WND, Your Pro-Trump State Media Outlet

WorldNetDaily's thank-Trump e-card campaign shows just how far Joseph Farah and Co. will sell out and suck up to its favorite politicians. Not that it's actually helping WND's bottom line, though.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 2/7/2018

WND always been among the most highly biased "news" operations, and it became even more so with the advent of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, selling out any moral principles to back a thrice-married adulterer and misogynist just because it wanted to be on the winning side.

WND has sealed its status as pro-Trump state media by creating a new website for sending thank-you cards to Trump. No, really.

The November WND article promoting the campaign's launch lamented that "every day brings new slurs, attacks, 'fake news,' unsubstantiated allegations, threats of impeachment" against Trump -- which, ironically, if you substitute the name of Barack Obama for Trump, is what WND had been dishing out for the previous eight years.

As a good state-media outlet would, WND insisted that Trump had "a staggering, perhaps unprecedented, list of accomplishments for a first year in the White House." Then it was time for a little self-aggrandizement:

It’s all the idea of Joseph Farah, founder of WND.com, the world’s first independent online news service – a unique and innovative opportunity to Americans, and, in fact, the people of the world, to send thanks and encouragement for what the president has accomplished in his first year in office.

There is no cost to participate in this campaign.

“While there are always going to be some disappointments in the imperfect art of politics, the Trump White House has fulfilled dozens of campaign promises, changed the tone of Washington, reversed the headlong plunge into socialism and raised the spirits of Americans like no one since Ronald Reagan in 1981,” said Farah. “Such an occasion should not go unnoticed or overshadowed by the angry and vitriolic response from his disgruntled opposition. It’s time for the president to hear from those who elected him – and those who have come around since Election Day.”

The goal, Farah says, is to get millions of Americans participating in the campaign in a genuine display of sincere thanks and encouragement to Trump and his team for a “breathtaking” record of accomplishment in the face of unprecedented adversity and enraged opposition from Democrat politicians, the entrenched Washington establishment, what Trump calls the “fake news” media and street thugs, some paid and some violent, who have sought to disrupt and subvert the will of the people.

Farah is hoping the campaign will catch on fire with the help of social media activists spreading the word and the promotion of the campaign by alternative media outlets and talk radio.

“I don’t expect much help from the ‘fake news’ cartel,” said Farah. “But it wasn’t the ‘fake news’ cartel that helped elect Donald Trump president. It was the new independent press, including the pioneer in that area, WND.com. Now, Donald Trump needs encouragement to stay the course, turn up the heat, open up the throttle and continue fulfilling campaign promises one by one. That’s what this campaign is all about, in addition to demoralizing and defusing the angry, thuggish opposition led by the Democrats and establishment Washington.

How ironic that Farah is complaining about "fake news" when his website is one of the foremost purveyors of fake news in America.

WND also slipped in this bit of self-promotion:

WND has run other innovative political campaigns in the past, including the famous “Pink Slip” project, which sent 9 million messages to Congress on pink paper threatening members with rejection at the polls in November 2010 if they did not act on their campaign promises. The campaign was so successful, it exhausted supplies of pink paper in North America. Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in that election by picking up a historic 63 seats and another six in the U.S. Senate.

Some credit the “Pink Slip” campaign with the birth of the tea party movement, which followed in its wake.

As we documented, the "pink slip" campaign was a way for WND to cash in on its readers, which paid it a whopping $29.95 to send 535 letters to members of Congress in large boxes with hundreds of other identical letters, which presumably diluted any impact WND hoped to have. And the "some" that credit the campaign "with the birth of the tea party movement" is none other than WND itself; the link on those words goes to a 2014 WND article stating only that "Ultimately the pink slip campaign presaged the tea party movement and one of the biggest voter revolts in American history in 2010" -- not that it was an inspiration.

(Unlike the pink-slip campaign, WND isn't charging anyone for the Trump thank-you cards; apparently the only tangible benefit it gets is the email-harvesting aspect.)

Accompanying the campaign is a lengthy list of what WND claims are Trump's accomplishments since his election. There were 149 of them at the start, with more alleged accomplishments added regularly, so you can be sure there's lots of padding going on. For instance, the very first one on the list -- "After his election, Trump met with top tech leaders, including Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Bill Gates of Microsoft and Jeff Bezos of Amazon. According to Gates, it was 'a good conversation about innovation, how it can help in health, education, the impact of foreign aid and energy, and a wide-ranging conversation about power of innovation'" -- is utterly meaningless as an "accomplishment"; it's just a meeting.

And No. 150 -- "Trump issued a memorandum Nov. 16 determining that the U.S. has enough petroleum coming from countries other than Iran to permit 'a significant reduction in the volume of petroleum and petroleum products' purchased from the mullah-led nation" -- has a factual problem; the memorandum was actually issued on May 17, not Nov. 16. WND hides the fact that the U.S. currently prohibits U.S. purchases of crude oil from Iran, so this memo is utterly meaningless as well; indeed, it appears to be a reiteration of current U.S. policy as required by law than any new action by Trump.

