Understanding Trump
As readers are aware, I very seldom respond to frequent commenter MarcoPolo, as he is a professional troll of this and other environmentalist sites, and I don’t think it’s right to provide a place for his antagonistic and generally inaccurate views on the entire environmental movement. Here’s a rare exception, since it enables me to make a point.
He writes: Prominent Democrat supporter, Jesse Smollett manufactures false hate crime reports, and you remain silent. (He lists others.) Despite literally dozens of instances of Democrat lying, not once do you ever criticize or disapprove, you remain silent. And the President is a lying sociopath?
I generally don’t write about individual acts of stupidity, hate, criminality, deceit, etc., regardless of the politics of the perpetrator. I know people like to make a big deal about some moron with a MAGA hat who’s screaming at a Mexican, driving his car into protesters, butchering the language, or angrily flipping off a leftist. And yes, of course, there are dishonest and ignorant Democrats. But who’s stupid enough to think that a single instance of something says anything meaningful about the entire class of things (or people)? There’s plenty of this type of thinking on your Facebook timeline without my creating more of it here.
If the current president of the Unites States were basically truthful it would be petty, mean-spirited and, most importantly, completely pointless to comment on an occasional lie. After all, this is politics. What does one expect?
Sadly, this is anything but the case. Trump is a habitual liar. He stood at 8100+ lies or misleading statements in his first two years in office. This combined 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in his first year in office, and nearly 16.5 a day in his second , almost triple the pace. (If you don’t trust the Washington Post, simply Google the subject and look at a few of the tens of millions of web pages on the subject.)
One of Trump’s high-level subordinates recently said,”In the course of an hour-long dinner with him, you’d hear at least 10, probably 15, complete lies. It’s just the way the man is wired.”
Keep in mind that we’re not talking about an imbecile with a red baseball cap, huge biceps and a swastika tattoo–or a left-leaning senator who once crossed the line. This is the most powerful man on Earth, a full-on pathological liar, and an enormous danger to everyone living on this planet.
Craig,
Goodness me, I seem to have hit a raw nerve !
In view of your anger and passion, I suppose it’s only fair to examine the factual basis of your riposte, and establish whether you live up to your own standards of virtue.
1) You claim you refrain from comments containing criticism or divergent opinion, because you regard me ” antagonistic and generally inaccurate views on the entire environmental movement”.
Now, may be another explanation is equally plausible, eh ? Is it possible you dare not respond because, not only am I invariably accurate and better informed having studied both sides of any debate, but more widely referenced ? In addition, while my viewpoint may differ from your own, it’s certainly not hostile to environmental progress.
I would match my positive environmental contributions against any “activist”. (including yourself).
2) You state, “he is a ‘professional’ troll of this and other environmentalist sites.” Well the first part of that comment is just an opinion, but the other part is a “lie” unless you can substantiate your claim with evidence ?
Can you? (I’ll bet we never hear an answer).
Hmmmm,… since you’ve been called out on this “lie” before, and found yourself without any evidence to contradict me, how does that make you different from those you call “liars” ?
(I won’t even bother to ask you how anyone can make a “profession from being a troll, or what evidence you possess).
3) You quote “unnamed” sources (high level diner companions), the President’s political enemies in the media (also citing vague, inaccurate, or unnamed sources) and concluding your rant by stating accuracy can be judged by the number of sites on Google !
Sorry, that not “fact” , that’s simply gossip! Just repeating, “everyone says so” isn’t evidence of anything except a desperate desire to be vindicated as part of a mob.
To avoid examining the Washington Post’s 8000 claims individually, let’s just take one instance as an example, shall we ?
CNN, WP, NYT etc (yeah, and a million rants on google) recently s screamed “Trump lies again, said father born in Germany, when he was Born in New York! ” . (my paraphrasing). or CNN, “Donald Trump Keeps Lying About His Ancestry”.
In reality, the reporter wrote not what the President said, but what she wanted to hear. The story was eagerly repeated and repeated, until even you repeated the Presidents “claim” the President lied as “fact”.
What the President did say in response to a CNN questioner as to why he regarded “the EU as one of America’s greatest trading foes”.
“Maybe the thing that is most difficult – don’t forget both my parents were born in EU sectors, OK? I mean, my mother was Scotland, my father was Germany, you know I love those countries.”
In fact, while his mother was born in Scotland, Donald Trump’s pregnant grandmother gave birth to his father shortly after arrival in New York.
In Brussels the President again spoke of his ties to Europe saying,(verbatim).
“I have great respect for Germany; my father is from Germany,” Both of my parents are from the EU, despite the fact they don’t treat us well on trade.”
Where is the lie ? Where is the advantage to Donald Trump? How is he lying bout his ancestry? His fathers ancestry is definitely German, where’s the lie?.
CNN’s accusations might make sense if Donald Trump was denying being German because his father was born in NY two months after his grandparents arrived, but it’s the other way around.
How many of those 8000 lies are just similar “gotcha” inaccuracies?
As I said, the President isn’t like normal politicians, he speaks in the language of the ordinary common folk. His manner of speech contains odd phrasing, enthusiasms, petty inaccuracies.
It’s not the carefully calculated, spin doctored, politically correct craftily concealed speech expected of modern politicians.
