US Politics
Hi, All,
I have genuinely high hopes for a productive conversation here on QOTO.
Putting aside the base hatred of things that are different (e.g., I hate President Obama because he has Black Skin; I hate President Trump because he has Orange Skin; I hate President Clinton because he is a Cisgendered horndog; I hate President Trump because he is a Cisgendered horndog...)
Is there a basis for all of the personality bashing other than the Left hates the Right and the Right hates the Left?
Is it naive to advocate for a Political Process that discusses policy affecting those being represented or do we simply invent technology that permits policy to be decided by determining who shouts the loudest?
US Politics
@williamlweaver Some of the hatred of Trump from the left is that he is majestically narcissistic, obscenely greedy, blatantly racist, and a pathological liar.
All politicians certainly spin things in their direction. Some lie to cover up their crimes. Trump lies for no reason about things that nobody else cares about: his inauguration was the biggest ever, the Boy Scouts praised him for his speech, Obama was born in Kenya, Muslims were cheering in New York after 9/11. Some of his lies, notably that he won the popular vote but a bunch of foreigners voted illegally, are fantastically dangerous to our democracy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/
It's hard to have a debate when the other side rejects basic, demonstrable facts and just makes stuff up.
Yes, we on the left think the GOP's policies are monstrous, but Trump as a person takes things to a whole new level. That's why a popular protest sign has been "Don't Normalize This".
US Politics
@peterdrake @williamlweaver (Is this too long? I bounce around a few ideas here didn't want to flood with several posts.. )
• It's sometimes hard to take seriously - the link to wapo referenced the statement that collusion is not a crime, which they listed as a lie or misleading even though they said his statement is true, and they're reading in motives rather than reporting on the facts of what's true or false.
• My concern with "don't normalize this" is that it might mean "don't normalize that it's okay for someone to disagree with my opinion", which I suspect is far more "fantastically dangerous to our democracy" than Trump's stupidly untrue boasts to puff himself up.
• I have a theory around how the president speaks/acts, which is not based around being true or even genuine, but about triggering a certain reaction in others that advances his agenda: positive reactions in his rally-attenders while over the top negative from his perceived opponents (who are often people on his own team), which then adds to the perception that they're irrationally out to get him. When someone is manipulating you this way I think you have to rise above to not play the role the person is planning on you to play, but I haven't seen much of that.
• I'd much rather talk ideas and policies than personalities. Donald makes this very difficult as he's constantly interrupting with his wild statements or personality, which keeps turning the conversation away from the substantive.
US Politics
No, they didn't say his statement is true. They said, "He's playing games with words. Conspiracy to defraud the government is certainly a crime." The crime may not be named "collusion", but what he's accused of is a crime.
Do you disagree with the characterization of Trump as a pathological liar, or at least someone who makes far more patently untrue statements than a typical politician?
I'm sure we'll get to policies eventually, but my issue here is that it's hard to have a debate with someone who has no interest in truth.
US Politics
@peterdrake The president said that collusion is not a crime, and the site didn't say that was a lie. But they file it as a lie.
Instead, they read into motivations rather than whether his words were true or not, and insult what they guess his motives are. I suppose they were saying: He's play games with words - the game goes like this: Say something that's true, BUT something that if you just use different words is NOT true!
Logic like...
1. "Conspiracy to defraud the government" is a crime.
2. Trump didn't say otherwise.
3. BUT if he HAD said otherwise, that would have been a lie.
4. If we edit his true statement about collusion to actually be about conspiracy to defraud the government, then we've created a lie - so even though he didn't say the lie, we mark this as a lie.
I think it's especially important to be honest when you're trying to call someone out for dishonesty. And this just seems dishonest.
I'm not qualified to diagnose someone as pathological nor have I done any kind of comparison between lying liars to see who lies most. You can see my earlier post about what I think about his communication methods being de-coupled from truth.
US Politics
@SecondJon @williamlweaver They didn't say the collusion statement was a "lie", they said it was "false or misleading". Clearly his intent was to say, "What I'm accused of isn't a crime." This is misleading. Do you believe otherwise?
Let's not litigate each one of these. There are plenty where there's no wiggle room -- Trump is just flat out contradicting observable facts. One very direct example:
“I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful.” This is not true (which the White House later admitted) and there's no conceivable way he didn't know this.
PolitiFact does a better job than WaPo at rating degrees of dishonesty/inaccuracy. Here are their "Pants on Fire" statements from Trump:
https://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/byruling/pants-fire/
Trump seems to be constantly fabricating numbers and saying "I never said..." things we have video of him saying.