
If you say something enough times, especially on the front page of a major news publication or cable network you will eventually be believed by someone out there who is watching. For example, here as in Trump acquitted, and earlier as in Trump’s own repeated claim that he was “totally exonerated” by the Robert Mueller Reports. What conclusion are people left with other than what’s on the front page or in the words of Donald Trump himself regarding the Mueller Report? In both instances where is the truth?
Isn’t this sort of thing the basis of the advertising that we see more and more on television? Advertisers are repeating over and over again throughout the day and/or evening the name and merits of their product and that particular product, be it a drink or appliance, an insurance company or a new line of cars, will be remembered.
Well this is Trump’s way, to repeat over and over again that, for example. he was, exonerated by the Mueller Report, acquitted by the Senate. At this moment in time, February 2020, Trump is off to a grand start as the presidential campaign gets under way. The opposition, the Democrats, are still for the most part squabbling among themselves, not yet having a candidate, program, or policy of their own they can all get behind, and then repeat in the manner of Trump over and over again.
In fact, so far the Democrats have nothing to repeat other than their own clever put-downs of their fellows. And in the most recent Democratic debate Elizabeth Warren was putting down Michael Bloomberg, and all this was listened to and made fun of by Trump and his base at a Trump rally only a short distance away. The Democrats don’t seem to know that no squabbling beats squabbling every time.
But in regard to Trump, the absence of truth, of any concern for the facts, doesn’t end here. Trump has other trump cards. His world of untruth is the only world he knows and this gives him a net advantage over those still living in another world, our world of both truth and falsehood.
In particular his world of untruth may start with a lie (Obama wasn’t born in the US, Hillary Clinton is “crooked,'” “Romney is an evil man,”). The people listening to him will probably know little or nothing of the facts of the case, Obama’s birthplace, Hillary’s emails, Romney’s struggle with his God. But by hearing Trump’s lies over and over again they begin to believe whatever outrageous nonsense he is serving up…
And then there are the general “untruths” that Trump is always repeating to his base at the rallies, such as: — one, MAGA, meaning that things were better before and that he, Trump is going to make them better now, make America great again, just stay with him
— two, the WALL on our southern border, as he says it’s being built, he’s building it, insuring that the dark skinned peoples from South of the border will no longer be coming into our country, no longer be taking ourJobs and government handouts,
—and three, FOSSIL FUELS, now our principal sources of energy, providing jobs and warming and cooling for our homes. Trump’s opponents want to take them away. Trump whether he believes in global warming or not will make sure that doesn’t happen and that the extraction from the earth of our own abundant supplies of coal, gas and oil will continue. Wouldn’t it be enough to say that Trump is lying about all this, in particular about global warming and immigration? Why doesn’t the Press say it whenever they mention the president that he is lying? Instead they do seem to take him seriously.
So many questions regarding the subject! No end to the discussion. The two main questions I have concern the Republicans in Congress and the Media. Why do the the ones, the Republicans, in particular the Senators who by themselves recently acquitted the president of any wrong doing, why do they stick with the President? Why haven’t they left him en masse? They have to be afraid, but of what?
And then the media. Why do they treat the President with respect, why do they treat him as if he were a real President? Because given his grotesque, coarse, vulgar and lying Tweets and general behavior he shows little if any of the qualities that one would expect to find in a President.
For example, again, why did the Post direction go along with the headline, Trump acquitted? As if he had been really acquitted, were not guilty, not guilty of serious abuse of power? Is there an honest man anywhere who doubts that Trump did not abuse the power of the office for his own personal ends?
The Post might have better said that the President in spite of his lies was acquitted by the Republicans, fearful for their own survival in the 53 or soTrump lands from which they came to the Congress. Instead of “Trump acquitted” on the front page of a respected newspaper, why didn’t they write, the Liar, Trump, was “acquitted” by the Senators running scared? Wouldn’t that be more truthful, more accurate? And isn’t that what really happened? But instead Trump is helped to go on repeating that he was acquitted this time just as earlier he had been exonerated, not by the Mueller Report but by Bill Barr.
The truth about what really happened, isn’t that the first duty of the Press to report. But instead, from the headline, Trump acquitted, this is the principal news that people not knowing the details because of the failure of the press to make them apparent, walk away with. Why did the Media in even this instance support by their headline Trump’s world of untruth?… He wasn’t acquitted. The trial was fake.
“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.” Dostroevsky
