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Tim Allen ‘Trump 2020 or America Is Dead’ Commentary Claim Tim Allen shared pearls of wisdom about Trump 2020, Chelsea Clinton, Maxine Waters, and the putative death of America should the sitting president not be re-elected. Rating Misattributed Like this fact check? Reporting In late August and early September 2019, a number of Facebook users shared pearls of wisdom attributed to actor Tim Allen; topics discussed included United States President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, the death of America as we know it, former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California), and fighting evil. The first iteration of the missive we were able to find credited to Tim Allen appeared on August 29 2019 ( archived here ), in the public Facebook group Trump 2020! It read: Tim Allen is credited with writing this. From :Tim Allen Here are some interesting points to think about prior to 2020, especially to my friends on the fence, like moderate Democrats, Libertarians and Independents and the never Trump Republicans and those thinking of walking away from the Democratic party. Women are upset at Trump’s naughty words — they also bought 80 million copies of 50 Shades of Gray. Not one feminist has defended Sarah Sanders. It seems women’s rights only matter if those women are liberal. No Border Walls. No voter ID laws. Did you figure it out yet? But wait... there’s more. Chelsea Clinton got out of college and got a job at NBC that paid $900,000 per year. Her mom flies around the country speaking out about white privilege. And just like that, they went from being against foreign interference in our elections to allowing non-citizens to vote in our elections. President Trump’s wall costs less than the Obamacare website. Let that sink in, America. We are one election away from open borders, socialism, gun confiscation, and full-term abortion nationally. We are fighting evil. They sent more troops and armament to arrest Roger Stone than they sent to defend Benghazi. 60 years ago, Venezuela was 4th on the world economic freedom index. Today, they are 179th and their citizens are dying of starvation. In only 10 years, Venezuela was destroyed by democratic socialism. Russia donated $0.00 to the Trump campaign. Russia donated $145,600,000 to the Clinton Foundation. But Trump was the one investigated! Nancy Pelosi invited illegal aliens to the State of the Union. President Trump Invited victims of illegal aliens to the State of the Union. Let that sink in. A socialist is basically a communist who doesn’t have the power to take everything from their citizens at gunpoint ... Yet! How do you walk 3000 miles across Mexico without food or support and show up at our border 100 pounds overweight and with a cellphone? Alexandria Ocasio Cortez wants to ban cars, ban planes, give out universal income and thinks socialism works. She calls Donald Trump crazy. Bill Clinton paid $850,000 to Paula Jones To get her to go away. I don’t remember the FBI raiding his lawyer’s office. I wake up every day and I am grateful that Hillary Clinton is not the president of the United States of America. The same media that told me Hillary Clinton had a 95% chance of winning now tells me Trump’s approval ratings are low. The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.— Margaret Thatcher Maxine Waters opposes voter ID laws; She thinks that they are racist. You need to have a photo ID to attend her town hall meetings. Trump — They’re not after me. They’re after you. I’m just in their way. Read that again. Again copy and paste. From there, a number of sharers appeared to follow the directive in the post’s final line: copy and paste. By copying and pasting rather than sharing, iterations of the post would fan out across users, accruing a handful of shares unique to that post. We were unable to locate an iteration attributed to Tim Allen published prior to August 29 2019. Posts often featured a unique title of sorts, occasionally formatted to suggest Allen sent the message as an email: TIM ALLEN – ON TRUMP Florida is where wokes go to die... Please enable JavaScript Florida is where wokes go to die PUTTING IT OUT THERE. Tim Allen is credited with writing this. Interesting 🤔🤔🤔 Tim Allen is credited with writing this. From :Tim Allen Let this sink in. Wake up America! Tim Allen is credited with writing this. Whatever your feelings for Trump, these are some interesting points that Tim Allen makes. Put your hatred aside and think about these observations. Allen maintained a verified Twitter account, but no references to the pearls of wisdom message appeared on it. It is not uncommon for email or social media forwards to languish in virtual obscurity until such point they’re misattributed to a specific celebrity, which then gives those forwards a new life — Morgan Freeman is one common author of many dubiously attributed writings, and George Carlin is another . Allen is well-liked for his work on the Toy Story franchise (as Buzz Lightyear), as well as for the 1990s-era sitcom Home Improvement . He has also gone on record to express mild conservative viewpoints, context that provides a veneer of believability