Potpourri
==> I was on Mark Edge’s show to talk about price gouging.
==> In the latest Lara-Murphy Show, we talk about tax implications from surrendering a policy with large outstanding policy loans. It’s inside baseball but make sure you listen, if you are interested in IBC.
==> I really loved this essay by Russ Roberts. Some excerpts:
I don’t know what depresses me more — the stupidities and dishonesty and tolerance of darkness that come out of the President’s mouth or the response from those that oppose him. Given that I don’t like the President, you’d think I find the response of his enemies inspiring or important. But the responses scare me too, the naked hatred of Trump or anyone who supports or likes him. And of course, it goes way beyond Trump and politics. The same level of vitriol and anger and unreason is happening on college campuses and at the dinner table when families gather to talk about the hot-button issues of the day. Everything seems magnified.
…
The media is part of the problem. I follow a lot of mildy left-leaning journalists on Twitter who write for major publications and outlets. They are not fringe players. Their employers aren’t either. These reporters aren’t ideologues. They’re just right-thinking people who lean left. Somewhere along the line, they stopped pretending to be objective about Trump. They have decided he is dangerous and a liar and they write about it openly on Twitter. They mock him in a way they didn’t mock previous presidents who they didn’t particularly like. They may be right about the dangers posed by a Trump presidency. But their stance which violates long-standing norms of their profession amplifies the feelings of Trump supporters that those supporters are under attack from mainstream American culture.
…
Now I’m well aware of the intellectual paradoxes of believing in a Creator and living one’s life according to an ancient set of precepts. Many of those make me uncomfortable. Many bring comfort. I fully understand how someone could reject them as irrrational or stultifying. What bothers me is that I don’t think many of those who are surprised or outraged at my leading a religious life could begin to explain its appeal to me. It is simply unimaginable to them that an educated person could be religious.
Much of the vitriol is against Trump but I think that more of the problem is the result of celebrities on the left – academics, news media, Hollywood, government bureaucrats – believing their own lies about the other half of the country.
“I think we’re in a dangerous moment because of what we’ve learned from the response to the Trump candidacy and the Trump presidency. I feel as if a giant flat rock has been lifted up and what is suddenly made visible crawling around underneath has lots of legs and plenty of venom.”
I agree, it is a dangerous moment.
He is right that norms are being turned upside down. It is only when they are overturned that we realise how much is based on norms rather than rules. As an example, most people obey the law not because they are afraid of the police enforcing the rules, but because they are obeying the norms. If this were to break down the police would have no chance to stem a rising tide of criminality. When one party breaks the norms, others tend to do likewise, else they are operating at a disadvantage.
The rules have held up fairly well so far. Maybe not so much for the norms. Leaks have become more commonplace, truth is meaningless, the media uses Trump to sell copy rather than distribute news. Post Trump it is possible that these will not so easily re-set, which will result in a less well operating system. Perhaps we will see how much of the American system is held together by rules and how much by norms.
“Somewhere along the line, they stopped pretending to be objective about Trump. They have decided he is dangerous and a liar…”
I don’t know about dangerous, but objectively he is a liar. They did not decide he is a liar, they observed he is a liar. This is not stopping pretending to be objective, it is being objective. He goes on to explain that quite clearly in the rest of his essay.
He talks of increasing intolerance of religion. I can’t speak for him or other religious people, but I have not observed this myself. Personally anyone’s faith is their own affair. People have all sorts of reasons for believing and whilst I think they are mistaken that is their business. I do wonder if this is an American thing. America has by far the greatest adherence to religious affiliation of modern democracies. Could this be a kick-back from an atheist minority that is growing in confidence? Elsewhere (UK for example) atheists feel perfectly comfortable so don’t feel the need to strike out.
Objectively Hillary Clinton is a liar isn’t she? So’s her convicted perjurer husband. So was Bush, Obama, Sanders.
Objectively Trump lies much more than any other president. The author if the article agrees. This is the norm that has been broken. The norm used to be that you did not lie because if you were found out you paid a price.
