As of April 27, 2019, The
Washington Post recorded 10,011 false or misleading claims made by Trump
during the 828 days he had been president. That is a shade over 12 per day. Of
course, three weeks have passed since then, so we can expect him to have added
another 275 or so to his grand total. Today the Associated Press examined his claims of “treason” by the FBI and
anyone daring to question the legitimacy of his presidency. If anything, if in
fact Trump associates did “work” with individuals tied to the Russian
government in order to grease the path to Trump’s election, then that could be
characterized as “treason.” While the Mueller report could not prove a
conspiracy between Trump associates and the Russians despite showing that many
did have contacts with Russian agents, this was in part because many Trump
associates “in the know” either took the Fifth (which in itself is cause for deep
suspicion), or perjured themselves in their testimony to Mueller’s team. It
doesn’t help Trump that Vladimir Putin has come to his defense by lying about
proven Russian interference in the 2016 election (and beyond) to aid Trump; it
only deepens the suspicions against him.
The AP also noted Trump’s other recent untrue boasts, such
as that about the decrease of prescription drug prices, and about employment
figures that fail to point out the continuing high percentage of unemployed workers
who have simply “dropped out” of the job market, which has not changed since he
has become president. Further, the U.S. GDP that has not grown by “trillions
and trillions of dollars” since he has become president; it has grown by a one
trillion dollars, and he can’t really take credit for even the 2017 numbers. Also
pointed out was Trump’s simplistic notion of trade in a world economy (people
who work paycheck-to-paycheck prefer cheaper products, even if they are
imported goods), and that the modest rises in low-to-low middle income wages has
been due not to his policies but largely by local initiatives, such as Seattle’s
mandatory minimum wage of $15-an-hour, and the fact that it is not “tech” jobs
that are so much in “demand,” but “meritless” jobs that the conceited will not
do, such as in warehouse, production, retail and janitorial services, which are
not disappearing any time soon. Trump also continues to lie about the effect of
tariffs; they are in fact an additional tax that not China pays, but U.S.
importers pay, which they pass on to consumers in higher prices. Their actual
effect on the government coffers is almost too miniscule to notice.
So the question is why do so many Americans buy into Trump’s
lies; if nothing else, we have never seen a president this pathological. Many Trump
supporters are simply into typical conspiracy theories involving “socialists,”
others simply like having their ignorant prejudices and race hatred declared
aloud, and still others are so ideologically fossilized that they are besotted by
Trump’s willingness to “compromise” only with those between the far-right and far-right
extremism. But more troubling to me is that there are some “thinkers” out there
who seem to believe that there is no dissonance between their own beliefs and
what Trump has repeatedly stated and done.
In an extreme example, I had a recent conversation with a
Trump diehard who I assume is a “libertarian” given the illogic of his
interpretation of the motives and policies of Trump and Republicans generally. On
one hand, he believes that Mexico should be just treated like it was an
appendage of the U.S., given the longstanding historical, cultural and labor
interactions between the two countries. He also believes that Mexicans entering
this country—legally or not— to work should be treated just as Puerto Ricans
are, and not be referred to as “immigrants” in any sense at all. I supposed
this theory would sound like “socialist” extremism to most people, but the fact
is that Americans and Mexicans have far more in common culturally and
historically than Americans do with immigrants from Asia and India (why do you
think there are so many Spanish place names?). On the other hand, he
incomprehensibly insists that Trump and the more xenophobic Republicans have
not been engaging in racist rhetoric (every other “Mexican” entering the
country is a “violent criminal,” etc.) and espousing immigration policies that
go to the other extreme. “They” are only trying to bring “common sense” to the
discussion, which some people might suggest is just another way saying racist. But
like most people whose brain functions cannot sense the dissonance between
fantasy and reality, this individual prefers to just shut his mind to any
further conversation.
The reality is that
obstinate Trump supporters, who Republicans are counting on in 2020, seem completely immune
from the effect of Trump’s daily lying, usually either repeated or supplied by the
usual suspects on Fox News. Because of this, I have some real concerns about the possibility of
Trump actually getting re-elected—especially a man who truly fears being
prosecuted for criminal acts if he is not protected by the office. Despite the
fact that Trump’s lies have been meticulously recorded, millions of people
still take as gospel every untrue statement he makes. Does he truly believe
everything he says? It is obvious that he gets much if not most of his “factual”
information from right-wing sources that deliberately “misinterpret” or baldly
misrepresent data, if not tell outright lies based on their “instincts” or “gut,”
which of course is also a Trump characteristic, free from such annoyances like “facts.”
But Trump has always been a “showman,” and thanks to the
training of Roy Cohn—who had been Joe McCarthy’s chief assistant in demonizing
those on the left as “commies”—he learned the art of denying and lying so loudly
that people could become immune from even taking him seriously; he was (and is)
a pathological liar, but so what as long he didn’t “hurt” anyone. In today’s
environment, his white nationalist supporters certainly don’t believe his lies are “hurting”
them—just the people they hate.
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