The following document is lengthy, and I am going to post in sections soon, but for now, this is a rundown of lies vs. facts that should be useful for those who might have originally supported Trump, or even still do…
A MESSAGE — IF YOU THINK TRUMP HAS BEEN GOOD FOR AMERICA, PLEASE CONSIDER THIS
Dr. Common Good
www.dr-common-good.com
Let me start with a blunt truth. Today we as Americans are faced with the most damaging and destructive president in American history. I am telling you, this doesn’t have much to do with being a Republican or Democrat. If you are a Republican, just think. Trump has ignored or just tossed aside key elements of the traditional Republican political platform – he has built up a massive national debt ($24 trillion as of April 2020, and $22 trillion in late 2019, before the effect of COVID-19), unquestionably weakened America’s security and strength in the world (don’t take it from me, take it from our generals), destroyed the long history of Republican support for free trade, and destroyed America’s reputation as the most important guardian of democracy in the world. He exhibits no part of the conservative and Republican value of personal responsibility, blaming anyone and everyone for anything that does not go well. I encourage you to read the statement I have attached to this document, written by a life-long Republican who, among other things, was campaign chair for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.
If you are a Democrat, or a broad-minded person of any party, or just a patriot who values the American experiment, it is clear that Trump has willfully trampled on the rule of law in this country, and the checks and balances built in to the Constitution that is the heart and soul of the United States. He uses the Justice Department and legal system like a dictator, as a tool to get what he wants, constantly interfering in the legal process, threatening witnesses (e.g., Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Michael Cohen proceedings), and firing prosecutors involved in actions against him. He disdains the free press, attempting to legitimize only news outlets that parrot his views and achievements and do not criticize him, like Fox News or One America News. On the rare occasions when Fox News does contradict him or reports something unfavorable, he complains that, just maybe, they are not “his network” any more (since when have American presidents had their own networks?). He has rejected the longstanding commitment of the United States to human rights in the world. He has stoked and inflamed racism and bigotry of all kinds. He has gutted and demoralized government agencies and programs that have been central to the achievement of the American dream and America’s reputation – like the State Department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), even the Department of Agriculture – by getting rid of scientists, experts and career professionals, leaving many positions unfilled, installing subservient political appointees without even relevant experience (witness the recent mass firings at the Voice of America and affiliated U.S. broadcast units under the U.S. Agency for Global Media) or just publicly ignoring and devaluing them. He has ignored and discounted critical global challenges, including climate change and now the COVID-19 pandemic, and completely thrown away America’s leadership role on climate change (which China has now taken over) and in any other area – except when it comes to COVID-19 cases, where, yes, we are Number One in the world. He has severely damaged our historic and longstanding relationships with allies in Europe and around the world that have been the basis of our security and prosperity since World War II and before, insulting our friends and instead choosing to cozy up to dictators and autocrats like no American president of any party has ever done (or should do). As a person, he is a loudmouthed coward, who lies without restraint, acts like a child and spends an extraordinary amount of time calling people names, degrading them, blaming others, and boasting about himself. He is the only president in American history who acts as if what is good for him personally is good for America. In fact, there is no national interest for Trump, only Trump’s interest.
None of this has “made America great.” Trump has, in just three years, turned this country into an embarrassment, a third rate nation that is increasingly shunned by other industrial democracies and is no longer an example to anyone. And, he is clearly responsible for turning the U.S. into a pandemic disaster zone. Unfortunately, all of this has worked to the advantage of countries that are enemies or at least rivals for global reach, including China and Russia. They are loving it – it’s a free win. No wonder they want to see Trump as president. No enemy in modern times could have done more damage.
Now, if you don’t agree with the above description, let’s take a look at some of the facts – and I do mean facts. You can check any of them! I will cover only a selection of facts (and Trump’s lies about them) here, because it is simply impossible to address all of Trump’s malfeasance in one brief document.