Bush snr saying “no new taxes”. That one mistake cost him dear. Clinton’s perjury got him impeached. You did not lie about stuff that could be found out because you would get in trouble.
That norm does not apply to Trump. He could shoot someone in the middle of 5th avenue and not lose voters. That is why we are at a dangerous moment. The norms that held stuff together are unraveling. If we have to rely entirely on the rules we will be in trouble.
“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”
“If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.
Harold:
“You did not lie about stuff that could be found out because you would get in trouble.”
So tell me how Obama got in trouble for his lies?
https://youtu.be/lm3MYBDyNyQ
Benghazi.
Scott Adams had a good piece on Trump’s lies. Trump lies about insignificant stuff endlessly. He lies about signs of his greatness endlessly. He puffs stuff endlessly. Really big lies like Benghazi, or keep your plan, or we are not fighting in Cambodia, not so much. It is not remotely clear to me that in terms of significance that Trump is as much a liar as Hillary. It’s not even clear to me he’s in the bottom half in Washington.
“Really big lies like Benghazi, or keep your plan, or we are not fighting in Cambodia, not so much.”
No, Trump lies in a constant stream about things both big and small, important and trivial. Big lies like I will repeal and replace healthcare. He lied about dozens of things in the healthcare bill he tried to get though.
He lied about the wall. He lied that Obama was not born in USA. He lied about one side having a permit, the other didn’t (both had a permit). He lied about voter fraud and what the NSA and FBI said about Russia. More troops to Afghanistan? Lied about that too.
He does lie about the big things, but his constant lying about trivia diverts attention and creates the impression that it does not matter whether anything he says is a lie. Oh, its just another of his lies, that is Trump for you!
It seems to be a successful technique for him. But the cost is the reversal of the norms, as I explained above. He wins, but everybody else loses as truth becomes a meaningless term.
When the leader constantly lies it creates a new landscape.
Richie points out that Obama’s lie about healthcare is still being quoted as an important event today. It seems likely that this was a significant factor in the election. Trump’s vastly more frequent and just as important lies are shrugged off as insignificant by his supporters.
Hang on, you are listing things that Trump promised, and has made a sincere effort to achieve but so far (less than 1 year in) he hasn’t been able to achieve those things because both parties are hostile to him. Don’t worry about Obamacare… it’s bleeding money so bad right now that it certainly will be replaced, but hard to tell what the replacement will look like.
Could Trump have done better? Maybe.. if it was me I probably would have been more ruthless on DACA on the basis of the oath to the Constitution (every US government employee takes that oath, but few of them take it seriously). Who knows what leverage the “deep state” has against Trump, and what else is going on that we can’t see.
When Elizabeth Warren pretended to be Native American, she knew at the time it was a lie. She simply lied for her own advantage and then started with lovely speeches about “fairness”.
When Obama told people they could keep their health plans, he knew perfectly well that was never going to happen. There’s a big difference to Trump’s unsuccessful promises.
When Hillary told people that Benghazi was a spontaneous protest triggered by some crappy internet video, she absolutely knew that was a load of BS. She lied about her emails so many times, and the lies kept changing. First it was only private emails about yoga. Then it might have had a little bit of government business, but nothing classified. Then it was, OK some of it was classified, but that was an accident because none of them were marked. Then we got well a few of them were marked classified but not very many and we didn’t know what those markings meant.
As for the USA shipping weapons to various terrorist groups in the Middle East, well someone obviously knew what was going on… these things don’t happen by accident. I’m pretty sure it went all the way to the top,
Great comment Tel. I’m not saying “Trump isn’t really a liar” but I think you are making a good defense of your position.
“Hang on, you are listing things that Trump promised, and has made a sincere effort to achieve… ”
That is not correct
Paying for the wall? The leaked phone call to Mexico president seems to show that this was a lie.
Did you look at the healthcare that Trump supported? It broke multiple promises he had made about the “beautiful healthcare” he promised. Protecting medicaid, lowering premiums, covering everyone etc etc. There was no sincere effort to achieve those promises, there was a sincere effort to break them.
All the other stuff is not promises either. Birther, crowd size, permits, NSA and FBI reports. All lies and all important.
