Lies, Damned Lies and Trump Rallies
By: Paul Krugman
BIDEN 2020
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
But we've crossed some kind of threshold in the past few weeks. It's not so much that Trump is lying more as that the lies have become qualitatively different — even more blatant, and increasingly untethered to any plausible political strategy.
Back in the day, Trump lies tended to be those like his repeated claims that he was about to unroll a health care plan that would be far better and cheaper than Obamacare, while protecting pre-existing conditions.
Those of us following the issue closely knew that there was no such plan, indeed that there couldn't be given the logic of health insurance; we also knew that he had made the same promise many times, but never delivered.
But ordinary voters aren't experts in health policy and might not have remembered all those broken promises, so there was at least a chance that some people would be fooled.
In a way, Trump's claims to be the victim of a vast "deep state" conspiracy were similar. They were obvious nonsense to people familiar with how the government actually works. But many voters aren't experts in civics, and the conspiracy theorizing — like his claims that all negative reports are "fake news" — helped shield him from awkward facts.
But Trump's recent lies have been different.
On Tuesday the White House science office went beyond Trump's now-standard claims that we're "rounding the corner" on the coronavirus and declared that one of the administration's major achievements was "ending the Covid-19 pandemic."
Who was that supposed to convince, when almost everyone is aware not only that the pandemic continues, but that coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are surging? All it did was make Trump look even more out of touch.
Wait, it gets worse. In last week's debate, Trump declared that New York is a "ghost town." Eight million people can see with their naked eyes that it isn't.
On Monday, campaigning in Pennsylvania, Trump repeatedly claimed that thanks to the state's Democratic governor, "You can't go to church." Thousands of churchgoing Pennsylvanians know that this simply isn't true.
On Wednesday, campaigning in Arizona, Trump went on a rant about California, where "you have a special mask. You cannot under any circumstances take it off. You have to eat through the mask. Right, right, Charlie? It's a very complex mechanism." As 39 million California residents can tell you, nothing remotely like that exists.
Again, who is this supposed to convince? It's hard to see any political upside to such ludicrous confabulations, which demand that people reject their own direct experience. All they do — I hate to say this, but it's obvious — is raise questions about the president's stability.
So what's going on? Trump wouldn't be the first politician to lash out wildly in the face of electoral defeat. "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore." Remember, also, that Roy Moore, defeated in Alabama's 2017 special Senate election, never conceded.
In fact, almost everyone expects the mother of all temper tantrums, quite possibly including calls for violence, if Trump does, in fact, lose next week. To some extent he may just be getting an early start.
But there's also, I'd argue, something deeper going on. What Trump has been revealing, more clearly than ever before, is that he has a totalitarian mind-set.
After those bizarre claims about California masks, I reread George Orwell's classic essay "Looking Back on the Spanish War." Observing Spain's fascists and their fellow travelers — including many in the British press! — Orwell worried that "the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world." He feared a future in which, if the Leader "says that two and two are five — well, two and two are five."
The point is that for Trump and many of his supporters, that future has already arrived. Does he believe that there's any truth behind his bizarre claims that Californians are being forced to eat through complicated masks? That's a bad question, because he doesn't accept that there is such a thing as objective truth. There are things he wants to believe, and so he does; there are other things he doesn't want to believe, so he doesn't.
What's scary about all this isn't just the possibility that Trump may yet win — or steal — a second term. It's the fact that almost his entire party, and tens of millions of voters, seem perfectly willing to follow him into the abyss.
Indeed, current Republican strategy is almost entirely based on trying to scare voters about bad things that aren't happening — like a vast wave of anarchist violence sweeping America's cities — while not noticing bad things that really are happening, like the pandemic and climate change.
This strategy may or may not work; this year it probably won't. But either way, it will poison America's political life for many years to come.
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The few decent people that I see still defending their votes for Trump are down to plain old greed. They are afraid Democrats will raise their taxes. Period! Nothing else matters to them...
Are they very rich? If not, they have little to fear.
They have farms or small businesses...
They're not the target for increasing taxes.
If Mr. Biden gets the nod, did he not say he was going to roll back Mr. Trump's tax cuts? If you remember, everyone benefitted from those so it would stand to reason that everyone's taxes would go up.
Everyone benefitted????? I am getting approx 35 dollars more per paycheck. That's about 70 bucks a month. Doesn't even pay for a carton of cigarettes
Which makes you part of everyone. And DAMN! $70 doesn't cover a carton? Where do you live and WTH do you smoke.........oh, and it's $70 more than you had prior to.
that is not the point.
70 extra bucks a month doesn't do diddly squat. It doesn't make a car payment. It doesn't cover rent or a mortgage. It certainly won't buy a week's worth of groceries for a family of 4. Yeah...it can pay the water bill, or fill the tank a couple of times, but that's piddly shit. Wanna give me a tax break? Make it meaningful like covering a car payment meaningful
p.s. Cigarettes are about that amount everywhere. Taxes.
Cool. Paypal me 840 bucks.
bugger off
But it could be the difference in stepping up from the car you presently drive. Kia to a Honda.
But it could be the difference between hot dogs or steak.
And please, it is still more than you had before. No matter how you spend it.
But it's not as much as the fat corporate cats got
Since it's diddly squat, why don't you donate $840 to the charity of your choice right now? Takes two seconds to do online. That was you can help someone and can proudly claim you didn't take Trump's tax cut for the last year. Since it's diddly squat and won't matter to you, what's the problem?
bugger off
Yeah, people are all talk until it's time to put their money where their mouth is. Then suddenly it's not diddly squat.