Lies, Lies and Boasting
In a sense, everything we cover here is going to be partly about Trump’s incessant lying, because it’s important, when we talk facts, to include the lies that Trump and company have thrown around about those facts. But just for reference, fact-checkers (e.g., Associated Press, Washington Post) generally agree that Trump has stated, and repeated, an estimated 18,000 lies and misleading statements (with some variation depending upon how “lie” and “misleading statement” are defined) since becoming president. Whatever the exact number, that is a record no president or leader in this country has ever come near.
Phrases he uses when lying
It’s useful to point out some of the phrases and tactics that Trump routinely uses when he misleads and lies:
- “They say…”, “people say”…”people are calling me and telling me…” Trump uses these statements all the time as “proof” that something he is saying must be true. Funny, he never says who “these people” are.
- “As you know…””you know this well…” and other such statements. Whenever Trump says that, it is a false way of pretending that whatever he is about to say is “known” by his listeners, or interviewers, and therefore true. He gets away with it because he is the one speaking, he has the floor. In fact, his listeners often know they are in for a lie.
- “Oh, that’s fake news.” One of his favorite phrases, and a favorite tactic of Trump supporters and media. If there is a story about him he doesn’t like, poll numbers he doesn’t like, or any fact out in the public that he doesn’t want people to believe because it contradicts his story, he calls it “fake news,” creating distrust in the American people. He will even call something fake news when there is clear evidence, on paper, on video (straight, undoctored), or anything else, of something he said or did. With 18,000 lies, Trump is the actually the biggest fake news generator this country has ever seen, as this document shows.
Big lies about himself:
Trump is a performer, and he likes to create a myth, a narrative about who he is, that he guards jealously (that is at least one reason he has fought like a rabid dog to keep his taxes from being released):
- “I am a great genius.” Wow, what a grotesque lie. By any measure he is the most ignorant president in American history, without exception. As president of the U.S., you should know at least basic information about the history and function of countries and organizations that are the foundation of the world out there, and about the history and function of your own country. Trump knows none of this, and doesn’t even want to know. He doesn’t even know anything about the U.S. Constitution, which he swore in his oath of office to uphold. (He claimed, for example, that Article II gave him the right to “do whatever he wants”) He clearly has a hard time actually reading speeches that are written for him, and his tweets are full of misspellings, enough to embarrass a 5th grader. He constantly makes statements that are just plain stupid – Windmills (his word for wind-powered generators) cause cancer, coronavirus can be cured by somehow putting UV light or antiviral bleach cleaners into the body, expressing surprise that Finland is a country, and so on. No genius is he.
- “I am a great dealmaker.” Wow, another ridiculous claim. Whatever he claims about his real estate career (most of which is also a well-documented lie, as he was bankrolled by his father’s money and still filed multiple bankruptcies), he knows nothing about how “deal-making” works in the world of global and domestic politics. In order to make deals in the world, you actually need some knowledge about it, which he does not have and shows no interest in gaining, as noted in the previous comment about his “genius.” Let’s see, how does pleading on the phone to the Mexican president to give him something on the wall so he wouldn’t look bad strike you as a big “deal” strategy. How about mooning and fawning over murderous dictator Kim Jong Un as a nuclear deal-making strategy? He achieved nothing other than contempt from Kim Jong Un and concern from the rest of the world. How about begging China’s Xi Jing Ping to give him a break by buying soybeans and wheat from the U.S. to help his re-election? And to help make that happen and curry favor, telling Xi that he supported the Chinese policy of confining a million minority Uighur people in concentration camps? Hmmm, that’s some real deal-making.
