Saturday, September 10, 2016

Tsunami of lies: the week In Donald Trump



I don't normally watch MSNBC, and these round-table discussions usually drive me nuts, but I thought this was the best discussion I've heard yet of the problems journalists are having when covering Donald Trump.

They really are facing a "tsunami of lies" from Trump, and a large percentage of the American people simply don't care. What do you do about that?

And on the other side,... emails. Hillary Clinton handled emails the same way previous Secretaries of State had handled them. Careless or not, nothing happened. How can you even compare that with what comes out of Donald Trump's mouth every single day?

Trump praises Vladimir Putin, because he thinks that Putin called him "brilliant." (The word, in Russian, should actually be translated as "flamboyant.") He thinks it's natural that women are being raped in the military. I mean, you can't have men and women working together, right? (Isn't that what Islamic radicals think?)

Trump praises Putin while criticizing America's military leaders. He's long claimed to have a plan to defeat ISIS almost instantaneously,... but it's a secret. Now he says he's going to fire America's generals, get new ones, and then have them create a plan. So what happened to Trump's plan, the best plan ever? Obviously, it's like everything else he says - just bombast, self-praise, and bold-faced lying.

One of these guys, Sam Stein, started to mention the ties that the Trump campaign has with Russia, but that got brushed aside. (Admittedly, there was so much else to talk about.) But why is that not a deal-breaker for the American people? Why is the Russian government's deliberate attempt to help elect Donald Trump (hacking the Democratic Party, pushing pro-Trump messages on social media, etc.) not a deal-breaker?

And it's not just one thing, but a million of them. Any one of them would end a Democrat's campaign immediately, just no question. Any one of them. Can you imagine the howls of outrage if Trump were a Democrat? But since Trump is running as a Republican, that doesn't happen. As Mika Brzezinski asked, how can Republicans live with themselves?

Anyway, as I said, I thought the discussion about how difficult it is for journalists (starting about ten minutes in) was especially interesting. I get frustrated with Trump interviewers and debate moderators - I mean, really disgusted. But I don't suppose that it's easy to pin down a politician who simply refuses to answer their questions.

And it's especially hard when a huge number of Americans don't care that he's lying, don't care that he won't reply to questions, and don't even care about his ties to Russia. (Why doesn't he release his tax returns?)

Yeah, this election is an IQ test for American citizens. If you don't vote for Hillary Clinton, you fail.

2 comments:

jeff725 said...

"Yeah, this election is an IQ test for American citizens. If you don't vote for Hillary Clinton, you fail."

These YouTubes don't give me much confidence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fys3MsKMpms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7mUaKUp8Ho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kznTqrgGV38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1kNULeNpXA

And on and on and on....

Bill Garthright said...

Oh, well, you have to laugh, Jeff. Yes, some people are stupid. Some people are ignorant. And a lot of people get flustered when you stick a microphone in their face.

No matter what, a good 40% of Americans - at a minimum - are going to vote for Donald Trump. Well, 40% of those who bother to vote at all (which is another depressing issue).

A smaller percentage of Americans are going to throw away their votes on third party candidates who are (1) not worth shit and (2) not going to win, anyway (absolutely no chance whatsoever).

But this is going to be a pass/fail test. Luckily, it's graded on a curve. A majority of Americans are going to fail it, many of us by not even being smart enough to show up for the test. But luckily, we're not going to count those people.

So there's still a chance - a good chance, in fact. Note that there will be another IQ test in 2018, and we've got a lot better chance of passing this one than the one coming up in two years time. Is that encouraging?