to social media sharers: The star of Last Man Standing, which returns on Fox after [2017]’s cancellation by ABC, will have another opportunity to play Mike Baxter, a conservative character in a scripted TV environment where liberals are far more commonplace. In Man’s first, six-season incarnation, We were sticking it to progressives — not Democrats. The really noisy part of the Democratic Party, just like the really noisy part of the Republican Party, is easy pickings. We were doing that constantly. ... Some fans theorized that Man was canceled for its politics, but [executive producer Kevin] Abbott says it had more to do with money, because ABC didn’t own the show. (Fox does.) Mike’s fiscal conservatism will be apparent this season when he handles business regulations and environmental studies, especially when dealing with his company’s People’s Republic of California store, a Communist allusion Allen makes to the People’s Republic of China. A 2018 article about Allen’s relationship to the character he played on Last Man Standing delved into the actor’s positions versus the character’s: Allen, who was born in Colorado and grew up in Michigan, is not a fan of what he calls the liberal bubble of Hollywood and agrees with some of Mike’s opinions. I love that he constantly jabs at California. Even my liberal buddies go, ‘Did we just get another tax here?' The actor is also a conservative, but he separates himself from Mike. Tim Allen is not Mike Baxter. If you want Tim Allen’s opinion, come see me in Vegas, he says of his stand-up act. I’m much much more anarchist-thinking because I’m a comedian. I take shots at everybody, but it’s literally to make you laugh. At the same time the article excerpted above was published (September 2018), Allen addressed questions about his view of Trump head-on in an Entertainment Weekly interview. In the exchanges below, Allen’s responses to an interviewer is highlighted in bold: Despite a lot of assumptions about you online, you haven’t, from what I’ve read, actually ever endorsed Trump. You actually endorsed Kasich right? Yeah, I endorsed Kasich. Politically I’m kind of an anarchist if you see my stand-up. I’m for responsible government that actually does what we pay them to do. I’ve worked different jobs and I’ve had a colorful past and I pay a lot in taxes. I wish we got more for our money. Whatever political party is for more responsible use of our money — that’s all I meant. In Los Angeles, I’m concerned about the 26,000 homeless people and I do the best I can. I’m concerned about keeping my roads and stuff clean in North Hollywood. Generally, the government is no help and people have to do that themselves. Kasich said that in a speech — that the government can’t do stuff that you won’t do yourself. Jump in! Do whatever it takes to get people engaged — not putting on a hoodie and screaming in the streets — but actually figure out how to help North Hollywood or Encino or wherever you live to get better. My political party is that I’ve never liked taxes, period, so whatever that means ... I don’t like paying people who never seem to do what I would do with my money. I always thought it would be funny if I had a little menu on my tax returns where I could tell them where my money would go[.] [...] But you’re assumed to be a Trump supporter, and you did attend his inauguration. So I guess what I’m wondering is ... it’s been a year and a half, after all we’ve seen, as a self-described fiscal conservative’ in Hollywood whose TV show dabbles in political humor: Are you a Trump fan, at this point, or not? You know ... it’s a very loaded question. I’ve met [Trump] at the charity event years ago, and that certainly doesn’t fit with the man who tweets. I’ve met a lot of people in private whose public persona is a bit off. My perception is let’s see what he gets done. Let’s stop banging on the pilot’s door and trying to pull the guy out of his seat while he’s still flying. You might not like how he’s flying the plane but let’s let him land it. Do I like him or agree with him? ... I don’t know. Somebody got this NAFTA thing done. How did that happen? It’s like a [sleight] of hand with this dude. There’s this smoke and smelly food but over here he just fixed a pothole. The theater of this is fascinating. He doesn’t do it very attractively but you don’t even realize the economy is doing better. Is it? There’s so much drama. Maybe it took this type of guy to get stuff done because it was so stuck in the mud. I’m just watching the theater of it and trying to keep my personal opinions out of it. What difference does it make whether I like him? Allen confirmed that in the 2016 primary, he endorsed Trump challenger John Kasich. Allen went on to express lukewarm feelings for Trump, ultimately concluding that his fans ought not be invested in whether or not he liked the president. Overall, Allen expressed the position that the Trump he’d met was unlike the man portrayed in the news. Given that Allen’s feelings on Trump were openly ambivalent and ambiguous at best (and his social media did not feature the pearls of wisdom commentary), it seems unlikely he was the writer of the circulating post. Another compelling