Trump’s Big Economy (vs. the Environment)
- Trump constantly claims that has created the best economy in American and even world history. That is some wild claim! Even before the pandemic, this was not true. To be fair, the economy did grow, and unemployment dropped (pre-pandemic). But this did not start with Trump. He inherited a growing economy from Obama, who led the recovery after the 2008 depression. Trump promised over 4% growth, which has not happened. Yet Obama delivered four quarters over 4%, and an average monthly job growth of 224,000 compared to 182,000 under Trump. And apart from that, the economy under Trump did not do as well as it did under presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson or Bill Clinton. The gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 2.3 percent in 2019, slipping from 2.9 percent in 2018 and 2.4 percent in 2017. But in 1997, 1998 and 1999, GDP grew 4.5 percent, 4.5 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively. Yet even that period was not as good as the 1950s and 1960s – when growth rates between 1962 and 1966 ranged from 4.4 percent to 6.6 percent. In postwar 1950 and 1951, growth hit 8.7 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate reached a low of 3.5 percent under Trump, but it dipped as low as 2.5 percent in 1953.
- Trump has leveraged his short-term gains with debt. The Congressional Budget Office announced in 2019 that the national debt (what the US owes to creditors) under Trump had grown to $22 trillion, up about $2 trillion since Trump took office. As of April 2020, the debt reached $24 trillion. The 2019 budget deficit (the annual budget shortfall) was about $750 billion, up 25% over the previous year.
- The big tax cut – OK, under the leadership of House speaker Paul Ryan, a substantial tax cut was enacted in 2017. But what did that really do? The benefits did not go to the “folks who work in the mailrooms and machine shops” as Trump promised in 2017. According to the Tax Policy Center, more than 60% of the tax savings went to people in the top 20% of the income scale, and the corporate tax rate was cut by 40%. Supporters of the tax cut said that it would grow the economy so fast that the tax revenue gained from economic growth would more than make up for the revenue lost due to lower tax rates. Nope. Wrong. Didn’t happen (see budget deficit numbers above). It’s an old “supply-side economics” argument that never seems to pan out. There was a short-term boost in investment, and that, along with higher government spending, gave the economy a brief lift, though not that much (just 2.9% in 2018). According to a Gallup poll, only about 14% of people surveyed thought their taxes actually went down. Yes, the stock market jumped up, but remember, the stock market is not the economy. And much of whatever gains did occur were pulled back by Trump’s crazy trade wars, and now the economy has tanked in part because of Trump’s disastrous pandemic management. .
- The big tariff wars – Trump really likes to make himself look “tough,” doesn’t he? He constantly boasts that the U.S. has taken billions of dollars from China as a result of his tariffs. This is just a load of crap, to be nice. Trump clearly does not know what a tariff is. Tariffs are placed on goods coming in to the U.S., which raises their prices for American buyers. They are not “taken” from China. Let me say that again — American businesses and consumers are the ones who pay, not China (or anyone else he places a tariff on). He also said China promised to buy $50 billion in American agricultural products. Lie again. Never happened.
- The economy and the environment – From the very beginning of his administration, Trump has framed environmental regulations and business/economic growth as oppositional, as a zero-sum game. He famously touted his love for coal during the campaign, and he has stripped or rolled back around 100 environmental protection rules put in place over many years – including clean water regulations implemented during the Obama administration (following lobbying by business groups) which means pesticides and other pollutants can be dumped in many wetland areas without penalty, stripping wildlife protections (e.g., in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act), rolling back automobile fuel efficiency regulations, rolling back pollution control and soot control regulations on power plants, and many others. This has been framed as “freeing up” economic activity. But that counter-positioning of economic activity and environmental responsibility is and always has been “trumped up,” so to speak. The economies of the future are going to be built on green technologies. Other countries know this and are doing very well with it – Northern European countries, even China, to name a few. And giant companies in the U.S. like Tesla are clearly capitalizing on this understanding. Trump and his supporters are backward-looking, and this anti-environmental stance will leave the U.S. trailing in global economic competition. It already has.
