It’s weird. Everything President Donald Trump and his Republican goons are promoting are lies. All a lie; not even a bit true. Immigration, refugees, trade, policing, Medicare, Medicaid, all of it. Trump’s been making up what he sees as happy Republican lies for decades now. I’m assuming his base knows that, too. They’re not stupid people, and (all rumors to the contrary), the Republican base isn’t ignorant. But telling lies doesn’t matter to them.
Trump’s lies don’t matter to him because he’s getting oligarch-level rich. (And there’s that psychopath part, too.) It doesn’t matter to the Republican party because they’re getting the judicial appointments they want. The oddest part, though, is now Trump’s constant, bare-faced lies don’t matter to Trump’s base, either. Hell, they like Trump’s most offensive material the best.
Once you’re fully and happily post-reality, I’m a little lost for reference points. Post-truth is new to me.
First, I have to cover the bigger lies. I’ll try to make this part short. You’ve all heard it already, I assume, Still, let me get it on the page. (You’d think I’d have gotten over the truth by now.)
Immigration first: Trump has no policy other than his racist “no brown people” thing. Like all his ‘positions,’ it’s simple to say: no refugees, no immigrants, and all the scary dark people already here should keep quiet. Shallow as a bumper-sticker. I’m assuming he’ll be trash-talking the fourteenth amendment any day now.
Why? Why hate Mexicans and Central Americans so much? Trump spouts all these imaginary threats. It’s both pathological and weirdly pitiful. Trump suffers from repetitive nightmares, fever dreams filled with brown waves of murdering and raping MS-13 criminals flooding over our borders. (With calves like cantaloupes, I hear.) They’re not humans, they’re just animals, dragging tons of drugs as they crawl across our defenseless southern deserts, sneaking under the skirts of America’s liberty.
Wait. Trump’s worried about America’s virtue? He doesn’t sexualize his nightmares, does he?
Wave at Trump’s dystopian hallucination as it shrieks past, then go back to reality. Thankfully, that’s not a bit true. Start with immigrants who come here to work. Border crossings are up slightly since Trump was elected (see: refugee), but illegal border crossings, in general, have been dropping for more than a decade. Besides, most illegal immigrants don’t cross hot deserts; they enter the US legally and overstay their visas. And more have been leaving than arriving since before Trump rigged his election.
What about Trump’s “Murders and rapists,” “Animals and criminals,” song-and-dance? Yeah, no. Overall, immigrants commit far fewer violent crimes than native-born citizens, and they add much more to the economy than they take. Trump’s just spouting classic racist crap. His sexualization motif fits right in. Trump would probably be ashamed if he knew the argument’s historical roots (all right, probably not), but he doesn’t read, so it’s moot. The (generally conservative) border cities agree that there is no border crisis. It just isn’t a problem. Sure, they see the corruption and crime right across the border, but mayors of the border town all say that the Mexican crime doesn’t cross over. They describe their towns and cities as some of the safest places in America. Maybe it’s just Chamber of Commerce junk, but most of the crime statistics I’ve read don’t show rampant criminality.
Refugees are an entirely different category, even though Trump pretends all brown people are the same. Refugees aren’t just safer than citizens; they’re orders of magnitude safer than average Americans. If you look hard enough, you can find always find exceptions, but you have to struggle. Refugees are fleeing death and destruction, throwing themselves on our mercy. They add tremendously to the economy and our society. As a purportedly Christian nation, refugees have bright, sharp moral arguments in their favor. That’s why Trump saves his worst actions for these women and small children.
Drug smuggling? Trump can’t remember America’s opioid crisis, but he pops a woody talking about marijuana catapults heaving huge bales of drugs over his broad, thick border wall.
(Eww.)
And no. Of the illicit drugs not already Made In America, most come through border checkpoints hidden in shipments. Turms out bales are too heavy to carry on your back. Who knew? Not Steve King.
Trump builds his trade policy on the same frightened-child nonsense. America benefits from open trade with Canada and Mexico, our two largest trading partners. We run either a small surplus or a small deficit, depending on what you include, but all sides are much richer for the trade. (Increased trade usually benefits all sides.) That’s why Republicans, the party of business, are internationalists, spending decades fighting for free trade and lower tariffs.
