Originally Posted by nightfighter
Respect and honesty are hard to come by when discussing Trump.
After having witnessed many years of constant and deliberate obfuscation by the majority of politicians of all stripes, which has been obviously accepted as a matter of course, a 24/7 campaign mode of the typical politician, I'm surprised at the hyper reaction to Trump's "lies." Maybe it's because he isn't a slick fabricator, but a rather crude one.
I can see how it would be offensive to the most of us who are used to the polished prevaricators that are so apt at making baloney look like filet mignon. We are given a cover that allows us not to notice untruths when they are presented so plausibly, and backed by slanted statistics and renowned, "respected," so-called experts and commentators. Never mind that the show is usually along party lines. Because, after all, it gives our conscience the necessary comfort required to give a nod to, be duly inspired, and to wholeheartedly support what, at worst, could only be little "stretches" or minor fibs that do no harm when they are so eloquently stated and accepted as true by those higher, brighter, and more in the know than we.
I for one, am very tired of being lied to. Can he think I/we are that dumb not to see through his lies/twisting the truth to suit his agenda?
Sadly, you can replace the "he" and the "his" with the name of most of our Presidents. Even some of the greatest, and most admired. And their lies have been far more destructive and deadly than Trump's reputed lies. We have fought wars, extended a depression, all but destroyed the Constitution, created stagnant even failing economies, because of the most adroitly conjured lies. Millions of lives have been lost, people impoverished, impervious class structures created, as a result of the most brilliant sounding agendas and speeches that basically amounted to or rested on lies.
Yet to this day, we are mesmerized by the past speeches and supposedly brilliant, humane, and compassionate sounding agendas that cost us so much in blood and treasure, and which so greatly expanded the power of government to impose such grief and disruption. We are still a sucker for the big beautiful lie.
I can see how we would hate someone who would throw into disarray our esteemed notion of decent politics with its respectable lies. Someone who doesn't have the courtesy, the class, to allow us the serenity of being persuaded by reasonable, credible, comforting untruths that we all can agree upon and feel comfortable with.
Yet . . . so far, this nasty, brutish, crassly lying ignoramus who has to constantly tell us what he meant because we are just too intellectually superior to understand his imbecilic stream of conscious blathering much of which we perceive (or portray) as lies . . . so far he has not led us into horrid wars, has bolstered the economy, has appointed judges who are more likely to be constitutionalists . . . so far, despite his lack of phony eloquence, been at least tolerably competent.
China is going to pay for the tariffs he imposes.... Really? Americans will pay for the tariffs when they purchase those items off the shelves at Walmart...
Governments can temporarily increase revenues, but eventually most everyone loses because of tariffs. That should be the rational outcome of a tariff war--the realization that tariffs should be eliminated.
The way it is now, China has been allowed to essentially rape everyone it deals with. We have lost trillions in trade deficit, technology transfers, and debt to China. China's one belt one road policy, while purporting to help third world countries, actually puts those countries (such as in Africa and Asia and South America) into unpayable debt and then accepts payment in taking their valuable resources and establishing manufacturing plants there employing Chinese workers rather than native ones, and demanding space for their sole use in creating facilities such as airports and railroads and outposts that benefit their strategic interests.
Short of war, how would you stop what is China's rise to being the preeminent world power at the expense and subjugation of the rest of us? Wouldn't stopping the unequal transfer of our wealth and technology to it be a solid beginning?
As for his losses, he even tweeted that it was considered "sport" to show a tax loss... Yeah, that is really someone I would circle the wagons for..... Not.
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