You don't know me, Sean, so stop pretending that you do. You don't know what I give to charities and you never will because it is NYOB
On the bottom of many news articles there are small surveys that usually lead to more click bait.
One question the other day clearly illustrated the reality divide.
The question was to grade The Donald's Health Care Plan on a scale from A to F.
Exactly 50% of the respondents gave DJT an F
Exactly 50% of the respondents gave DJT an A
I saw something similar on the News in Dallas and people actually think That Katie McInerny actually gave the Trump
Health Care Act to Leslie Stahl on 60 minutes.
Ummm... did anyone bother to ask what, precisely, is the Trump Health Care Act?
It seems to be on the same availability schedule as the President's tax returns.
It's obvious that he just declares things to be a certain way and a disturbing part of the population
just believes him with no proof.
Scary.
And the cons blame libs for ruining public education, lol.
SMH
Trumps plan is to throw us back to the mercy of the big insurance companies and throw millions of Americans to the wolves because it is good for business, the banks and insurance companies...
I'm sure that's something he'd like... but I haven't seen it written. Or even tweeted...
I observed some conservatives in Oklahoma complaining about the ACA. Every of the complaints they were making were because Oklahoma has refused to participate in the Medicaid expansion and has not complied with any of the other mandates of Obamacare. All of the sad sad stories they were telling about their poor friends and family members who are now doing without care or coverage would not even be a problem in NY or California. They were all Trump voters...
That's Biden all right
Good one Greg! What a comeback! You really turned that one around with a little "No, you are" response!... /s
I guess it's no wonder that the followers of the inept petulant child in the white house would resort to grade school retorts.
Ignorance is a real problem. They probably are "informed" by Fox News.
Trump Killed the Pax Americana
There are, I suppose, some people who still imagine that if and when Donald Trump leaves office we’ll see a rebirth of civility and cooperation in U.S. politics. They are, of course, hopelessly naïve. America in the 2020s will remain a deeply polarized nation, rife with crazy conspiracy theories and, quite possibly, plagued by right-wing terrorism.
But that won’t be Trump’s legacy. The truth is that we were already well down that road before he came along. And on the other side, if the Democrats win big, I expect to see many of Trump’s substantive policies reversed, and then some. Environmental protection and the social safety net will probably end up substantially stronger, taxes on the rich substantially higher, than they were under Barack Obama.
Trump’s lasting legacy, I suspect, will come in international affairs. For almost 70 years America played a special role in the world, one that no nation had ever played before. We’ve now lost that role, and I don’t see how we can ever get it back.
You see, American dominance represented a new form of superpower hegemony.
Our government’s behavior was by no means saintly; we did some terrible things, supporting dictators and undermining democracies from Iran to Chile. And sometimes it seemed as if one of our main goals was to make the world safe for multinational corporations.
But we weren’t a crude exploiter, pillaging other countries for our own gain. The Pax Americana arguably dated from the enactment of the Marshall Plan in 1948; that is, from the moment when a conquering nation chose to help its defeated foes rebuild rather than demanding that they pay tribute.
And we were a country that kept its word.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
To take the area I know best, the United States took the lead in creating a rules-based system for international trade. The rules were designed to fit American ideas about how the world should work, placing limits on the ability of governments to intervene in markets. But once the rules were in place, we followed them ourselves. When the World Trade Organization ruled against the United States, as it did for example in the case of George W. Bush’s steel tariffs , the U.S. government accepted that judgment.
We also stood by our allies. We might have trade or other disputes with Germany or South Korea, but nobody considered the possibility that America would stand aside if either country was invaded.
Trump changed all that.
What, for example, is the point of a rules-based trading system when the system’s creator and erstwhile guardian imposes tariffs based on transparently bad-faith arguments — such as the claim that imports of aluminum from Canada (!) threaten national security ?
How useful is America as an ally when the president suggests that he might not defend European nations because, in his judgment, they don’t spend enough on NATO?
Is America still the leader of the free world when top officials seem friendlier to nations like Hungary , where democracy has effectively collapsed — or even to murderous autocracies like Saudi Arabia — than to longstanding democratic allies?
Now, if Trump is defeated, a Biden administration will probably do its best to restore America’s traditional role in the world. We’ll start following trade rules; we’ll rejoin the Paris climate accord and rescind plans to withdraw from the World Health Organization. We’ll assure our allies that we have their backs, and rebuild alliances with other democracies.
But even with the best will in the world, this egg can’t be unscrambled. No matter how good a global citizen America becomes in the next few years, everyone will remember that we’re a country that elected someone like Donald Trump, and could do it again. It will take decades if not generations to regain the lost trust.
The effects may, at first, be subtle. Other countries probably won’t rush to confront a Biden administration. There might even be a sort of global honeymoon, as the world breathes a sigh of relief.
But the loss of trust in America will gradually have a corrosive effect. A trade expert once said to me that the great danger, if America turns protectionist, wouldn’t be retaliation, it would be emulation: If we ignore the rules, other countries will follow our example. The same will be true on other fronts. There will be more economic and military bullying of small countries by their larger neighbors. There will be more blatant election-rigging in nominally democratic nations.
In other words, even if Trump goes, the world will become a more dangerous, less fair place than it was, because everyone will wonder and worry whether the United States has become the kind of country where such things can happen again.