In someways he far more honest and easily read than most politicians. It depends if you are listening to gather the import of what he’s saying, or lying in wait to pick out any irrelevant error or ambiguity.
4) “A left leaning Senator who once crossed the line” ? Really ? Just a one of slip in judgement? Senator Warren lied, not just once for political gain, but persistently for years, even decades.
Her purpose in lying was to benefit from affirmative action or other preferential programs created for underrepresented groups who have been victims of past racial discrimination.
Her fraudulent declarations denied other more deserving candidates a chance to avail themselves of these programs. It doesn’t get much more despicable.
5) The US President is not the “most powerful man on earth’ by any definition. He may be the leader of the most powerful nation, but that doesn’t make either himself or his office, “the most powerful man on earth”.
The President has so far proved to be not only astonishingly stable and restrained in his policy decisions, especially in foreign policy. I see no immediate “danger”. The President may be dismantling the ‘Obama legacy’, but that was never very real or substantial anyway.
——————————————————————
Craig,
It’s okay to dislike President Trump,(millions feel the same way) but why relentlessly rant about his every foible, while white washing his opponents, and denigrating his supporters?
Such behavior would still be okay if you were simply a partisan political commentator, or a declared one-eyed “never-Trumper” .
But you claim to be both fair minded, truthful, decent, and morally upright. You also claim the high moral ground in both politics, clean technology and the environment.
You can’t be both! You must choose ! Either passionate, fanatical, tunnel visioned political activist, or objective, open-minded, rational environmental and technology commentator.
I earn a modest living practicing a profession which requires the disciplines of objectivity, gathering of all available facts and evidence, impartial and unemotional analysis.
I’ve taught myself always to argue both side of every issue with equal diligence, before making a judgement. I try hard to avoid preconceived notions or making accusations based on assumptions, prejudice, gossip or just wishing something was true.
I don’t believe such attributes would make me a very good “Troll” do you?! (I can understand why such attributes must make me an infuriating opponent!).
However, I can understand your angst and frustration directed toward me. I can even sympathize.
It must be infuriating for a passionate ‘true believer’, like yourself, to see the predictions of a cynical pragmatist becoming reality. It must be especially galling witnessing all your own hopes, dreams and predictions wither and wilt with the passage of time and the harsh dawn of reality.
Sadly, that’s the nature of idealism, passion and the hyperbole of revolution. The flowers bloom brightly, but quickly die.
Therein lies the fundamental difference between us. You are an advocate, if you get it wrong, you don’t suffer. If I get it wrong, not only I, but my clients, shareholders, employees and investors lose money.
I can’t afford to waste energy worrying about catching out the US President in a misquote or error, I want to know what he’s really thinking, likely to do, and why.
I can’t celebrate the decision of a lower court Judge as a triumph and base my analysis on such an event., even if it’s what I want to hear.
I must calculate the chances of the judgement being reversed by the higher courts or legislature regardless of whether or not I support the judgement personally.
I can’t just take things on “faith” or “belief”. What a scientist, politician, academic may say today, may prove very different tomorrow. This isn’t a matter of honesty, just the rapidly changing nature of human knowledge.
Craig, tomorrow I leave for Beijing, where I hope to meet and understand the researchers and technology of Borophene, a new technology of potentially tremendous importance for Clean(er) technology.
Isn’t that more interesting than ranting on about Trump?
As I prepare to leave I’m informed we have successfully sold the shares divested by an academic institution in an Australian Coal mine to another of our clients. The client eagerly snapped up the stock at a premium to fend off a bid from a rival privately held,family controlled, coal mining company.
The cashed-up rival company just declared an interim, post tax profit of just under $1 billion, and is searching for coal investment opportunities. (metallurgical coal demand has risen in both Japan and South Korea).
Jellinbah Coal Mines contributed $275 million to the Federal Treasury last year. That payment made the Coal company Australia’s second largest privately owned payer of corporate tax.
This is reality. This is the real world ! It’s not being “antagonistic ‘ to the environment to acknowledge reality. I would argue, it’s only by acknowledging and accepting reality we can find ways to practically influence and fund realistic solutions to
better environmental practices.
I’m sorry, but i just can’t see how that make me a “troll’ (professional or otherwise)!
The academic institution in question has divested itself of coal shares, and is now considerably poorer. the same institution refused funding into chemical and engineering environmental research from the coal industry on ‘moral’ grounds.
While I respect any institutions right to make a decision it believes correct, I personally find the decision both futile and counter-productive.
I also find the idea of limiting scientific research to conform with the dictates of any particular doctrine or ideology, disquieting.
As a taxpayer, I’m beginning to wonder whether such institutions should continue to receive public funding.
Craig, I have no wish to seem impolite or gratuitously offensive, but it saddens me to observe how little interest appears to be directed to your comments.
Outside of a small devoted coterie of like minded cronies, interest on 2green energy seems to have dissipated. I believe this is probably as a result of you discontinuing the alerts, but then again most ” green” technology websites and publications have lost direction, enthusiasm or momentum over the last two years.
Of course, your obsession with President Trump’s iniquities hasn’t helped.
This is a real shame, because for many years I admired your passion for the environment and ability to attract interest from a wide audience in Clean(er) technology.
I believe debate and discussion, especially vigorous responses full of factual information and well reference are important tools in maintaining enthusiasm, optimism and open-minded learning.
Just a thought,…..