To reiterate: Trump repeats what he can't prove
By Eugene Robinson / The Washington Post
President Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president was an impeachable abuse of power.
I repeat: President Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president was an impeachable abuse of power.
Once again, President Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president was an impeachable abuse of power.
No apologies for the redundancy. Trump is trying to gaslight Americans by claiming, over and over again, that the smoking-gun evidence against him was actually a “perfect” phone call. He said it 12 times in brief Oval Office remarks Wednesday as Finnish President Sauli Niinisto quietly looked on, and four more times at their joint press conference that poor Niinisto had to endure as Trump went off the rails. He has said it repeatedly on Twitter, often in ALL CAPS. Since the rough transcript of the call was released last week, he’s said it virtually whenever he’s been within yelling distance of a microphone.
The most dishonest president we’ve ever had wants you to believe him, not your lying eyes.
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which victims are led to doubt the evidence of their senses and the soundness of their reason. The term was coined in the 1930s, deriving from the title of a British play, but the practice is as old as human history. Trump apparently fancies himself a master of it.
He understands that repetition is one of the keys to making people believe something that is patently untrue. That’s what he does with the derisive nicknames he gives to those he sees as standing in his way. He did it with “Crooked Hillary” Clinton, despite the complete absence of evidence that she had committed any crime. He does it with the “fake news” label he stamps on any story he doesn’t like. By saying something over and over, he implants the message.
Trump is trying to do the same thing now in a desperate — and probably hopeless — attempt to avoid going down in history as just the third U.S. president to be impeached. When the phone call is brought up, he doesn’t want you to think “abuse of power” or “extortion” or “high crimes and misdemeanors.” He wants you to think “perfect.”
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/robinson-to-reiterate-trump-repeats-what-he-cant-prove/
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