is.”
The directive thus also promotes racism, a tactic Trump has long used to gain MAGA supporters. In addition:
The judge wrote that the government was attempting to control the content of curriculums, which is barred by federal law.
That law serves as a bulwark against erosion of democracy.
22 articles - 95% high factuality - Ground News story.
Normal - This is typical state level governance news.
38 articles - 96% high factuality - Ground News story.
Normal - This sort of foreign policy work is normal.
28 articles - 96% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is false common enemy, in this case immigrants. This very frequent pattern was described at length in an earlier tracker article.
The researcher was a Russian citizen (with a long-term visa) working at Harvard University doing research. On returning to the US from France, Kseniia Petrova had her visa revoked for traveling with undeclared frog embryo samples, which she didn’t know needed to be declared. In the past, such a violation would result in a warning or a fine.
65 articles - 77% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - As in the above story, the distraction pattern is false common enemy, in this case immigrants. As reported by the AP, the conflict here is that three Florida Republican representatives in the Miami area, where there are many immigrants:
have defended Trump despite the president’s efforts to eliminate protections that allow hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Cubans, and other migrants to live and work legally in the United States.
Trump is now in the process of eliminating these protections, which would cause the three Republicans to lose future elections. Once you can see the noise for what it is, you can perhaps see these three politicians are pawns in Putin’s long game.
35 articles - 93% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is favoritism. Large for-profit corporations and their owners, the super rich, have long wanted to minimize federal regulations to maximize profits, even at the expense of the public good. Cutting regulations has long been a pillar of the Republican platform, making this a frequently promoted right-wing issue. The story summary says:
Federal regulations under the Biden administration have increased the hidden tax on American households to a record $16,016, as reported by the Competitive Enterprise Institute [which is strongly right wing]. … Trump has begun reversing some of these regulations, aiming to alleviate the hidden tax burden [a deceptive rationalization] that households face under Biden's leadership.
32 articles - 86% high factuality - Ground News story.
SIGNAL2 - The story covers the Democrat response to Trump’s erosion of democracy:
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy emphasized the necessity of mass mobilization to protect democracy, stating, 'There’s not going to be an election in 2028 if we don’t win this fight right now.'
46 articles - 84% high factuality - Ground News story.
SIGNAL1 - The highlight of the poll is shown below, from an AP story. The poll covered more than indicated in the graphic. While “this issue of immigration is a relative strength… there are indications that foreign policy, trade negotiations and the economy could prove problematic….” The story covers mostly signal 1: Trump is destroying the American economy.
82 articles - 94% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is attack your enemies fallaciously, in this case with intimidating, aggressive questions sent to four prestigious medical journals about their bias, with no explanation of why their content might be illegal. The questions imply the government intends to control journal content. One article reports they are "an obvious ruse to strike fear into journals and impinge on their right to independent editorial oversight," said The Lancet. No mention was made of democratic erosion in this or other articles, so this is noise rather than signal.
21 articles - 67% high factuality - Ground News story.
Normal - This is normal political candiate news.
15 articles - 14% high factuality - Ground News story.
Normal - This is normal federal/state news. No relation to the signals is seen.
28 articles - 100% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is attack your enemies fallaciously. From the summary:
Elissa Slotkin, a Democratic Senator from Michigan, argues her party must shed its 'weak and woke' image to regain power and connect with average voters. Slotkin revealed a strategy aiming for Democratic victories, which includes compelling Trump to follow a deportation ruling.
Strategizing how a party can do better is normal news. What the articles miss is the Democrats’ recent election losses were not due to a “weak and woke reputation.” They were due to a long-term political deception campaign that produced the MAGA base, using populism, identity politics, and countless out-group targets like immigrants, liberals, gays, non-Christians, and supposedly incompetent Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. “Weak and woke” is a derogatory term invented by the right to smear the left with constant ad hominem attacks.
However, this sort of strategizing is so normal it shouldn’t be big news. The reason it’s big news is it’s manufactured news. Most articles were from right-wing sources attacking the left, as shown. The fallacy is that “weak and woke” are derogatory ad hominem attack labels with no logical justification.
21 articles - 37% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is false common enemy. This right article says:
Asked if the US would stay out of a conflict if Israel acted alone, the president said: “No, I didn’t say that ... I may go in very willingly if we can’t get a deal. If we don’t make a deal, I’ll be leading the pack.” Last month, he warned Iran there would be “bombing the likes of which they have never seen before” if it rejected a new deal.
Trump treatens to go to war against Iran if they don’t agree to the deal he is imposing. This is a unilateral approach designed to paint a false common enemy, in order to make Trump look like a tough strong leader who can protect people from that enemy. Better is multilateral action, working with a larger group than just Israel, such as the UN.
21 articles - 33% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is lying to hide true behavior. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established in 1949. The agency employs over 30,000 people. This left article says:
The lawsuit, filed by families of some of the victims of the attack, alleges that UNRWA had aided Hamas by, among other things, permitting weapons storage and deployment centers in its schools and medical clinics and by employing Hamas members. Israel has long alleged that UNRWA has aided Hamas, using that as a justification for deadly attacks on the organisation's facilities and staff. It has provided no evidence for this however.
That some members of the agency will independently choose to fight against Israel and aid Hamas is inevitable (source). However, that does not justify condemning the agency as a whole, unless evidence exists this action was supported from top levels of the agency.
Thus, the US is apparently lying here in an apparent attempt to side with Israel and the US right wing. Most articles on the story are from right-wing sources.
39 articles - 52% high factuality - Ground News story.
Normal - Candidate news like this is a normal part of politics.
14 articles - 36% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is false common enemy. The AP article says:
Francis sharply disagreed with Trump’s approach on issues including immigration, the treatment of migrants and climate change. The Argentine pontiff and the American president sparred early in their relationship over immigration. In 2016, Francis, alluding to then-candidate Trump and his campaign slogan of “build the wall,” called anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants “not Christian.”
Trump has long painted immigrants as a false common enemy, as discussed earlier in this tracker article.
238 articles - 94% high factuality - Ground News story.
Noise - The distraction pattern is attack your enemies fallaciously. Saying Zelensky is three weeks late, when Zelensky is still negotiating in good faith, has not agreed to a deadline, and is presented with a deal that strongly favors the US, is unjustified.
44 articles - 53% high factuality - Ground News story.
Normal - Party philosophical debates are a normal part of a democracy.
1 article - 0% high factuality - Ground News story.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.