He lacks a sense of American history and its presence with us today. It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about Donald Trump’s inability to do either. This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability. It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence.
.. he has instructed us that Andrew Jackson was angry about the Civil War that began 16 years after Jackson’s death.
.. North Korea should reciprocate this worry. Yes, a 70-year-old can be callow if he speaks as sophomorically as Trump did when explaining his solution to Middle Eastern terrorism: “I would bomb the s*** out of them. . . . I’d blow up the pipes, I’d blow up the refineries, I’d blow up every single inch, there would be nothing left.”
.. As a candidate, Trump did not know what the nuclear triad is. Asked about it, he said: “We have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ballgame.” Invited to elaborate, he said: “I think — I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”
.. it is up to the public to quarantine this presidency by insistently communicating to its elected representatives a steady, rational fear of this man whose combination of impulsivity and credulity render him uniquely unfit to take the nation into a military conflict.
Don’t Shred Your Credibility for Your Tribe
By now, however, we all know that Trump will respond to every attack, so he sent Sean Spicer out into the press room, where Spicer proceeded to utter a string of demonstrably false statements. On Day One in office. In a short press conference at which he refused to take questions, Spicer made false claims about crowd size, grass coverings, subway use, and security measures. Kellyanne Conway then defended Spicer, using an instantly unfortunate (and memorable) phrase, calling his claims “alternative facts.”
.. By now, however, we all know that Trump will respond to every attack, so he sent Sean Spicer out into the press room, where Spicer proceeded to utter a string of demonstrably false statements. On Day One in office. In a short press conference at which he refused to take questions, Spicer made false claims about crowd size, grass coverings, subway use, and security measures. Kellyanne Conway then defended Spicer, using an instantly unfortunate (and memorable) phrase, calling his claims “alternative facts.”
.. The larger truth, however, is that those with no credibility make poor critics. Given the recent past, media outrage at Spicer’s press conference starts to seem less like a principled stand for the truth than an attempt to manufacture outrage. Thus, we see the wearying pattern of the modern Trump media debate. The media call out his falsehoods and decry the erosion of norms. His defenders call out media hypocrisy but then are themselves often incapable of telling the truth. After all, to speak the truth means “giving in.” It means “not fighting.”
Spicer earns Four Pinocchios for false claims on inauguration crowd size
This is an appalling performance by the new press secretary. He managed to make a series of false and misleading claims in service of a relatively minor issue. Presumably he was ordered to do this by Trump, who conjured up fantastic numbers in his own mind, but part of a flack’s job is to tell the boss when lies are necessary — and when they are not.
Spicer earns Four Pinocchios, but seriously, we wish we could give five.
Kellyanne Conway says Donald Trump’s team has ‘alternative facts.’ Which pretty much says it all.
“Fake news” is so yesterday. “Alternative facts” is where it’s at now.
This, of course, isn’t the first time the Trump team and its supporters have responded to journalists calling out their falsehoods by claiming the truth isn’t so black and white or that it’s not a big deal.
.. pro-Trump CNN pundit Scottie Nell Hughes offered this on Diane Rehm’s show:
One thing that’s been interesting this campaign season to watch is that people that say facts are facts — they’re not really facts. Everybody has a way — it’s kind of like looking at ratings or looking at a glass of half-full water. Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth or not true. There’s no such thing, unfortunately anymore, of facts.
.. what Conway is arguing today — that there are so many shades of gray that clear facts just don’t really exist.
This, of course, is a hugely cynical worldview. But it’s about the only way the Trump team can fight back