One of the most entertaining and helpful aspects of Elon Musk’s X is the community notes feature, which allows community members to “fact-check” incorrect or out-of-context tweets and make the correct information highly visible, thus somewhat limiting the spread of propaganda and bad information on the platform. Such was the case when a woke professor at Case Western Reserve University tried taking down Trump and instead got TKO’d by community notes.
It all began with Trump pointing out in a town hall with Fox News Channel that Russia has a history of being a serious military power, as shown by its being the power that turned the tide against Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars, and its sacrifice in defeating Hitler’s war machine. He said, “Russia, what did they do? They defeated Hitler, they defeated Napoleon. Yeah, they’re a war machine.”
Professor Roman Sheremeta, an economist and professor at Case Western Reserve University, took issue with that point and tried attacking Trump on X over the claim. Professor Sheremeta said, “According to Trump, russia defeated Hitler?! The ignorance and stupidity of this man has no bound.”
But really it was the ignorance of Professor Sheremeta that knew no bound. While it is true that the USSR did not defeat the Nazis on its own, with the other Allies providing material aid, bombing German cities, and eventually invading North Africa, Italy, and France before driving into Western Germany, the USSR bore the brunt of the Nazi war effort, suffering the majority of the casualties and causing the vast majority of Germany’s losses.
Such is what Community Notes provided in its “added context” blurb, saying, “A combined Allied effort was required to defeat the Nazis, including materiel support through the lend lease act. However, Soviet forces killed more German soldiers than their Western counterparts, accounting for 76 percent of Germany’s military dead.”
But the professor didn’t take his loss and stay quiet till it all blew over. Instead, he tried to rebut Community Notes with a lengthy thread, writing a lengthy thread attempting to defend his position. Beginning it, he wrote, “My post about Trump’s ignorant and stupid comment that “russia defeated Hitler” went viral. One thing that surprised me is how many brainwashed people still believe in this myth. No, it was not russia who defeated Hitler.”
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That first thread post got community noted as well, with the blurb providing, “All allied nations, including Soviet Russia, contributed to defeating Hitler during WWII. The thread’s author acknowledges Soviet Russia’s involvement but changes their narrative to claim that the Soviets were not solely responsible for a victory over Hitler.”
Continuing, his third post in the thread claimed, “Second, just because the Soviet Union had the most causalities, doesn’t mean that they won the war. The reason Soviets had such large casualties is because they used people as cannon folder. Something russia is still doing today.” But that got community noted too. “Putting aside casualties, the Red army forces killed more German soldiers than their Western counterparts, accounting for 76% of Germany’s military dead,” the community notes said.
Predictably, many members of the X community jumped in to poke fun at the professor as he got community noted again and again. “Hahahaha… just take the L and go on with your life dude,” one wrote. “Dude stop embarrassing your self. Just take the L or better yet go and join Ukrainian fighting at the front line,” another commenter added.
Watch the Trump comment that sparked the hilarious interaction here: