I’ve been meaning to find a time series of Trump mendacity for the last couple of weeks, and a couple of days ago one just fell into my lap – from WaPo, who Trump reportedly hates anyways.
It’s rather a measure of the stress he’s under, isn’t it? The first year of his term, not so much stress. End of 2018, though, saw the mid-term elections, which exploded in a limited disaster for a President who – at least in his own eyes – saw an economy that had never worked so well before. True, in the Senate the table was tilted towards the Republicans anyways, and a couple of weak Democratic seats were won by the Republicans – but the House saw a large GOP advantage evaporate as voters behavior indicated an evolving consciousness of the ongoing disaster of Trump. As Party leader, Trump was responsible for Party performance – and it didn’t go well.
Skeptical readers may wonder about previous Presidents. WaPo didn’t start this database until partway into the Obama Administration, so there’s no apples-to-apples comparison. Worse, the implication is that they didn’t have a well-organized database until Trump came into office, although I could be wrong. However, there is an article in which WaPo documents the Obama mendacity legacy, stating that they fact-checked 250 statements (without summarizing their findings), and giving their list of the top-10 whoppers.
Yeah, Top 10.
Worse, one is not during his Administration, but during the campaign (whether that’s worse or better is debatable), and another one is actually an intellectual error on the part of the Fact Checkers, which I addressed in one of my more popular posts here when Marc Thiessen made it. While it’s disappointing when anyone lies, it appears to be safe to say that Obama, whether or not he actually aspired to any great heights in the field of lying to the public, has fallen short of the Trump heights in mendacity.
All that said, one has to wonder if Trump is delusional, or if he has a clear strategy when he lies. My guess is that he has a strategy, and it depends on the principal of imperfect information. We are all burdened with imperfect information, whether we’re a professor of some distinction, or someone who’s dabbling far from their domain. It’s inevitable.
So Trump can be confident when he asserts that we were in a historical crime surge back in 2016, some people would believe him – especially those who happened to live in an area that was unfortunately experiencing that surge. Or … pick your topic, from Republicans being the original protectors of citizens with pre-existing health conditions to Mexico paying for the wall through redemptions. Whatever that means.
And how many of us deal with inveterate liars? Virtually none of us – we expect a basic honesty from everyone we deal with. When we run into an inveterate liar, it’s so far outside of our experience, most of which we don’t double-check anyways, it’s easy to get suckered in.
Perhaps the most interesting result from the 2016 Presidential Election was this: Trump lost his home county (New York County), home to Manhattan, 87% to 10%.
Yeah, a 77 point loss.
The Vera Coking house in Atlantic City, from which Donald J. Trump tried to evict Coking via eminent domain so he could build a limousine parking lot (photo by Jack Boucher/Historic American Buildings Survey).
Trump is no doubt well known in Manhattan, as that is where he did his building – and not in the least trusted. For independents who are still undecided, this is an important point in your analysis. Most candidates can count on their home state. When Mondale lost to Reagan, he won Minnesota. I don’t think he won any other state.
Trump couldn’t even come close in his home town.
Trump supporters should consider that.