Trump attacks Canada for tariffs they don’t have and the unfair trade barriers they don’t use, which cause the huge trade deficits that don’t exist. Trump even admits – no, he brags – about how he lied to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the trade numbers. He made it up. Trump’s base delights in the story, and they go on to cheer Trump’s next false trade deficit claim.
Trump launched a global trade war aimed primarily at our European allies in retaliation for, well, nothing, of course. Trump struts about how he won’t back down until the EU reduces their imaginary tariffs. His base cheers him, just as the free-trade internationalist Republicans block every Democratic attempt to restrain Trump even in the smallest ways. Even Jeff Flake couldn’t get a tiny, sensible trade review approved.
Trump’s supporters hear all this, just like everyone. I don’t think they’re uninformed. They know what’s happening. But they don’t care. I see the rallies where Trump gleefully repeats his every last lie. Nothing but smiles and triumphant cheers. As far as I can see, they gleefully support the man they know is lying to them. Why would that be? Maybe Trump tells lies they want to be true? That seems uncharitable, but I don’t see many alternatives.
Trump’s base cheers their leader about his newfound love for Russia, China, and North Korea. Iran needs to get with the new American program. Offer to give him Trump Tower Tehran and a $100M ‘loan.’ and Trump would pick Shia over Sunni in a heartbeat. And I’m sure Trump’s base would cheer our new combination trade detente/religious war.
Medicare? Medicaid? Policing and racial injustice? It’s so weird when the truth is both widely known and yet irrelevant.
Sorry to have gone on about old news. Yes, we know it’s insane, vicious nonsense, but I’m still struck by how Trump manufactured all of it, top to bottom. Exactly none of Trump’s justifications are true. It’s all lies Trump tells to puff himself up as if he was a real leader. And his base supports every elitist, one percenter, anti-Christian twist he spits out. That’s the part that has me puzzled. We know that the people who support Trump are a bit above the median in income and education. They’re not gullible or unusually uninformed. (I think the ‘conservative echo chamber’ arguments are overblown and insulting.) But I’m still left with ‘Why?’
Party Republicans, those big, powerful, manly men of yore, eat out of Trump’s pudgy hand as they grovel entertainingly, lining up to slobber over his rings in return for the most insincere and ethereal praise. Remember when Republicans claimed to be the most masculine party ever? “Virile and hairy, hardy, studly guys — men’s men! — not at all like those silly, girly Democrats!” Really! Hand-to-god, that was the official Republican pitch for decades! Hard to imagine that now, watching them squirm and snivel, competing for the least honor. We have a new phylum of invertebrates.
Look, I’m sure the Reichstag will burn down any day now. Until then, they’ll shove out lots of new distractions. But, while each day churns through new scandals, let’s remember what we already know:
- Puerto Rico is still dark.
- Trump, his family, his cabinet, their deputies, his lawyers and even random hangers-on are all profiting illegally from their ‘public service.’
- Before the election, the entire Trump campaign, including Trump, his kids, his deputies, and his lawyer conspired with Russia, China, and possibly the UAE to damage the US.
- Post-election, Trump, his goons, and the entire Republican party are actively obstructing the FBI and Congressional investigations into obvious criminality and malfeasance in office.
- Russia is attacking our current elections; Trump and his Republicans are blocking any new cyber-defenses.
- Trump and his kleptocrats are selling our clean air and water to corporate polluters, our long-term health to Pharma bros, and our souls to for-profit prisons, all for spare change.
- Trump’s burning our alliances in North America, the EU, Asia and maybe Africa, all because Trump owes Putin interest payments.
- Now Trump is talking about pulling out of NATO because… well, Putin again. (How much vig does Trump owe on those bad loans, anyway?)
None of this matters to that third of America who support Trump unequivocably. It doesn’t matter what he says or does. They’ll reflexively shout ‘fake news,’ even after Mueller explains in detail exactly how Trump sold out the nation, including pictures of Trump’s soul in a jam jar on Putin’s office shelf right next to the pill bottle with Trump’s ‘nads.
So if the truth is gone, what does matter? That’s the question I’m still kicking around. Anyone have a decent explanation why half of America decided that America as the land of the free and the home of the brave is now just a sucker’s game? Wire cages for kids! Rule of Law is so last week! Give me the newest lie.
