Will Trump's "war on facts" eventually catch up with him?

[spidermike007]

It would appear to many of us that Trump is utterly desperate to control the narrative regardless of the facts, and regardless of where the economy is. Many economists warned that there will be consequences for his reckless and indecisive tariffs, and now that they're coming home to roost he just can't seem to wrap his mind around the actual reality his chaos has caused, and possible failure of his policies. 

 

Mr. Trump’s war on facts reached new heights on Friday when he angrily fired the Labor Department official in charge of compiling statistics on employment in America because he did not like the latest jobs report showing that the economy isn’t doing as well as he claims it is. Mr. Trump declared that her numbers were “phony.” His proof? It was “my opinion.” And the story he told supposedly proving she was politically biased? It had no basis in fact itself.

 

Both Democrats and Republicans criticized the move, including Mr. Trump’s labor statistics chief in his first term, William W. Beach, who wrote on social media that it was “totally groundless” and “sets a dangerous precedent.”

 

Mr. Trump has never been especially wedded to facts, routinely making up his own numbers, repeating falsehoods and conspiracy theories even after they are debunked and denigrating the very concept of independent fact-checking. But his efforts since reclaiming the White House to make the rest of government adopt his versions of the truth have gone further than in his first term and increasingly remind scholars of the way authoritarian leaders in other countries have sought to control information.

 

“Democracy can’t realistically exist without reliable epistemic infrastructure,” said Michael Patrick Lynch, author of the recently published “On Truth in Politics” and a professor at the University of Connecticut.

“Anti-democratic, authoritarian leaders know this,” he said. “That is why they will seize every opportunity to control sources of information. 

 

His fast-and-loose approach to numbers and facts finally caught up with him last year when he was found liable for fraud in a civil case in which a judge found that he used his annual financial statements to defraud lenders and ordered him to pay what has now exceeded $500 million with interest. Mr. Trump has appealed the ruling.

 

Mr. Trump and his allies assailed the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for projecting that his tax and spending legislation would add trillions of dollars to the national debt and offered his own numbers instead.

 

“I predict we will do 3, 4, or even 5 times the amount they purposefully ‘allotted’ to us,” he said, referring to growth expected to be stimulated by tax cuts, which he insisted would “cost us no money.” Mr. Trump called the budget office “Democrat inspired and ‘controlled,’” even though it is nonpartisan and Republicans have majorities in both chambers of Congress.

 

“It’s a post-factual world that Trump is looking for, and he’s got these sycophants working for him that don’t challenge him on facts,” said Barbara Comstock, a former Republican congresswoman from Virginia.

But firing the messenger, she said, will not make the economy any better. “The reality is the economy is worse, and he can’t keep saying it’s better,” she said. “Joe Biden learned that; people still experience the experience they have, no matter how much” you tell them otherwise.

 

Partial excerpts from a NY Times article by Peter Baker. 

[jts-khorat]

The USA has a big economy and a system with many checks and balances.

 

The economy is already for decades in the process of failing (debt load). Eroding all checks and balances takes time.

 

But when the system fails, it will be sudden, catastrophic and likely unfixable by political means (a bit like the USSR, only worse, as a more complex system).

 

Will this all catch up with Trump personally? As much as one hopes, not all bad people get their deserved comeuppance, he might simply be too old and frail to get caught out in time.

[Hawaiian]

6 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

It would appear to many of us that Trump is utterly desperate to control the narrative regardless of the facts, and regardless of where the economy is. Many economists warned that there will be consequences for his reckless and indecisive tariffs, and now that they're coming home to roost he just can't seem to wrap his mind around the actual reality his chaos has caused, and possible failure of his policies. 

 

Mr. Trump’s war on facts reached new heights on Friday when he angrily fired the Labor Department official in charge of compiling statistics on employment in America because he did not like the latest jobs report showing that the economy isn’t doing as well as he claims it is. Mr. Trump declared that her numbers were “phony.” His proof? It was “my opinion.” And the story he told supposedly proving she was politically biased? It had no basis in fact itself.

 

Both Democrats and Republicans criticized the move, including Mr. Trump’s labor statistics chief in his first term, William W. Beach, who wrote on social media that it was “totally groundless” and “sets a dangerous precedent.”

 

Mr. Trump has never been especially wedded to facts, routinely making up his own numbers, repeating falsehoods and conspiracy theories even after they are debunked and denigrating the very concept of independent fact-checking. But his efforts since reclaiming the White House to make the rest of government adopt his versions of the truth have gone further than in his first term and increasingly remind scholars of the way authoritarian leaders in other countries have sought to control information.