- On the previous point, Trump and his supporters still deny or brush off the conclusion that climate change is occurring and that it is human-caused (anthropogenic), despite the fact that 97-98% of all actively publishing climate scientists support this claim, with the tiny 2-3% of others publishing studies that cannot be replicated or contain errors (per a 2010 review in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).
The Big, Tough Immigration President
- Trump’s “immigration policy” has been little more than a series of hateful, spiteful and bigoted jabs, with no attempt at comprehensive immigration reform. It has included the travel ban on immigrants from Muslim countries, the attempt to eliminate DACA (now stopped by a Supreme Court decision), a disastrous southern border policy of separating families and children (and in doing so violating the UN Convention on Rights of the Child), setting up mass detention camps, and slowing down green card applications. And of course, the “wall.”
- Trump’s obsession with a “wall” – This would be a joke, if it weren’t so serious because of his insistence on using billions of dollars of taxpayer money (illegally, according to a recent federal court ruling) to fund something that is useless, ineffective, and nothing more than a reality show stunt. A 2019 video showed climbers scaling Trump’s wall in seconds, and people easily sawing through it. I can tell you from personal experience doing work in the border region that a wall is a mindless “solution” that will do nothing.
- “Mexico will pay for the wall”: Don’t need to say too much about this one. Mexico didn’t, hasn’t, and won’t do such a crazy thing. On top of that, he is not and cannot build a wall – no matter how many times he lies about it. As of March 2020, he had only built about 3 miles of barriers in places where barriers of some kind didn’t already exist. And it’s you – the American taxpayer – who are paying for his silly attempts to build a wall, at the expense of funds that could be spent, say, on medical equipment to help in treating COVID-19 victims.
- Whipping up anti-immigration sentiment – This has been a major focus of Trump’s immigration “policy.” From the start, he called Latino immigrants criminals and gang members: Yet there is no evidence that Latino immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than non-immigrants. For example, a 2016 study published in Social Science Quarterly tested and found no significant link between undocumented immigrants and crime. It is no accident that much of Trump’s immigration policy and statements are shaped by political advisor Stephen Miller, someone known to have disseminated articles from white nationalist publications and, among other things, instigator of many false claims about voter fraud.
Terrible, Terrible Obama
- Trump is clearly obsessed with smearing and rewriting the achievements of President Obama. Why is that? No one has ever seen such a strange obsession from any president, ever. Not only has he pointedly tried to reverse programs instituted under the Obama presidency just because they are Obama programs (by his own words), but he has routinely fired and/or smeared agency professionals and federal judges with the charge that they are Obama appointees, and thus, ipso facto conspiring against him in some way. He even refused, in an appalling show of pettiness, to unveil Obama’s portrait for the White House, a ritual engaged in by all presidents, regardless of party.
- So-called “Obamagate” — This is just silly bullshit. Trump can’t really even describe what this alleged “crime” is, talking about “terrible things that happened,” calling it “treason,” and asserting that the “crime is obvious to everybody” (like who?). He constantly makes reference to spying on his campaign (tapping phone lines at Trump Tower), yet there is no evidence at all for such a thing. Were the FBI and national intelligence agencies concerned about Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. election, and apparent contacts between members of Trump’s campaign and Russia? Yes, absolutely. They should be concerned about this kind of activity, no matter who is running for president. Did they seek to obtain information on a range of contacts that were occurring between Russians/Russian government proxies and Michael Flynn, Carter Page, and others? Yes, as they are supposed to do. There was no advance plan to do this. The investigations were triggered by the occurrence of those contacts, period. Not a crime, but the appropriate counterintelligence functions of those agencies.