Thank God for Trump? WND wavers

Should WND readers thank God for the election of Donald Trump? WND itself has wavered on the subject.

Blogger Richard Bartholomew noticed that a WND promo for its thank-you campaign originally read "Thank God for Donald Trump's first year" but was later changed to "Give thanks for Donald Trump's first year." The wavering was odd, given that WND has profusely credited divine intervention for Trump's election.

But over the next few days, WND flip-flopped, apparently deciding there wasn't enough God in its thank-you campaign. As a Nov. 26 article explained:

When WND.com founder Joseph Farah created the ThankTrump.us program that allows Americans to send the president an e-card thanking him for his accomplishments, he noticed right away a preference among the six optional messages.

People were more than enthused about a simple statement of faith, “Praying for your continued success! May the Lord bless you and keep you.”

About half of all participants in the program were choosing that message for the president.

So when the booming program faced expansion, the next step was entirely logical.

“I noticed that the most popular choice early on was the one and only card that had a strong spiritual hook,” said Joseph Farah, the inspiration behind the ThankTrump.us campaign. “So, I asked our creative director to help me come up with three more card choices – two of which have a spiritual tone. Now everyone has more choices. Anyone can see how popular each one is, because we keep score publicly for you.”

(Note that WND manages to credit Farah twice in five paragraphs for having created this.)

So, anyway, WND now has a card that reads "Thank God for the Trump miracle," and another that says "You are proof that God answers the prayers of his children."

WND still has not addressed the possibility that God sent Trump as a warning and not a blessing.

Desperate for promotion

WorldNetDaily's state-media campaign to thank Donald Trump for being president (now with more God!) has been stuck in its little fringe-right bubble, so it's also embracing any fellow fringe-right figure who will deign to promote it.

First up were Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, who got praise from WND for doing the bare minimum of tweeting about it. Then Breitbart wrote an article about the campaign, so WND wrote an article about the Breitbart article, giving Breitbart a pass for getting WND's full name wrong (it's not three words, guys) -- perhaps because the article also fed WND's delusions by calling it an "independent news agency."

Ultimately, Farah was reduced to appearing on extremist conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' show to plug this campaign. And, yes, WND did an article on that, too:

“I’m even more thankful than I was then, in the ’80s, when Ronald Reagan was around,” Farah said in an interview this week on “The Alex Jones Show.” “You know, for me, I thought we’d never see his likes again. What we’re seeing right now is even more exciting. Trump is a man of action, he’s a man of courage, he cannot be deterred, he doesn’t care what people say about him.”

Farah marveled at Trump’s many accomplishments in his first 10-plus months in office, which WND is tracking and compiling in a BIG LIST.

“We have not seen anything like this in our lifetimes,” Farah told Jones. “I mean, I was around for Reagan. In fact, Reagan was the guy, the personality, who took me from the far left to being a constitutional, limited government kind of guy. That’s what Reagan did for me, but what Trump is doing in his first year, the accomplishments are greater, they’re more stunning. I’m just amazed at how much he’s doing. He’s taken us completely off defense. He’s on offense all the time.”

[...]

“We’d better thank our lucky stars,” Jones said. “The Supreme Court we’ve got, what’s happened with the economy, all of it – they planned to sew it all up when Hillary got in – the censorship, the control.”

He added: “The answer is to get everybody doing what [WND] and Joseph Farah have done, and that’s what’s going to cause a hydrogen bomb explosion of thankfulness.”

WND didn't give any ideological label to Jones -- perhaps because he's so off the charts as a conspiracy theorist that he makes Farah and WND look reasonable by comparison.

WND even harnessed Ugandan President Yoweni Museveni's praise for Trump in a promo article as evidence that "a word of thanks also has come to Trump from overseas." Needless to say, WND didn't report that Museveni is a corrupt dictator who lifted an age limit on his office so he could stay on the job, jailed his critics and spent $77 of state money on expenses related to his residence.

Farah embarrasses himself

If anything has illustrated WND's abject fealty toward President Trump as part of this campaign, it's the embarrassing lengths to which Farah has gone to to promote it. Farah unsurprisingly used his pre-Thanksgiving column to tout it:

I am so thankful for Donald J. Trump. I thank God daily for the privilege of waking up in a country led by a man who seems driven to take America back from the brink of absolute ruin.

That’s why I launched a week ago the ThankTrump.US campaign, so everyone could express their gratitude to the president in a meaningful way, with personalized digital cards sent his way. Because it’s off to such a great start, I’m extending it through at least February to give Americans the opportunity to hear about it and take part – for free!

Make sure you take a look at the Big List of Trump’s first-year accomplishments, which is updated constantly with new achievements. If that doesn’t inspire you to take part in this project, nothing will.

Farah went biblical to promote it in a Dec. 14 column:

Specifically, I was thinking about that verse in 2 Kings when Elisha said: “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”

Do you believe that?

