Donald Trump, Liar-in-Chief

 

Note/disclaimer: I write this as the outcome of the Nov. 3,2020 election is still uncertain.

Donald Trump is a colossal liar. He unceasingly spreads misinformation and disinformation, half-truths and lies. The New York Times counted some 1300 lies from Trump in his public speeches, etc., in his first year in office--that's about three a day.

And, with incredible irony, he attacks anything that is unfavorable to him or critical of him or shows him to be wrong as "fake news"--when he is the fake news.

It seriously threatens our democracy when a president seeks to undermine our news media and the very profession of journalism. Unfortunate--and very concerning to me--is that people--at least his supporters--believe him.

People do not know, have never learned, to be critical or to tell truth from lies.

Many, many years ago, when I was teaching, I used to upbraid my own students for being uncritical. I would say to them, "I could stand up here and say 'Black is white' and it would go in your ears, through  you heads and then down through your arms and onto the paper of your notebooks."

There are courses I have seen to make people better able to tell what is true.

Evidently a big factor is social media. People see deliberate misinformation on social media sites and believe it. Worse, they pass it on to others.

As I hear, some social media sites have begun to put labels--labels carrying a warning--that some posts are known to be false or misleading.

Right now, as votes from the election of two days ago are being counted, he is trying to call these votes--which are simply mail-in ballots that in many states, according to their state laws, could not be counted until the in-person voting was over, fraudulent, trying to make a case that the election is being stolen from him. This is merely our democracy working--working as it should--and he is doing all he can to discredit it.

 Another remarkable event of the still-young new year is the result of the run-off US Senate election in the state of Georgia. Georgia is a Southern state and surely has shown some of the prejudices associated with the South (maybe, to be charitable, I'll add "at times"), yet it has just elected a Jew and an African-American to the Senate (two different gentlemen). I suspect some Southerners of the old sort are shrieking in horror.

 

© 2020.

Trump's Style of Arguing (Logic 101)

It's probably pretty well known by now--it's been going on for a long time--that when he is attacked in any way, Donald Trump fights back, lashes out. He tends to do this in a manner which is childish and illogical: he attacks the person rather than what they said about him. This is worthy only of a school child, and is known as the argumentum ad hominen. That means simply attacking the person rather than his ideas or comments or argument. In logic, it's considered one of the fallacies.

His latest is that he attacked former President Jimmy Carter. Carter questioned Trump's legitimacy as a president because his election may have depended on Russia's interference in the US presidential election in 2016.

Trump's response: Not trying to refute or dispute what Carter said, but saying Carter was "a  terrible president." Now, to try to be logical for just a second, let's suppose Carter was a terrible president--probably at least a somewhat arguable proposition. Even if he was, does that have any bearing on what he said?

As I said, and as anyone knows who has paid attention to things Trump has said for two or three years, he does this over and over again. I wonder how many people are swayed by this brand of terrible logic. As I have said before, I have to think that many people who listen to Trump, who pay attention to what he says, don't have the habits of thinking critically. Trump lies over and over (The New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN have often called attention to some of his lies). Sometimes it's not immediately apparent that something Trump said was a lie--we need to hear from "fact checkers" like the ones just mentioned--but other times even a moment's thought should tell the hearer that what he has said is not likely to be true. For example, some of his ridiculous and ego-serving assertions, like saying he's the greatest president ever. Other times there are photos, videos, and so forth that can tell us that Trump on an earlier occasion said the exact opposite of what he's saying now.

So my assertion is, Trump possibly would not be president if people were critical thinkers more of the time. And the people who continue to support him continue to uncritically take in what he says and take it as truth. It's very scary when he expects his assertions to be accepted and he can discredit the media by calling it "fake news." Manipulating public opinion by discrediting the media is a tactic used by dictators like Hitler.

Copyright © 2019.

Donald Trump and "Fake News"

Whenever Donald Trump is criticized, he lashes out in retaliation. When he is criticized in the media in any way, or caught out in one of his many, many lies, he responds by labeling it "fake news." What is sad is that many Americans evidently believe Trump when he suggests that the media are wrong (or maliciously lying about him, etc.). A recent poll indicates that 46% of Americans believe Trump's accusations of "fake news" coming from the media.

Manipulating or discrediting the news media is nothing new. In the administration of Richard Nixon, Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, was evidently charged with the task or attacking the media. He was part of the program to defuse criticism of Nixon, who famously said "I am not a crook." Ironically, not only was Nixon proved to be a crook (or at least a liar, who wrongly denied his involvement in the infamous Watergate scandal), but Agnew was also a crook, who had to resign the vice presidency amidst evidence that he accepted bribes when he was governor of Maryland.

And Franklin Roosevelt, reportedly, was masterful in manipulating the media.

I submit that when the media is wrong, it usually is because they were fed incorrect information by the White House or the Pentagon. This became apparent during the Vietnam War, when the public was misled, many times, because the media were lied to by the government.

A free press is vital to a democracy, and it's important that citizens be able to trust the media. It does not help that cause when the President systematically attempts to discredit them with his accusations of "fake news." I think the public should be more inclined to believe the media than Mr. Trump.

It's getting off the subject, but mentioning Spiro Agnew and the Nixon administration suggests this thought to me: When there are crooks in a government (as Agnew in the Nixon Administration), should the President be guilty by association? That proved to be the case with Agnew and Nixon. Now, with scandals in the Trump administration--several of his nominees for government positions withdrawing because of adverse news, and at least five of Trump's appointees being accused of taking trips on private and luxury flights, thus incurring unnecessary expense to taxpayers--we need to ask ourselves whether this casts any pall on Trump himself. Will we believe him when he tells us, "I am not a crook," as Nixon did?

Copyright © 2017.