Trump’s rise was fueled by ‘total BS’ history
Paul Rosenberg explains that we’re not living in a “post-truth” society but one in which fears can be fueled by bullshit:
Fake history showed up early when Trump first announced his campaign, blaming Mexico for “sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” The clear implication was that crime and illegal immigration were both growing problems, that they’re interrelated, and that politicians had dishonestly minimized them out of active malice toward “real Americans.”
All of that was total BS. Both crime rates and unauthorized immigration are down significantly from their historic high points. Violent crime rates peaked in 1991, and have fallen by roughly half since then. Net “illegal” immigration has fallen to roughly zero, if not less than zero, since the Great Recession began. (In other words, roughly the same number of undocumented immigrants have left the country as have entered.) Trump’s whole rationale turns to dust if the actual history is acknowledged. Logically, at least, there’s no there there.
…
Trump never tried to refute the actual historical record, choosing distraction and misdirection instead. First he made the baseless claim that “You have hundreds of thousands of people [i.e., undocumented immigrants] going to state and federal penitentiaries. That just came out in a Homeland Security report.” (No such report existed.) Then he took advantage of a single tragic but essentially random murder — which statistically proved nothing — to justify his entire fake-history-based argument. Put that together with his constant distraction strategy, faithfully supported by the media, and he got away with it.
By the time the subject came up again, Trump’s fake-history claims had simply become part of the assumed framework of campaign coverage. Anyone who didn’t share Trump’s fake-history sense of panic would then be attacked as “weak” on immigration. Believing fake history made Trump “strong”! And it could make others “strong,” too!
Once that initial false narrative was established, the way was opened for other, similar fake histories to be spun; for example, historically unfounded fears of Muslim refugees.
The whole thing is worth a read.
In fact, here’s more evidence that Trump’s supporters don’t want truth:
On Sunday, a small group of the president’s supporters gathered in front Trump’s marquee New York property to counter a wave of anti-Trump protests nationwide.
One supporter named Felix explained to [NBC’s Morgan] Radford that he felt the need to defend Trump.
“Donald Trump is a great man, he’s not a racist that people think he is,” Felix said. “The guy is a pro-American, meaning that he wants every American to achieve the American goal, whether it is a black person, an Asian person, a white person, a gay person. He does not discriminate.”
“There is not one discrimination thing that he said on the campaign trail that makes Donald Trump a racist person,” the demonstrator continued. “Yes, he made some crazy comments. But I don’t hold him to his words, I hold him to his actions.”
It’s also a problem when opinion writers are objectively pro-lie and anti-fact-checking:
Hollywood Reporter and USA Today columnist Michael Wolff criticized CNN’s Brian Stelter on Sunday’s edition of Reliable Sources, claiming that Stelter’s dogged determination to fact check the unprecedented volume of lies and “alternative facts” poured out each week by the Trump administration.
“I think it is, and I mean this with truly no disrespect, but I think you can border on being sort of quite a ridiculous figure,” Wolff said, according to TheHill.com. “It is not a good look, to repeatedly and self-righteously defend your own self-interest. The media should not be the story every week.”
“Every week in this religious sense, you make it the story,” Wolff continued. “We are not the story.”
Wolff came under fire earlier this year after penning a flattering profile of Stephen K. Bannon, former Breitbart.com CEO and senior aide to Pres. Donald Trump.
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Copyright 2017 Liberaland
By: dave-dr-gonzo
David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.
* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.
18 responses to Trump’s rise was fueled by ‘total BS’ history
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mea_mark February 6th, 2017 at 08:36
taRumpYa/taRumpYed; To out BS someone with your ego and con them into believing your lies. An insult said to people that have little clue as to what is really happening in the world.
I am going to taRumpYa, or You have been taRumpYed.
Budda February 6th, 2017 at 09:28
It’s not so much the BS he spewed as the fools that believe/except the lies. We/the media needs to somehow prevent these idiots from acting on BS!
Mensa Member February 6th, 2017 at 09:55
I agree — conservatives are willing dupes. There will always be con men and wannabe dictators. An informed and reasonable public rejects them.
But, we’ve passed a tipping point. Americans who reject facts they don’t like are winning elections.
Mensa Member February 6th, 2017 at 09:46
It irritates Alan but a whole lot of this can be laid at the feet of Fox News. Their viewers are highly confident but just wrong.
>> How come 53 percent of Republicans think the unemployment rate has risen under Obama?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/20/the-amount-of-misinformation-about-our-economy-is-amazing/?utm_term=.b1866cf4d78e
RandyBastard February 6th, 2017 at 10:26
I remember a time before ultra-right-wing political and economic shenanigans when this country could afford to have an American Dream. Now, I guess, it’s just an American Goal. “Work real hard so that one day maybe you can afford to both eat and see a doctor. It’s the American Goal.”
What’s my American Goal? Not becoming a political prisoner.
Guy Lauten February 6th, 2017 at 11:43
mine is One more round than needed.
Hirightnow February 6th, 2017 at 19:20
I can promise you a chicken in every garage, and pot in every car…
bpollen February 7th, 2017 at 05:50
“…pot in every car…”
I remember high school!
Mike February 6th, 2017 at 12:17
Trump will keep winning until the press decides to grow a pair.
Reuters has the right idea … treat them like the totalitarian clusterfuck they are. You don’t need inside sources if you refuse to enable the spox spinners. They will eventually have to leak to be heard.
The press is who enables the president’s bully pulpit, shutting him down will mean shutting him up.
Hirightnow February 6th, 2017 at 19:18
Exactly; eventually, the child will stop crying “to be heard” when it realizes that mom knows that cry for what it is.
halfwayin February 6th, 2017 at 12:34
Not to mention the help trumpee got when Jill Stein said “Trump Is Less Dangerous Than Clinton; She Will Start Nuclear War With Russia”
The berniebots bought it.
arc99 February 6th, 2017 at 15:22
I voted for Bernie in the California primary. I thought Ms. Stein’s comment was absolute bullsh*t.
I have the same opinion about your post and the absurd generalization.
robert February 6th, 2017 at 16:39
Bernie was thrown under the bus by the dnc long before trump said this
However Bernie taught the trumpster everything he knows about NAFTA
RandyBastard February 8th, 2017 at 01:29
The DNC is a privately held corporation, just like the RNC. To assume they would be welcoming of a non-party member running in their primary is laughable. That’s how power works. When you have it you don’t let anyone else get close to it.
I’m not saying it’s good or right or even moral, but to assume they’d make it fair for all comers is just plain stupid. It would have been a good idea to watch them a little more closely.
robert February 8th, 2017 at 02:26
What’s laughable is the situation DWS has put herself into. I highly doubt Hillary has no use for her going forward and to make it worse trump has chosen to make his Whitehouse in her back yard in Florida I don’t know if it’s fate or if it’s what she deserves Either way she had it coming to her.
As for Bernie He did what any responsible Democrat senator should do, go out and inform the public on the hit jobs that were done on the middle class by the gop.
Oh yea I almost forgot He didn’t get the nomination….
robert February 8th, 2017 at 17:04
Bernie caucuses with the Dems and since the room is split into 2 sections in the Senate That means Bernie sits with the Dems.
But he’s a registered independent in Vermont
Sorry for the lack of description
RandyBastard February 8th, 2017 at 20:12
You seem like a genuine and good person, Robert. No need to apologize. I was only trying to get you (and the rest of the world) to use the word ‘democratic’ when appropriate and not the word ‘democrat’.
I should have just let it be and not bothered a political friend such as yourself. :-)
robert February 9th, 2017 at 16:01
🍺 have a good weekend