There's a new word in the Urban Dictionary: To Rupar.
Which means "to deliberately mislead or mischaracterise a video to show a false picture". Comes from Aaron Rupar, the leftie Vox reporter, famous for putting out the video of Trump saying "There are fine people on both sides", after the Charlottesville troubles back around 2018.
Trump was talking about people on "both sides" of the debate over whether some famous statues of Confederate Generals should be removed from a local park, or let stay in place. He was not talking about the neo-Nazis who were marching that same weekend. Indeed he specifically said "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and White Supremacists, who should be condemned totally".
But Rupar put out a video in which he cut out Trump's clarification (underlined above), making it seem that Trump was in fact talking about the neo-Nazis. So that it came out just as "there are fine people on both sides", one of those sides being the neo-Nazis.
This was very damaging to Trump for years. Biden said that it was for that "very fine people" statement that he went into the presidential race in the first place.
"Rupar" became a word for this sort of deceptive editing of videos.
And now we have another case of Ruparing.
In the wake of the February 28th Trump-Zelensky meeting in the White House, most channels put out only the final few minutes of the talk. Which made it look like Trump and Vance had bushwacked Zelensky. I was caught up in the Rupar myself.
But if you watch the whole video, which is about 50 minutes long, it's a very, very different picture. For the first 40+ minutes the talks in the Oval Office are friendly and cordial. Then it becomes clear that it was Zelensky who goaded first Vance, then Trump. At one point he claimed Trump's comments on destroyed Ukrainian cities were just Putin propaganda, as if the president didn't have other sources of intelligence on what's what in the country.
I've now watched the whole video twice. Once the whole vid, and another time with a body language expert. And here's more from the Blackbelt Barrister, which is specifically on this point I'm making: namely that the early clips misrepresented the way the meeting actually went.
You must have a look at the whole video before buying into any narrative, either the left or the right. It's certainly more complicated that just "Trump and Vance ambushed Zelensky".
Then we see Zelensky visit UK PM Keir Starmer in the UK. Starmer said that the "whole of the British people stands with Ukraine whatever it takes". The whole of the UK parliament is behind you, Starmer assured Zelensky.
But the people don't. Polls show steadily declining support for a "whatever it takes" stand. Most people want a negotiated settlement. That is, the Trump approach. According to both YouGov polls and GBNews polls, 63% to 73% of the British people do NOT support the idea that they stand with Ukraine "whatever it takes".
Grok again:
The December 2024 YouGov poll reveals a clear trend: while support for Ukraine remains, the appetite for a drawn-out conflict is fading across these seven countries. Sweden and Denmark retain the strongest backing for Ukraine’s victory (50% and 40%), while Italy and Spain lead in favoring negotiation (55% and 46%).
The UK, France, and Germany fall in the middle, with growing support for a settlement (38-45%) outpacing the desire for a decisive win (25-36%). This shift suggests that, as of late 2024, Western European publics are increasingly prioritizing peace over victory, a sentiment likely shaped by war fatigue, economic pressures, and battlefield realities.
United Kingdom: 36% backed Ukraine winning outright, down from 50% in January 2024, indicating a significant shift away from prolonged engagement.