- Trump says, over and over again, and every which way, that Obamacare was a “disaster.” Really? Obamacare (actually the Affordable Health Care Act or ACA) prevented insurers from turning away or charging more to those with pre-existing conditions, and over 20 million people gained coverage under Obamacare by 2020, through the ACA exchanges or Medicaid expansion – not a perfect solution, but a historic first attempt at addressing the inequities of America’s health care system. Senior citizens saved money on their Medicare coverage and prescription drugs. Children could stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until they turn 26. Consumers could get free birth control, mammograms and cholesterol tests. They could also get information — the law meantmanyrestaurants have had to post the calorie counts of their menu items. The ACA reduced out-of-pocket prescription costs for seniors (and did not, as some allege, prevent insurance companies from competing to offer lower costs). A 50% discount that Obamacare secured from drug makers on brand name medicines yielded an average savings of $581 in 2011 for seniors with high drug costs. A research team analyzed data from the 2012-2015 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, a national telephone survey, involving 507,055 adults. Results showed that before the ACA, all the points covered in the survey were getting worse. However, by the first quarter of 2015, these negative health trends turned around and began to improve.
- As for Trump and Republican claims that they will keep the pre-existing conditions mandate, the House and Senate GOP plans backed by Trump likely would result in higher costs for people with pre-existing conditions in some states, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
- More recently, Trump has blamed Obama for leaving him with bad COVID-19 tests and a lack of ventilators, among other things. This is of course impossible. There was no COVID-19 under Obama, so he could not have done any such thing. But, as is so common, the ridiculous is asserted as “fact.” And as for ventilators, there were somewhere around 19,000 ventilators in the national stockpile, more than 16,000 of which were ready to use (according to Trump’s own Dept. of Health and Human Services). All of these were put there by the Obama administration, none by Trump. Again, just out-and-out lying.
Foreign Policy – Making the World Respect Us Again?
- Trump actually started out with a few respectable cabinet and military officials on his foreign policy team (regardless of whether or not I agreed with their policies) – particularly Rex Tillerson (State) and General James Mattis (Defense). This caused many to take a “wait and see” attitude towards his foreign policy. But one by one, almost everyone on Trump’s team that had expertise and independence of mind left or was fired. He then proceeded to appoint people with no experience whatsoever to various postings, the prime example being the naming of Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, to handle diplomacy with Mexico, Middle East peace efforts, and as point person with China, in addition to running the effort to address the opioid crisis, veteran’s health, and other tasks on the home front. Kushner has no relevant experience. None. And along with that, Trump’s daughter Ivanka is called a “senior advisor” and has been tasked with several diplomatic efforts. She has no experience either. No one takes these two seriously, and both have used their nepotistic appointments for personal gain (Ivanka obtaining approval for several Chinese trademarks following a lifting of the US ban on Chinese company ZTE for violating US sanctions, and Kushner seeking $100 million investment in his family’s real estate business, not to mention long financial ties between the Saudis and the Trump organization – where, for example, Saudis have bought $40-$50 million in Trump properties).
- Trump’s “America First” foreign policy (a creation of Steve Bannon, in part), has been a disaster, and that is being nice. He pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords, for which the U.S. had played a leading role, pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, leaving the Pacific Rim region more vulnerable to China, has constantly belittled NATO and European allies, and tried to promote the reinstatement of Russia into the G-7, from which they were booted after attacking the Ukraine and annexing Crimea. He has threatened a pullout from the Open Skies Treaty, in place since 1992 and part of a web of treaties intended to reduce the likelihood of serious and unintended military conflict in Europe. He announced a withdrawal of funds for the WHO, a mindless act in the midst of a pandemic since WHO is coordinating the global effort to develop vaccines, among other things, and is and has been the key global organization promoting public health. All of the above and more have led to an increase in both Chinese and Russian influence, and to the gradual distancing of the EU/European allies from the US, a disaster for national security.
- Like many other treaties and agreements, Trump called NAFTA “our country’s worst trade deal.” His administration began talks to renegotiate it in 2017, culminating in the signing of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2019. The two agreements are in actuality not that different, and it might be fair to call the USMCA “NAFTA.2”. Why? The new agreement makes a number of changes to the original NAFTA – many of which were included by the Democratic House – but it is more of an update than a new agreement. For example the USMCA ups the percentage of US car parts that have to be made in one of the three countries, strengthens labor law enforcement (a Democratic addition), increases dairy farmer access to markets, increases protections related to digital data, increases some environmental protections, and eliminates drug company exclusivity provisions. So while many consider it improved, it is hardly a scrapping of the original deal.