 

“Democracy can’t realistically exist without reliable epistemic infrastructure,” said Michael Patrick Lynch, author of the recently published “On Truth in Politics” and a professor at the University of Connecticut.

“Anti-democratic, authoritarian leaders know this,” he said. “That is why they will seize every opportunity to control sources of information. 

 

His fast-and-loose approach to numbers and facts finally caught up with him last year when he was found liable for fraud in a civil case in which a judge found that he used his annual financial statements to defraud lenders and ordered him to pay what has now exceeded $500 million with interest. Mr. Trump has appealed the ruling.

 

Mr. Trump and his allies assailed the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for projecting that his tax and spending legislation would add trillions of dollars to the national debt and offered his own numbers instead.

 

“I predict we will do 3, 4, or even 5 times the amount they purposefully ‘allotted’ to us,” he said, referring to growth expected to be stimulated by tax cuts, which he insisted would “cost us no money.” Mr. Trump called the budget office “Democrat inspired and ‘controlled,’” even though it is nonpartisan and Republicans have majorities in both chambers of Congress.

 

“It’s a post-factual world that Trump is looking for, and he’s got these sycophants working for him that don’t challenge him on facts,” said Barbara Comstock, a former Republican congresswoman from Virginia.

But firing the messenger, she said, will not make the economy any better. “The reality is the economy is worse, and he can’t keep saying it’s better,” she said. “Joe Biden learned that; people still experience the experience they have, no matter how much” you tell them otherwise.

 

Partial excerpts from a NY Times article by Peter Baker. 

I find it unbelievable how many Americans are not interested in the truth and fall for Trump's "manufactured" statistics and blatant lies.  Firing someone only satisfies the gullible who will defend Trump as he leads them over the cliff.

[WayWokeWhiteGuy]

1 minute ago, Yagoda said:

Dont worry, the walls are closing in on him, No one is above the law

Unfortunately, not with the current GOPs lock on the courts. 
 

Trump now controls virtually every aspect of all three branches of government, as well as the press and now the universities are falling to him as well. 
 

 

[Dan747]

Nothing here but some anti Trump Bashers!

[save the frogs]

18 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Many economists warned that there will be consequences for his reckless and indecisive tariffs

 

Many people are desperate to earn a living, so they will print just about anything to get clicks, to get views, to sell newspapers, to sell books.

 

One very popular way to make $$$ in this day and age is to print negative news about Trump, because 150 million people (at least) hate him. It's a guaranteed way to get clicks.

 

Because DRAMA is good for business. 

 

If Trump says black, you say white. And off you go for clicks and $$$. Just contradict everything he does. 

 

Meanwhile, no one really understands tariffs or how they affect the economy because no one has a PhD in economics.

 

 

[EVENKEEL]

42 minutes ago, Yagoda said:

Dont worry, the walls are closing in on him, No one is above the law

Heard that one for many years. Very popular for a good while.

[WayWokeWhiteGuy]

5 minutes ago, EVENKEEL said:

Heard that one for many years. Very popular for a good while.

Facts never go out of style 

[save the frogs]

18 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

It would appear to many of us that Trump is utterly desperate

 

Many reporters are desperados. 

Many reporters are a bunch of nobodies trying to make a name for themselves.

And the easiest way to make a name for yourself is to try to take down the king. 

 

Most reporting is noise. 

 

 

[EVENKEEL]

15 minutes ago, WayWokeWhiteGuy said:

Facts never go out of style 

What fact?

[spidermike007]

7 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

 

Many reporters are desperados. 

Many reporters are a bunch of nobodies trying to make a name for themselves.

And the easiest way to make a name for yourself is to try to take down the king. 

 

Most reporting is noise. 

 

 

And denial of facts and lies are just noise. Distractions. Distortions. Moral decay. Pathetic defense of the indefensible. 

[FolkGuitar]

What Trump is doing today is minor league compared with the cascading results his actions will have in the next 6 months.
It will not be pretty, and it will appear to happen suddenly.

The MAGAs will stand around scratching their heads, wondering how it could have happened, while the rest of the world, rather than scratching, will just be shaking their heads, wondering how Americans could have been so blind.
 

 

[dinsdale]

Interesting. The Russis, Russia, Russia collusion was a fact and one fully embraced by the MSM and fully consumed by the sheeple. Now it's come out that it was a manufactured fact and the collusion that occured occured in the Whitehouse, the FBI and the CIA.

[JAG]

37 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

Meanwhile, no one really understands tariffs or how they affect the economy because no one has a PhD in economics.

Least of all Mr Trump.

