President Donald Trump’s threat to bring the “fire and fury” of the United States down onto the increasingly belligerent North Korean regime has sparked fears that the situation could escalate into war.
As the media analyzes his actions and words, perpetually unhinged liberal commentator Keith Olbermann stated on Thursday that Trump’s remarks came from a video game.
“Oh for eff’s sake Trump got his ‘Fire and Fury’ crap from Bannon who got it from a video game,” declared Olbermann with complete certainty. He regurgitated this non-fact from Politico’s Playbook podcast, which pointed out the overlap between the phrase “fire and fury” and a quest from World of Warcraft, a popular online RPG with swords and goblins.
The disgraced former MSNBC host operates a series called “The Resistance,” dedicated to ranting about Donald Trump for GQ. Presumably, observations like this one earn him part of his paycheck. It was retweeted thousands of times by his supporters.
Oh for eff’s sake Trump got this “Fire and fury” crap from Bannon who got it from a video game (h/t @politico) pic.twitter.com/ZoaTlWwxdV
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) August 10, 2017
The Politico podcast references newly surfaced information from a book about White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who had ties to the video game when he joined a Chinese startup called Internet Gaming Entertainment as its vice chairman.
Bannon spent six years with IGE, also known as Affinity Media in the USA and its subsidiaries, which at the time included the ZAM Network in the United States, which is known for the top World of Warcraft site Wowhead.
In the book “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency,” author Joshua Green claims that Bannon got his idea to harness gamers as a voting bloc in support of Trump after they hurt IGE by complaining about its practice of helping gamers cheat by selling them in-game gold for real world cash.
In fact, many WoW questlines and missions are tied to popular sayings and jokes. To imply that “fire and fury” is original content Trump then used due to Bannon is audacious; it was a saying long before it even made its way into the game.
It’s grasping for straws at best, but at worst it promotes a false narrative. Somehow, content put into the game in 2014, over four years after Bannon cut ties from IGE — which isn’t even affiliated with Blizzard — is the inspiration behind Trump’s loose cannon of a tweet.
It’s yet another attempt to sensationalize both Trump and gaming, a medium which has been under attack for quite some time by mainstream media.
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.