- Disastrous Middle East policies: There are so many! He has completely destroyed what legitimacy the U.S. had with respect to supporting the negotiation of an Arab-Israeli peace settlement that would go a long way towards removing a central obstacle to US relationships in the Middle East. He did this by abruptly moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, something no previous president thought wise to do (see note below in brackets), and assigning Jared Kushner to develop a “peace plan,” which, when unveiled in 2019, was a complete insult to any notion of Palestinian sovereignty and the long-held goal of a two-state solution – setting up a Palestinian entity under almost complete Israeli security control and legitimizing much of the Israeli settlement activity (illegal under UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 446) that has turned the West Bank into a Swiss-cheese of control and difficult to conceptualize as a viable Palestinian state. Then of course Trump pulled out of the Iran Nuclear deal, painstakingly negotiated under the Obama Administration and by all counts successful in preventing Iran’s development of nuclear weapons without having to resort to a disastrous war. Then there is the Trump administration’s unquestioned support for Saudi Arabia’s high-casualty bombing of Yemen, which has creating a famine and human rights disaster. This, of course, is in accord with his open support for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS), who, among other things, was clearly involved in the grotesque murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist (working in the U.S.) Jamal Khashoggi, as well as massive royal family purges and the suppression and torture of opponents. All of that, according to Trump, had to be swept under the rug because the Saudis buy so many weapons from the U.S., and likely due to the personal business ties between the Saudis, the Trump organization (e.g., bailouts by Saudis for Trump hotels), and Kushner’s real estate business (Saudi investments). [Why has it long been considered unwise to move the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv? Because Jerusalem is uniquely a holy city for three religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – and the US stamp of approval for a symbol that marks the city as controlled by the state apparatus of one religion is by nature inflammatory.]
- Trump claimed he was “pulling troops out of Syria” in 2019. He did no such thing. Even Fox News called it untrue. He just moved troops from northern parts of Syria to guard oilfields in Eastern Syria. And he did this by doing what Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan wanted him to do in a phone call, shamefully abandoning our longstanding Kurdish allies who did most of the hard work in fighting ISIS, and further destroying U.S. credibility in the Middle East.
- Trump likes to claim that he “defeated ISIS.” Here are the facts. The Obama Administration set up virtually all the structures responsible for fighting the Islamic State that were carried forward under the Trump Administration, and there were more fighters trained and munitions provided under Obama than under Trump. Under Obama, all Iraqi cities (with exception of western half of Mosul) held by ISIS—such as eastern Mosul, Fallujah, Ramadi, Tikrit—were retaken by the end of his term, as was much of northeastern strip of Syria along Turkish border. The basic plan of attack in 2017 was also developed under Obama, though Trump did speed up the pace by changing the rules of engagement.
- Trump and the military – He likes to say that “we’ve rebuilt our military.” Not only is this a vague concept (what does it even mean to “rebuild a military”?), but his administration has done no such thing, other than to increase the military budget, even more than was requested by Congress. He also makes false and exaggerated claims about his efforts for veterans, claiming that, for example, he had done something for vets that “they” were unable to do “for 40 years” – referring to the Veteran’s Choice health care program and accountability measures. Sorry, not true again. The Veteran’s Choice program was put in place in 2014, under Obama (through the Veteran’s Access, Choice and Accountability Act). What Trump did was eliminate the expiration date and continue funding the program. At the same time, he has insulted decorated military veterans (e.g., John McCain) and interfered in the military justice system, granting pardons and reinstating soldiers convicted by the military of war crimes and other violations.