 

It is of course possible to read explanations  of and opinions on how tarrifs will affect the economy written by suitably qualified people. It is also possible to dismiss those as "lies spewed by haters"!

[dinsdale]

13 minutes ago, JAG said:

Least of all Mr Trump.

 

It is of course possible to read explanations  of and opinions on how tarrifs will affect the economy written by suitably qualified people. It is also possible to dismiss those as "lies spewed by haters"!

So far the "suitably qualified people" have been wrong. Core inflation still low and the stock market at record highs. 

[pomchop]

So can't wait to see the next report after trump puts a lackey into reporting numbers....zero doubt that job growth will be at all time high, inflation will drop 1000-1500%  and the entire business community that depends on no bs stats to make hiring firing expansion type decisions have no clue how to proceed.

 

And maga cheers.

[JAG]

7 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

So far the "suitably qualified people" have been wrong. Core inflation still low and the stock market at record highs. 

Dont forget that medicine prices are soon to be reduced by 1500% (!).

 

The man with a complete grasp of numbers told us himself, live, on TV!

[dinsdale]

Facts. Legacy media. Totally unbiased and factual. 

[Lacessit]

Chernobyl happened because RBMK reactors were built on a structure of lies. Gorbachev himself claimed it led to the fall of the Soviet Union.

 

I wonder what catastrophe will cause the fall of the American empire. My betting is on an economic lie which is no longer sustainable.

 

 

[Wingate]

You CAN fool some of the people all of the time. Those people are MAGAs.

 

I fully expect one of his sycophants or idolators to nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping the Rwanda slaughter in 1994, as Trump claimed he did (in his whackadoodle Scottish presser last week). If Trump says it, it's Gospel to the most captured members of his Cult of the Absurd.

 

Look at what the White House released yesterday, no doubt partly in reaction to the 90% revision in the May-June jobs numbers, which show an economy in decline. They announced Trump shot a gross score of 69 on the golf course, and given his ludicrously-claimed handicap of 2, that would mean he shot a 71. The statement the WH issued was:

 

"Winning on and off the golf course"

 

That statement was also likely prompted by another thing that happened in Scotland, in addition to his brain-addled presser. The widely seen video of his caddy tossing a ball backwards onto the short grass after Trump quite clearly shot into the deep rough shows his moniker "Commander-in-Cheat" is richly deserved.

 

MAGAs will believe both absurdities: that Trump ended the "7,000,000" largest Holocaust in history in Rwanda in 1994, and that he has a handicap of 2 and shot a 71. I guess they'll also believe he's 215 lbs and never touched Stormy. LOL.

 

One more thing: The petulant and wildly insecure child who is Trump went after a comedian/social commenter who appeared on some Fox Comedy News show, and said the Epstein debacle will allow actual conservative Republicans to reclaim their Party form the MAGAs. Trump then attacked the man, who goes by Charlamagne tha God, and called him "low IQ" and criticized him for his moniker using what Trump hopes his cult think she is...God. Oh, and as we have seen many times, Trump always uses his "low IQ" criticism when the person he attacks is Black. CtG is a black man.

[Hawaiian]

1 hour ago, save the frogs said:

 

Many people are desperate to earn a living, so they will print just about anything to get clicks, to get views, to sell newspapers, to sell books.

 

One very popular way to make $$$ in this day and age is to print negative news about Trump, because 150 million people (at least) hate him. It's a guaranteed way to get clicks.

 

Because DRAMA is good for business. 

 

If Trump says black, you say white. And off you go for clicks and $$$. Just contradict everything he does. 

 

Meanwhile, no one really understands tariffs or how they affect the economy because no one has a PhD in economics.

 

 

You don't have to have a doctorate in economics to understand that establishing tariffs willy nilly are having a chilling effect on businesses and those that invest in these businesses.  And you don't have watch the news to see the negative effects.  

Why do you expect AN members to say "how high?" when Trump says "Jump!"  ???  Most of us are not sheep.  At least, I'm not.

 

[Wingate]

32 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

Facts. Legacy media. Totally unbiased and factual. 

So you believe Trump really did end the Rwanda slaughter in 1994? He has a true handicap of 2? Job growth in May and June really was 258,000 higher than the Friday revision? He actually is a stable genius? How about he won in 2020?

 

If yes to any of the above, then "Mr Cecille Roads has left you $51,722,578 (fifty-one million seven hundred twenty-two thousand, five hundred seventy-eight dollars) in his will. Contact the Bank of Nigeria, Mr Bosco Nduja, to claim your inheritance."

