Deepfake of Washington County, Oregon, Candidate Goes Viral Nationwide

OJP has published a retraction. https://www.oregonjournalismproject.org/editors-note-october...

This story is fake; the flag was in fact upside down: https://x.com/alx/status/2112383598934573506

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://lookaside.fbsbx...

As much as I hate to have to defend Jack Posobiec (aka EndWokeness), saving the "real" screenshot from this article and uploading it to OpenAI's verification tool[0] indicates that it, in fact, was AI-generated. I welcome any correction on this.

[0] https://openai.com/research/verify/

e: Okay, now I feel stupid for even bothering to do that. Look below her name and you'll see the leftovers of the old flag.

edit 2: Retracted. https://www.oregonjournalismproject.org/editors-note-october...

I don't understand why the people manipulated with lies aren't offended at the liars. They are primed to believe the lies, but aren't they mad that someone sought to manipulate them?

This keeps happening because it works. But why does it work? Why isn't there blowback?

Candidate shouldn't have lied here (which seems likely based on the available evidence) and should have just owned it. Flying an upside-down flag is a perfectly patriotic thing to do in 2026, IMO, speaking as a white male, many-generational American. America is very much in distress.

But it is also ridiculous that the people predisposed to the other side (and who only made a big deal out of the original clip in the first place because they are racist misogynists) will hold up this relatively insignificant lie as some sort of an outrage while pulling the lever for the likes of Trump who lies as easily as he breathes.