On (Not) Draining the Swamp, and Abusing Power
- The Trump administration is unquestionably the poster child for abuse of power, including his refusal to truly separate his businesses from his role as president, his use of Trump properties to make money from official visits (e.g., by the Saudis and others) and even from our own military, his daily and pervasive lying, hush payments to suppress negative evidence during his campaign, abusive interference in the legal process whenever his interests are involved, the removal of multiple Inspectors General whose duties were to investigate and stop corruption within their agencies, the removal of prosecutors, and underhanded and truly treasonous dealings with multiple countries in which he trades favors for actions that will help his re-election campaign (e.g., in Ukraine, China and elsewhere).
- Constant interference in legal proceedings – Especially since the selection of William Barr as his Attorney General, Trump has routinely abused the power of the Justice Department, interfering in legal proceedings like no other president in history – including even former president Nixon. This has included threatening witnesses and even defendants (e.g., Michael Cohen), dangling pardons as a reward for silence in court, attempts to replace prosecutors and even judges in judicial proceedings against him, and the use of the Justice Department (through his willing Attorney General Barr) to conduct investigations of his political opponents and to undermine investigations against him (by investigating the investigators).
- Twisting, blocking and distorting the Mueller investigation and the Mueller Report, beginning with his refusal to allow administration staff or officials to testify even under subpoena, and amplified by Attorney General Barr’s willful distortion of the report’s conclusions (Mueller himself objected to Barr’s summary), falsely asserting that there was “no collusion, no obstruction.” This is simply a dangerous lie, a deception of the American public, perpetrated by Trump, Barr and other Republicans. If you don’t believe me, try reading the Report yourself, which documents more than 100 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian representatives, and 10 instances of obstruction of justice. The report did not say there was no collusion, it did not exonerate him from obstruction of justice offenses, and it clearly stated that Trump could be criminally liable once out of office. The investigation resulted in 34 indictments and 7 convictions – including of Trump campaign staff. Along with the Trump/Barr deception are all the related lies, including that the Russia probe was a “witch hunt” or a “hoax,” and that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election to help Trump win – a claim even the pro-Trump Republican Senate agreed is not true in its recent Intelligence Committee report. The evidence is stunningly clear that Russia did interfere, and that investigating this would be normal under any president. Every reputable intelligence agency has definitively stated that Russia interfered, and on the side of Trump. There is no “deep state” attempting to push this theory – another lie Trump likes to use (aided and abetted by conspiracy theorists on social media).
- Suppression of voting and false claims of “voter fraud”. Trump and his supporters (including Barr) constantly seek to limit opportunities to vote, including opposition to mail-in balloting and the expansion of polling places – openly acknowledging that fewer voters benefits Republicans. Yet the fraud allegations are not backed by any data, and repeated studies have shown that voter fraud is rare, including with absentee ballots. Richard L. Hasen, an elections expert at the University of California Irvine, wrote (in an essay for the Washington Post) that “there were 491 prosecutions related to absentee ballots in all elections nationwide between 2000 and 2012, out of literally billions of ballots cast.” Not only that, but research published in 2020 found that encouraging widespread voting by mail yielded “a truly negligible effect” on turnout and vote share by party.
- Ignorance regarding the Constitutional role of president (including the system of checks and balances and limits on presidential power): Trump has no idea what role a president plays in the American system of government. He recently stated that Article II of the U.S. Constitution allows him to do “whatever he wants.” What? Read Article II folks. It has several sections, but Section 2 is most relevant to presidential powers. While it states that the president is commander in chief, and can grant pardons and make recess appointments, most presidential powers are limited by the requirement that he have the advice and consent of the Senate and Congressional approval in some cases. He also claimed in an April news conference that he had the unilateral power to order states to lift stay-at-home orders and that he could order businesses to re-open. Dangerous ignorance. He cannot do that. In a way, it could be argued that his presidency should be annulled, since he swore to uphold a Constitution he is not even familiar with. What then, did his oath actually mean?