So you are wrong, I am not just listing things Trump promised and has so far been thwarted in achieving.
Listing things you think are lies by other people does not change anything. Nobody is perfect and everybody lies sometimes. The argument is that Trump lies far more than any other president.
This is partly a matter of counting – it is objectively true that he has been found to lie more often by orders of magnitude.
The other part is to demonstrate that he lies about important things – he does.
“This is partly a matter of counting – it is objectively true that he has been found to lie more often by orders of magnitude.”
Where is the OBJECTIVE evidence of your claim? I’m not talking about a link to Vox, or Slate, or Media Matters or any of the other hack, slimy left-wing websites. Present your objective evidence of this. Or, is this just a case of Harold declaring it true because YOU believe it to be?
And just to be clear, I’m not saying Trump is not a liar. I just want OBJECTIVE evidence of your claim.
Harold’s goal-post shifting has reached its zenith. Now Trump is a liar because Medicare isn’t “beautiful”!
“Or, is this just a case of Harold declaring it true because YOU believe it to be?”
You cannot reject evidence from fact checkers because you don’t like the answer. It is not because I believe it. I have looked at the evidence and it looks perfectly sound.
Out of interest, do you actually believe that Trump has not lied more than other presidents? This is a genuine question.
We can have a debate about the nature of objectivity, but that is something of a distraction if we all accept that Trump lies more than others. If you believe that Trump does not lie more than others then we can explore the reasons behind our different beliefs.
Craw “Harold’s goal-post shifting has reached its zenith. Now Trump is a liar because Medicare isn’t “beautiful”!”
I assume you are trying to be funny here as that is clearly not what I said.
No objection to ‘thwarted”?
“You cannot reject evidence from fact checkers because you don’t like the answer. It is not because I believe it. I have looked at the evidence and it looks perfectly sound.”
Ok, then present it. From an OBJECTIVE source. If you trust it so much, then let’s have it. Although I suspect you are just being a hack.
“Out of interest, do you actually believe that Trump has not lied more than other presidents? This is a genuine question.”
He’s a politician, so he lies. But what I think is totally irrelevant. I’m not the one making the claim that he lies more than others. Show the evidence.
“We can have a debate about the nature of objectivity, but that is something of a distraction if we all accept that Trump lies more than others.”
It’s a distraction because you are a hack and you accept that Trump lies more than others because you want to believe that. Just assume the premise to be true! Then you don’t have to try to prove it. Some logic.
“It’s a distraction because you are a hack and you accept that Trump lies more than others because you want to believe that. Just assume the premise to be true! Then you don’t have to try to prove it. Some logic.”
It is not because I want to believe it. I have not assumed them to be true. I have looked at the claims and they seem sound. Every fact checker agrees in the general terms. There is a mountain of evidence to support the claim. There is no evidence to support a similar claim against any other president. Bias checkers have judged
Politifact to be the least biased of fact checkers.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/politifact/
Pick one of the pants on fire claims and demonstrate why it is wrong.
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/byruling/pants-fire/
Or come up with an equivalent analysis by others that support your claim.
Otherwise you have no leg to stand on and have something of a nerve to accuse me of believing what I want.
Well, gee, if the well known, prestigious Media Bias/Fact Check says that politifact is the best of the best then it must be true. https://giphy.com/gifs/the-office-eye-roll-dEdmW17JnZhiU
Please offer an alternative, or point out in some of the many examples where the error lies. If these are the product of bias it should be easy.
Clinton is not president.
@Harold: Should say, “In my hallucination, objectively Trump lies much more than any other president.”
Great piece by Russ! Especially his first paragraph nails my thoughts and feelings about Trump etc absolutely… I really have to say it is very scary what is currently brewing in the US.
Oh yeah, just thought I might mention… turns out Trump was right about those wiretaps after all. Not expecting a grovelling apology from CNN or anything, but it’s almost spooky the number of times they have called Trump a liar about stuff that turned out to be pretty much spot on.
Not being funny here, in the interests of genuine enquiry can you say some of them please?