I've Never Seen So Many Lies in All My Years Covering US Elections
"To borrow one of Donald Trump’s favorite phrases: the GOP nominee lies “like
nobody’s seen before."
JOHN HARWOOD
SEP 25, 2024
Donald Trump punctuates his carnival barker boasts and smears with
superlative variants of “like nobody’s ever seen before.” As usual, he tells on
himself.
It turns out the phrase both illustrates and describes the fathomless dishonesty
of his attempt to win back the White House.
That Trump presents fiction as fact, flavored by racism, cruelty, and grift, no
longer surprises anyone. His lurid slanders against Haitian immigrants in
Springfield, Ohio, stand out mainly because they have terrorized an entire
community.
“The most vicious, despicable, lie-filled campaign I’ve ever seen,” as
Republican dissident Sarah Longwell put it on CNN last week. I’ve followed
campaigns longer than Sarah and can confirm that no one’s seen anything like
it.
But the lies run deeper than individual false assertions or the dystopian visions
Trump invents about our vibrant country and its world-leading economy. They
infect core GOP messages on subjects from taxes to inflation, from health
insurance to debt.
Well before Trump seized control, Republicans had sealed themselves in a
worldview that doesn’t fit 21st-century Americans or the modern world. It’s a
political cul-de-sac from which deceit offers the only escape.
Republicans champion the grievances and resentments of a shrinking white
Christian minority as the nation grows steadily more diverse. They decry
economic conditions that their policies would plainly worsen.
Hobbled by unpopular, self-defeating impulses, they struggle to fund
government programs their core supporters depend on. They cannot govern
and lie about Democratic opponents who can.
Consider some examples:
Debt
As is typical, Trump and his party campaign against debt and deficits. But their
pre-eminent priority, cutting taxes, requires more federal borrowing.
The last four Republican presidents left office with higher deficits (as a
percentage of GDP) than they inherited; the last four Democrats left – or, in the
case of Biden, is expected to leave – with lower deficits. Trump’s new tax-
cutting proposals would blast giant craters in the budget, endangering the
Social Security and Medicare benefits he claims he’ll protect.
Trump covers those contradictions with two lies: First, he claims that lower
taxes actually increase revenue through economic growth, and second, he says
budget cuts can yield vast savings without touching Social Security and
Medicare. Republican leaders want to cut those popular retirement programs
but fear that represents political suicide.
Inflation
Seizing on voter frustration, Trump claims that Vice President Kamala Harris
“cast the tie-breaking vote that created America’s inflation,” the “worst inflation
we’ve ever had.” Those are another two lies; recent inflation is not our worst
(prices rose faster in the late 1970s and early 1980s), and the American Rescue
Plan Harris put over the top didn’t cause it (pandemic disruptions did,
worldwide; the ARP somewhat exacerbated it here in the US).
Inflation has since started to return to normal levels, but Trump and his running
mate, JD Vance, keep lying about it in plain sight. In Pennsylvania, Vance
complained that a dozen eggs now cost “around $4” even though the national
average is $3.20 – as illustrated by the price sign just behind him offering a
dozen for $2.99.
Moreover, Trump’s signature economic policy – sweeping import tariffs – would
inflate prices again. Trump conceals that inconvenient truth with the lie that
foreign importers, not US consumers, pay tariffs.
Abortion
Republicans have achieved their decades-long goal of overturning the
constitutional right to abortion. Trump sealed it by stacking the Supreme Court
with three anti-abortion justices.
But most voters support abortion rights. Trump tries to cover the problem with
transparently absurd lies, claiming that Democrats sought the same goal (they
didn’t) and that they hold the “radical” view that babies can be executed after
birth (they don’t).
Healthcare
Republicans uniformly opposed the creation of the Affordable Care Act. At
then-President Trump’s behest, they came within one vote of killing it in 2017.
They failed because the ACA had grown too popular, especially its provision
guaranteeing affordable insurance coverage for people with pre-existing
conditions.
So now Trump lies about it, insisting he “saved” the ACA from collapse. Vance
claims their administration would improve it by cutting insurance regulations. In
fact, the regulations he cites are the ones protecting those with pre-existing
conditions.
Crime
Trump and Republicans want to blame Biden-Harris policies for a violent “crime
wave.” But the truth doesn’t support it, so they lie.
Crime spiked during the 2020-2021 pandemic years under both Trump and
Biden; neither president caused it. But now that FBI data show crime rates
falling, Trump claims fraud.
Immigration
With illegal border crossings down lately, tempering the impact of his signature
issue, Trump has amplified his dishonest sensationalism. Beyond the
Springfield pet-eating fantasy, Vance cries “murder” about a fatal car crash
involving a Haitian immigrant driver though the victim’s father, calling it a tragic
accident, beseeched him to stop. Vance calls the Springfield Haitians “illegal”
even though they entered the US legally.
Even worse is the larger story of Trump’s demagogic vow to arrest and deport
immigrants by the millions. Pulling that off – a horrifying prospect on
humanitarian grounds – would aggravate multiple problems he purports to
solve. It would cause labor shortages, which would damage the economy and
worsen inflation, and deprive Social Security and Medicare of tax revenue
needed to finance benefits.
Lies about his legal troubles complete the damning picture. Trump conjures
Biden-directed “lawfare” to explain charges against him and his allies in the
deadly Jan. 6 insurrection.
In fact, the prosecutions resulted from attempts to overturn the country’s free
and fair 2020 election. It was a crime nobody’s ever seen before."
|
|
Thank you.
This is right on the nose.
I had the honor of participating in a voter
registration booth at our local county fair this week.
I volunteered and they offered me a shift. Our county
is a bit of a red island in a blue state, so didn't
expect too much ...but what I saw surprised me.
Just in my 4 hour shift, we had two self-identified
republicans re-register. One as a democrat, the other
as an independent. They both said the same thing.
They'd had enough of Trump and maga and not be voting
for him again as they had in the past. They've seen
enough of that experiment. Two women bought pro-women
rights buttons while their husbands weren't looking.
Another was a young 18 yr old girl who also was re-
registering. Her father helped her register earlier but
insisted she register as a republican. She re-
registered as a democrat while her father was elsewhere
. She also bought a Kamala bumper sticker to put on
his car when he wasn't looking, later LOL.
Ah, God bless teen rebellion.
I also found a "dog lady for Kamala" button :D Can't
wait to wear it to my dog-club meeting this weekend.
My point is, there are many conservatives, even in this
very red area, that have noticed the lies are getting
bigger and wilder and more deluded and scary...scary
enough they are willing to vote for the other side for
an election so they might have a shot at getting their
party back later.
That's what I saw, that's what I experienced, while out
at the fair.
|
|