Racism, Bigotry – Fragmenting the Country
- A constant feature of Trump’s campaign and his ongoing rhetoric has been to inflame racial tensions and stoke the “culture wars.” How does he do this? By tweeting and retweeting racist information and images (even if he doesn’t generate them himself), using overt or coded racist language, using culturally-referenced terms to extol the virtues of white Americans (“our valued heritage”), and blatant threats.
- There are many, many specific examples of racist rhetoric, racist “dog-whistles,” and the retweeting or other dissemination of racist material. These include his infamous quote regarding the white-power (and anti-Semitic) demonstrations in Charlottesville, VA, saying that there were “good people on both sides”; his constant reference to Latino immigrants as “invaders,” “criminals” and “rapists”; openly stating a preference for immigrants from good Northern European countries as opposed to “shithole countries”; his recent threats against Black Lives Matter demonstrators using language practically lifted from George Wallace (“…when the looting starts, the shooting starts”); his reference to Confederate statues as “our heritage”: and even a recent retweet of Trump supporters in golf carts who, along with holding Trump 2020 signs, were yelling “white power.”
- In addition to racist hatemongering, Trump constantly inflames and feeds the culture-war narrative that there is a hostile division between “real Americans” and “Democrat elites” or other “elites” who are framed as wanting to oppress and restrict the rights of real Americans by mandating coronavirus-protective masks, restricting Second Amendment (gun) rights, or suppressing the free exercise of religion, including religious bigotry.
Doing More for Coronavirus than Anyone (Not)?
- The U.S. is currently the world epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with more cases than any country, and as of yet little demonstrated effectiveness at addressing it – in part because, still, astonishingly, there is no national coordinated plan and Trump will not follow even the recommendations of his own CDC and Coronavirus Task Force. Even in late June, as COVID-19 cases shot upwards following a re-opening in many states that were not ready (under CDC guidelines), Trump (and VP Pence) continued to say that the U.S. is bringing COVID-19 under control, the case numbers are miniscule, and – astonishingly – that if we just slowed down testing we wouldn’t have so many cases (from Tulsa OK and Phoenix AZ rallies). He pointedly refuses to wear a mask, and has positioned mask-wearing as a culture-war symbol of subservience to “left-wing Democrats” and elites.
- According to Trump, coronavirus is “like the flu,” it will “go away,” “die during the summer months when it is hot”, the “pandemic is dying out” and many, many other dangerous. NONE of these claims have been true, yet, especially when echoed by Trump-subservient media like Fox News, they have caused many Americans who look to the president to guide them to ignore medical, public health and scientific advice – making the pandemic and its economic impact worse. And his claims about his massive successes in testing are just false. Along with that are some of his many related, ridiculous claims, like “we inherited a broken test from Obama.” Really? How could that be? There was no coronavirus under Obama.
More Outrageous Lies from the Barrel
- Trump’s outrageous claim that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough killed one of his Congressional staff aides in 2001. That is just disgusting. An aide in his office did die, but from heart disease. But there is Trump, saying that “a lot of people suggest” that this was a homicide. There he goes again. Who are those “lot of people”?
- Remember his big public warning that Alabama was going to be a focus of Hurricane Dorian in 2019? That was not true per the forecasts from all relevant weather agencies. Oh, but Trump, so sensitive about being contradicted and looking bad, continued to insist on the Alabama focus, even holding a press conference with an amateur “chart” that had a pretend hurricane path written in black marker as “evidence.” Truly, truly pathetic.
ATTACHMENT 1: STATEMENT BY S. SCHMIDT, LIFELONG REPUBLICAN WHO SERVED IN MULTIPLE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS
“Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don’t say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.”
“When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don’t use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We’ve never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.
“It’s just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he’s the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he’s brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let’s be clear. This isn’t happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you’re the most likely to die from this disease. We’re the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk.”