It's time to Break It Down!
More times than I care to enumerate, I have written about Donald Trump and his propensity to align himself with narratives devoid of truth, facts, and propriety. In shorthand, terms many characterize what he does so frequently, and I suppose you might say, so effectively, as lying. As I’ve noted before, he’s prolific. Bess Levin wrote, in an article that appeared in Vanity Fair April 29, 2019, entitled, “Trump Has Told More Than 10,000 Lies Since Being Inaugurated:”
“In a truly superhuman feat, The Washington Post has tallied all the “falsehoods” that have spewed from Trump’s mouth and fingers since January 20, 2017, to April 27, 2019. Per the Post, that’s a whopping 10,111 in 828 days. And the situation vis-à-vis the president being a pathological liar is getting markedly worse. After telling a mere 5,000 false and misleading statements during his first 601 days in office, the pace and frequency of the lies has accelerated such that he doubled his bullshit in just a third of the time, telling almost 23 lies a day in the seven-month period beginning in late October, during midterm elections.”
I wrote a fairly extensive post (nearly 1400 words) on the subject 5 weeks ago (June 12th), entitled, “It Has Taken Far Too Long: Alas, The Media Is Coming Around!” In that essay, I examined the avalanche of untruthiness that is the phenomenon better known as Donald John Trump. In that post, I cited Paul Farhi’s Washington Post article, “Lies: The News Media is Starting to Describe Trump’s Falsehoods That Way,”in which he provided several recent examples of various media entities finding their (for too long silent) voice, including:
–CNN: “The Mueller report: A catalog of 77 Trump team lies and falsehoods.”
–Minneapolis Star Tribune: “President Trump lies to troops about pay raise.”
–Financial Times: “The real reason Donald Trump lies.”
–Los Angeles Times: “Mueller report exposes all the president’s liars.”
–Chicago Tribune: “Why are Trump’s lies not ruinous to him? Because truth can be in the eye of the beholder.”
–The New Yorker: “It’s True: Trump Is Lying More, and He’s Doing It on Purpose.”
–Foreign Policy: “Does It Matter That Trump Is a Liar?”
Wouldn’t you know it? Just when elements of the media start what was a long, slow process of coming to terms with the Prevaricator-in-Chief, boom goes the dynamite, and the Donald switches gears, and takes on another well-documented persona, that of being the most powerful racist in the world. And yes, there is documentation for that too. There may not be10K examples, but there are certainly enough to make the case. Here are a few salient examples taken from an August 14, 2018 story by Christal Hayes in USA Today:
· He tweeted, “Lebron (sic) James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron (sic) look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike.”
· He tweeted, “Congressman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democratic Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max.”
· Speaking of the Charlottesville incident, he said, “Both sides” were to blame for the violence. This, despite the fact that a woman protesting against the white nationalists was killed when a car rammed into a group marching down the street.
· Of NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem, a constitutionally protected right, he said, “Wouldn’t you just love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son-of-a-bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired.”
· About Judge Gonzalo Curiel, “I have horrible rulings, I have been treated unfairly by this judge. Now this judge is of Mexican heritage, I’m building a wall.” Turns out, Judge Curiel is American. I guest that was a double-bonus, a lie, and racist.
· Speaking of Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries, he said, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries?
· He claimed Obama wasn’t born in America, insisted he sent investigators to Hawaii to prove it, and when he finally had to admit Obama was born in America, he blamed Hillary Clinton for the smear.
· Claimed that Gold Star parent Khizr Khan’s wife did not speak as Mr. Khan assailed Trump, because she was forbidden to do so.
· In his June 2015 Campaign Announcement, Trump lamented Mexico was “Bringing their worst people to the U.S. They’re bring drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.
· About MS-13, he said, “We have people coming into this country, or trying to come in – and we’re stopping a lot of them – but we’re taking people out of the country. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals. And we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before.”
Wow, that’s 10, and I didn’t even cite the Central Park 5. But as Trumpites are fond of arguing about anything that didn’t happen today, that’s so-called “old news.” Fast forward to this past weekend, when President Donald Trump used racist language on Sunday to attack four progressive Democratic Congresswomen, falsely implying they were not American citizens. In fact, all four of them are, three of them born here, and the fourth, naturalized as a teen. In a series of tweets, widely viewed as racist, Trump wrote (typed):
“So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......”
....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....
....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
The four Congresswomen, collectively known as The Squad, include, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, NY, Rashida Tlaib, MI, Ilhan Omar, MN, and Ayanna Pressley, MA. All women of color; AOC, Tlaib, and Pressley were born in in the United States. Omar was born in Somalia, immigrated to the U.S. as a youth, and became a U.S. citizen in 2000 at age 17.
In Trump’s tweet storm, he implied that the four Congresswomen weren't born in America and sarcastically suggested, "they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came." Yet again, racist…and untrue.
Ostensibly, all this started as Trump tried to insinuate himself into a budding feud between The Squad and Speaker Pelosi. Ocasio-Cortez had suggested she and her 3 colleagues were singled out, in part, due to being women of color, and that it was part of a pattern. Immediately the media jumped on the tension and injected the term racism. Trump, never one to miss an opportunity to jab his opponents, first chimed in and dismissed the notion that Pelosi is racist. As you might imagine, this wasn’t perceived as helpful, either by Democrats in general, or by Team Pelosi in particular.
While the level of interference was notable to most political observers, it wasn’t nearly enough for Trump. Anything less than total chaos is so not acceptable. Therefore, on Sunday, the serial tweets ensued. From that point, the imbroglio exploded as if propelled by Star Wars era hyperdrive.
First, Pelosi turned on a dime and came to The Squad’s defense. Trump doubled down on Monday, denying that the comments were racist, and inviting anyone who doesn’t like the country to leave. That’s pretty rich, when you consider how much Trump and the GOP complained about the country when Barack Obama was President. But I digress.
By yesterday evening, after much wrangling, the House of Representatives voted to pass a resolution condemning Trump’s racist comments. The process was delayed by several hours when the GOP attempted to neuter the declaration by striking the part of Speaker Pelosi’s comments, in which she asserted, “Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets. To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people. I urge a unanimous vote.”
At the end of the kerfuffle, and several Party line votes, the provision passed with 240 votes, with 1 Independent, and only 4 Republicans joining the 235 Democrats. Those Republican Representatives, were Will Hurd, TX, Fred Upton, MI, Susan Brooks, IN, and Brian Fitzpatrick, PA. Congressman Justin Amash, who just recently left the GOP to become an Independent, also voted for the resolution.
Before the vote, Trump urged the GOP to remain strong and not join the Dems. Clearly, his influence among his fellow Party members is substantial. In fact, few Republicans in either House have had much to say about Trump’s tweets and comments. Most who did said neither Trump, nor his tweets/comments were racist. Today’s (Trump) tweets should be amazing!
I’m done; holla back!
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