Then let President Trump and his White House team know we’ve got their backs – with our votes, with our energy, with our feet, with our voices and with our prayers.

[...]

Yes, it looks like Trump’s opposition is overwhelming. His adversaries are powerful, organized, wealthy, determined, and they have devised wicked plots against him. They conspire to remove him from power and demoralize all those responsible for electing him.

But, as Elisha said: “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” You can help deliver that message to President Trump through this campaign and with your fervent prayers that can open the eyes of the spiritually blind.

Am I passionate about this effort? Yes, I am. But I need help spreading the word, delivering this very good news – not only to President Trump, but to the entire nation and the whole world.

Farah enthused further in his Dec. 20 column:

It’s time like this, when I am in a celebratory mood, that I urge everyone who agrees with me to join the ThankTrump.us campaign. Where else do you have the opportunity, in your euphoria about his accomplishments, his tenacity, his spirit, his determination and his courage to express your gratitude publicly with a digital personalized thank-you card?

The answer is nowhere!

Also, spread the news through social media. Counteract the negativism of the left.

ENCOURAGE him! That’s what this campaign is about. Everyone needs encouragement – even Donald Trump.

Even if he doesn’t need it, you owe it to yourself to give it to him because his presidency could well be a once-in-your-lifetime opportunity for a rebirth of American greatness.

On Dec. 25, Farah got mad that Time magazine didn't name Trump as person of the year, going on to bloviate:

So, it’s safe to say Donald J. Trump is not only the person of the year in 2017. He’s a force of nature that will continue to overshadow the competition for years to come.

Maybe he’s the person of the decade.

Maybe he’s the person of the century.

Maybe he’s the person of the millennium.

Person of the year, however, would be a giant, anti-climactic understatement.

And, of course, there was a plug for his thank-Trump campaign, asserting that "When someone like Trump leaves his comfortable existence of wealth and comfort to enter public life with the intent of slaying dragons, I say he needs and deserves encouragement."

In his Dec. 28 column, Farah insisted his campaign has "gone viral":

There’s something wonderful about campaigns like this. Already, it’s clear to me that this simple idea has caught fire. Every day, I hear more and more commentators and pundits suggesting there’s a lot for which to thank our president.

I wish I had millions of dollars to make great ads promoting this idea. I’m glad others do and are taking up my challenge to thank the president both directly and publicly for all he’s done.

Farah's sycophancy reached new levels of embarrassing in his Jan. 31 column on Trump's State of the Union address. You can almost hear the drooling:

OK, was that a great speech or what?

For me, I can only say it was the greatest State of the Union delivered in my lifetime – and I LOVED every one Ronald Reagan gave.

But this was remarkable, a triumph, it brought tears to my eyes, it sent chills down my spine.

Donald Trump has drawn a line in the sand: If you don’t think it’s not too much to expect your fellow Americans to stand silently and respectfully when the national anthem is played, you’re on the right side. And we witnessed nearly half the House chamber in the Capitol on the wrong side.

He gave the speech, but they showed their true colors.

They despise America and everything it stands for.

So much for Trump reaching across the aisle. He showed them up, without even trying.

And that’s what you have to love about this guy. He’s plain spoken and sincere. He’s a true believer in this country.

[...]

I couldn’t write this column last night because my hands were shaking, my eyes were teary and I was too busy tweeting!

This, of course, turned into a more emphatic than usual appeal for readers to partake of WND's thank-Trump campaign:

So, let me ask you this: Are you now ready to THANK HIM for what he has achieved in his first year and for that triumphant speech?

Then make your way over to THANKTRUMP.us and DO IT! Do it now!

You will hate yourself a few years from now if you don’t.

I should know. I’ve been around a long time. I started on the wrong side. Ronald Reagan showed me the way back home. And Trump is doing it again – for a new generation.

I tell you this sincerely. I believe he could be responsible for a political, cultural and social realignment of unprecedented proportions. But we need to get behind him – all of us.

Put aside your minor differences. He’s a phenomenon. He’s a rock star. He’s a natural. This kind of person comes along once in a lifetime at the most, if you’re lucky.

Encourage him. Thank him – at ThankTrump.us.

[...]

I’m not sure there is anything more important for you to do today than to spread the word about the ThankTrump.us campaign. If you can think of something, I’m all ears. If you have a better idea, let me know. In the meantime, this is what we have. So, if you’re as excited as I am, get on board.

Go to ThankTrump.us and express your gratitude.

Send your friends there – everyone you know.

Make it go so viral that the Democrats start a new conspiracy tale about Russian collusion being behind the campaign.

Doesn't Farah have anything better to do -- like, you know, revenue-generating activities that will help pull WND out of its current financial black hole?

Apparently, the only way Farah and WND think they can get any credibility (or revenue) of any kind is to become a "made man" in the form of pro-Trump state media. But WND has always been a joke; this will make it even more so.