Baldasaro’s rare twofer spurious quotation meme
Republicans repeating made-up quotes from the Founding Fathers has become so commonplace that it is a “dog bites man” story. Today, however, state Rep. Al Baldasaro (R-Londonderry) raised the bar by posting a rare double-spurious-quotation meme.
The meme features a quote from the Des Moines Register in which Hillary Clinton purportedly declared she will shut down the NRA and ban handguns if she is elected president.
Snopes uncovered the original version of that Clinton meme on a Tumblr page dedicated to fake Hillary Clinton quotes. “The ‘Shocking Hillary Clinton Quotes …’ Tumblr page claims that all of their quotes are 100% sourced and even provides links to make it appear as if the quotes have been verified,” Snopes explained. “But the link included with the above-displayed meme didn’t lead to a page containing Clinton’s purported quote.”
“Additionally, a search of the Des Moines Register’s archives yielded no results for the phrase in question,” Snopes continued. “In fact, this utterance was absent from all major news publications.”
The meme Baldasaro posted paired the fake Clinton quote with a purported quote from George Washington supporting individual gun rights. “When government takes away citizens’ right to bear arms it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government’s right to govern,“ it read.
Politifact shot that one down. “We contacted Edward Lengel, editor in chief of the Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia. He said ‘there is no evidence that Washington ever wrote or said these words, or any like them,’ “ they wrote. “Lengel cautioned that it’s impossible to prove a negative, but he added that he’s ‘as certain as he can be’ that the quote did not originate from George Washington.”
Steve Benen has addressed Republicans’ rampant use of fake quotes. ”[R]epeating made-up quotes isn’t terribly important,” he wrote, “but it is important that the far-right is under a mistaken impression – that they’re the rightful heirs of the framers’ great legacy.”
“It’s today’s conservatives, the argument goes, that are the direct descendants of the likes of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison,” Benen continued. “It’s nonsense, of course, but it helps explain why Republican fall for bogus quotes in the first place.”