datapoint indicated Allen was not the screed’s original author. The message was first credited to Allen on August 29 2019. Five days earlier, on August 24, the same message was shared to the Facebook page of a different celebrity — Ted Nugent. While most of the message was intact, the introduction was different: If you can come up with crazier more illogical dangerous corrupt criminal abuse of power please let me know. The Democrats are the enemies of mankind. Trump 2020 or America is dead. Share this with everyone you possibly can. Maybe there is hope for a good America. Pearls of wisdom Life is not a fairy tale. If you lose your shoe at midnight, you’re drunk. Crucially, the message was copied and pasted without attribution and shared by a Facebook user the following day, August 25 2019. Incidentally, that user was named Tim Allen — but he was clearly not the actor Tim Allen. Nugent’s message and the version attributed to Tim Allen converged at the next line: If women are upset at Trump’s naughty words, who in the hell bought 80 million copies of ‘50 Shades of Gray’? That comment was shared to Twitter by actor Kevin Sorbo in June 2019 in a larger series of tweets (which were not unlike the Facebook Tim Allen forward): If women are upset at Trump’s naughty words, who in the hell bought 80 million copies of 50 Shades of Gray? — Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) June 16, 2019 The next eight passages were also tweeted by Sorbo that same month: Jim Comey answered I don’t know, I don’t recall, and I don’t remember 236 times while under oath. But Remembered enough to write a book ..... — Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) June 16, 2019 Chelsea Clinton got out of college and got a job with NBC that paid $900,000 per year. Her mom flies around the country speaking out about white privilege. — Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) July 15, 2019 Socialism: An idea that is so good, it has to be mandatory! — Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) June 18, 2019 Bernie Sanders walks into a bar and yells, Free drinks for everyone! Cheers all around! Then Bernie says, Who's buying? #BernieSanders #realDonaldTrump — Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) June 17, 2019 And just like that they went from being against foreign interference in our elections to allowing non-citizens to vote in our elections. — Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) June 30, 2019 Subsequent one-liners appeared on the internet months or years prior, occasionally in Facebook posts or on meme sites. From the and just like that tweet above, much of the missive appeared to have been copied verbatim from a separate June 2019 Twitter thread by @Brn2Wander1: https://twitter.com/Brn2Wander1/status/1140365719760199685 https://twitter.com/Brn2Wander1/status/1140365722792726531 https://twitter.com/Brn2Wander1/status/1140365758226194435 Next up were July 2019 tweets, again copied word for word into the missive posted by Nugent and later attributed to Tim Allen: Nancy Pelosi invited illegal aliens to the State of the Union. President Trump Invited victims of illegal aliens to the State of the Union. Let that sink in. — Barbara Espinosa (@1Barbara1) July 12, 2019 A socialist is basically a communist who doesn’t have the power to take everything from their citizens at gunpoint ... Yet! — Matty Ritch (@matty8704) July 5, 2019 And then a December 2018 tweet and an old blogosphere aphorism about socialism, paraphrased from Margaret Thatcher: Tell me...How do you walk 3,000 miles through rugged Mexico, without food or support and show up at the border 100 lb overweight with iPhones?🤦🏼♂️ I call #BS — Randall (@4RANDALL1) December 9, 2018 Margaret Thatcher famously observed that the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money. @Ocasio2018 hasn’t grasped that yet, writes @rogerkimball https://t.co/nSSUrKUQpb — Spectator USA (@SpectatorUSA) July 26, 2018 Other versions of the commentary were shared by a Twitter user in July 2019 , and copied by another Twitter user in August . Also in August 2019, a version was shared to 4Chan’s /pol/ . The forward’s Fifty Shades of Grey quip was lifted from an October 2016 Twitter meme. When the subsequently-attributed-to Tim Allen pearls of wisdom/Trump 2020 message was shared by Ted Nugent on August 24 2019, roughly a thousand social media users also shared it. Although Nugent didn’t disclaim authorship, he clearly did not write the commentary itself. Neither did Tim Allen write it, although a different Tim Allen shared it early on. In sum, the post was composed from tweets and similar brief one-line comments shared around the internet, a large number of which were tweeted by Kevin Sorbo in June 2019. The message in the Tim Allen form began circulating as a Twitter thread no later than July 2019, after which point it was shared by Nugent and falsely attributed to Allen. Posted in Disinformation , Fact Checks Tagged alexandria ocasio-cortez , bernie sanders , email forwards , let that sink in , misattributed , pearls of wisdom , socialism , ted nugent , tim allen , trump 2020 , viral facebook posts
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