[save the frogs]

12 hours ago, FolkGuitar said:

What Trump is doing today is minor league compared with the cascading results his actions will have in the next 6 months.
It will not be pretty, and it will appear to happen suddenly.

The MAGAs will stand around scratching their heads, wondering how it could have happened, while the rest of the world, rather than scratching, will just be shaking their heads, wondering how Americans could have been so blind.
 

 

 

So let me get this straight.

You are Karnac The Great? Nostradamus?

You people are all projecting into the future. 

What doom and gloom predictions have you people made in the past that have come to pass?

Give me one example. I need the year you made the prediction and the year it came to pass. 

 

 

[Will B Good]

2 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

 

So let me get this straight.

You are Karnac The Great? Nostradamus?

You people are all projecting into the future. 

What doom and gloom predictions have you people made in the past that have come to pass?

Give me one example. I need the year you made the prediction and the year it came to pass. 

 

 

 

So from this point on....no one is to talk about the future, as by definition any discussion points can only be a predictions.........correct?

 

Have I predicted that correctly?

[spidermike007]

1 hour ago, FolkGuitar said:

What Trump is doing today is minor league compared with the cascading results his actions will have in the next 6 months.
It will not be pretty, and it will appear to happen suddenly.

The MAGAs will stand around scratching their heads, wondering how it could have happened, while the rest of the world, rather than scratching, will just be shaking their heads, wondering how Americans could have been so blind.
 

 

Well hold on a minute this isn't what I voted for, how come that car that I wanted to buy is $13,000 more than it was last year, and why is inflation at 12%?

 

Why can't I afford to buy groceries anymore, and why is the US becoming ridiculed, and less relevant by the day?

Why has the image of America been destroyed worldwide?

I didn't think any of this stuff was going to happen.

I guess maybe I just didn't think any of this stuff through before I voted for the circus clown.

Maybe I need to study things a little bit more next time around. 

 

There is no doubt the ramifications of his idiotic policy is going to be profoundly felt by 90% of Americans, the rest are wealthy enough to not be affected that much. 

[phetphet]

7 hours ago, jts-khorat said:

The USA has a big economy and a system with many checks and balances.

 

The economy is already for decades in the process of failing (debt load). Eroding all checks and balances takes time.

 

But when the system fails, it will be sudden, catastrophic and likely unfixable by political means (a bit like the USSR, only worse, as a more complex system).

 

Will this all catch up with Trump personally? As much as one hopes, not all bad people get their deserved comeuppance, he might simply be too old and frail to get caught out in time.

Plus he has Presidential Immunity.

[Will B Good]

Just now, spidermike007 said:

Well hold on a minute this isn't what I voted for, how come that car that I wanted to buy is $13,000 more than it was last year, and why is inflation at 12%?

 

Why can't I afford to buy groceries anymore, and why is the US becoming ridiculed, and less relevant by the day?

Why has the image of America been destroyed worldwide?

I didn't think any of this stuff was going to happen.

I guess maybe I just didn't think any of this stuff through before I voted for the circus clown.

Maybe I need to study things a little bit more next time around. 

 

There is no doubt the ramifications of his idiotic policy is going to be profoundly felt by 90% of Americans, the rest are wealthy enough to not be affected that much. 

 

 

That may well all be true......so we need to look elsewhere.....oh the markets are up.....there we go, problem solved.

[Hawaiian]

1 hour ago, save the frogs said:

 

Many reporters are desperados. 

Many reporters are a bunch of nobodies trying to make a name for themselves.

And the easiest way to make a name for yourself is to try to take down the king. 

 

Most reporting is noise. 

 

 

Noise?  You seem to do a good job at generating noise.  I suppose that is okay as long it is not a prediction.

[Will B Good]

2 minutes ago, Hawaiian said:

Noise?  You seem to do a good job at generating noise.  I suppose that is okay as long it is not a prediction.

 

He obviously has no concept of the critical nature a free press plays in ensuring a democracy remains a democracy.

 

The press in the US is staggeringly weak and they will pay for it.

[mogandave]

1 hour ago, save the frogs said:

 

Many people are desperate to earn a living, so they will print just about anything to get clicks, to get views, to sell newspapers, to sell books.

 

One very popular way to make $$$ in this day and age is to print negative news about Trump, because 150 million people (at least) hate him. It's a guaranteed way to get clicks.

 

Because DRAMA is good for business. 

 

If Trump says black, you say white. And off you go for clicks and $$$. Just contradict everything he does. 

 

Meanwhile, no one really understands tariffs or how they affect the economy because no one has a PhD in economics.

 

 

Tariffs are easy easy to understand. You only have to have a PhD to make it difficult to understand.