General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt's True: Trump Is Lying More, and He's Doing It on Purpose, lies are his political "secret sauce"
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/trumps-escalating-war-on-the-truth-is-on-purposeHistory books will likely declare the last few months a turning point in the Trump Presidency, and Kesslers laborious work gives us metrics that confirm what is becoming more and more apparent: the recent wave of misstatements is both a reflection of Trumps increasingly unbound Presidency and a signal attribute of it. The upsurge provides empirical evidence that Trump, in recent months, has felt more confident running his White House as he pleases, keeping his own counsel, and saying and doing what he wants when he wants to. The fact that Trump, while historically unpopular with the American public as a whole, has retained the loyalty of more than eighty per cent of Republicansthe group at which his lies seem to be aimedmeans we are in for much more, as a midterm election approaches that may determine whether Trump is impeached by a newly Democratic Congress. At this point, the falsehoods are as much a part of his political identity as his floppy orange hair and the Make America Great Again slogan. The untruths, Kessler told me, are Trumps political secret sauce.
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other metrics make clear the significant changes in Trumps approach to the Presidency in recent months, as he has become more confident, less willing to tolerate advisers who challenge him, and increasingly obsessed with the threats to his Presidency posed by the ongoing special-counsel investigation. One is the epic turnover rate of Trumps White House staff, which as of June already stood at the unprecedented level of sixty-one per cent among the Presidents top advisers.
dalton99a
(81,566 posts)There have been comparisons between Nixon and Trump since Trump first entered office, but these, too, have escalated in recent months as the President has been shadowed by the threat of the ongoing special-counsel investigation into the electronic break-in of the Democratic National Committee (another eerie Watergate echo) and whether Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. Trumps obsession with the special counsel, Robert Mueller, also comes with metrics: he has called the Mueller probe a witch hunt on Twitter more than twenty-one times a month on average this spring and summer, compared with an average of just three times a month in the previous nine months.
Another commonality between Nixon and Trump is their obsession with the press as an enemy or, in Trumps phrase enemies of the people. Nixon went so far as to order his White House staff to create an actual enemies list, a document with twenty names on it, which was released as part of the Watergate hearings. Reporters like CBSs Daniel Schorr featured prominently on it. When Sanders announced at her press briefing last week that Trump was considering stripping the security clearances of six former senior U.S. officials who have emerged as scathing Trump critics, many made immediate comparisons to Nixons list. An enemies list is ugly, undemocratic, and un-American, Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, responded.
Only three members of Nixons enemies list are still alive. (Ron Dellums, a former member of Congress particularly loathed by Nixon for his anti-war protests and militant civil-rights activism, died on Monday.) I called one of them, Morton Halperin, to ask what he thought of the proliferating Trump-Nixon comparisons. Halperin, who oversaw the writing of the Pentagon Papers and then served on Nixons National Security Council staff before breaking with him over the invasion of Cambodia, sued when he found out that Nixon had secretly taped him and others in the White House. Over the years, he has been one of Nixons proudest and most persistent enemies. So I was surprised when Halperin insisted, strongly, that Nixon wasnt nearly as damaging to the institution of the Presidency as Trump has been. Hes far worse than Nixon, Halperin told me, certainly as a threat to the country.
Kablooie
(18,637 posts)And his followers have responded exactly like cult members are supposed to do.
Cha
(297,503 posts)KT2000
(20,586 posts)Last edited Sat Aug 4, 2018, 04:02 AM - Edit history (1)
someone is coaching him on the use of propaganda.
BigmanPigman
(51,623 posts)Cha
(297,503 posts)BigmanPigman
(51,623 posts)I could use more Fridays like this one.
duforsure
(11,885 posts)BigmanPigman
(51,623 posts)A narcissist and a sociopath, but I forgot the third personality disorder/condition. Sadism. He DOES enjoy harming others. I thought he was just "a sick muther" but "sadist" is more appropriate. I read a good article about the 25th Amend and how the corrupt cabinet would never use it since they are getting rich(er) off of him and they are personally invested in the Russian hacking and are enablers in the conspiracy to attack the elections.
He is worried that the midterms will also be hacked and voting manipulated since the GOP is not doing anything to stop it.
Beartracks
(12,821 posts)... this one paragraph has "lies," "untruths," "misstatements," and "falsehoods" in it. They're all, in fact, "lies," but the other words -- "untruths," "misstatements," and "falsehoods" -- sound like mischief or accidents. They're lies. A little repetition wouldn't hurt:
History books will likely declare the last few months a turning point in the Trump Presidency, and Kesslers laborious work gives us metrics that confirm what is becoming more and more apparent: the recent wave of LIES is both a reflection of Trumps increasingly unbound Presidency and a signal attribute of it. The upsurge provides empirical evidence that Trump, in recent months, has felt more confident running his White House as he pleases, keeping his own counsel, and saying and doing what he wants when he wants to. The fact that Trump, while historically unpopular with the American public as a whole, has retained the loyalty of more than eighty per cent of Republicansthe group at which his lies seem to be aimedmeans we are in for much more, as a midterm election approaches that may determine whether Trump is impeached by a newly Democratic Congress. At this point, the LIES are as much a part of his political identity as his floppy orange hair and the Make America Great Again slogan. The LIES, Kessler told me, are Trumps political secret sauce.
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