Why does Trump lie so much?

[Pebble]

The dismissal of Trump's supporters by Biden as 'garbage' is symptomatic of what is wrong with the Democrat party.

Except Biden didn't do that.

He did actually, clear as day

[Bonefishblues]

The dismissal of Trump's supporters by Biden as 'garbage' is symptomatic of what is wrong with the Democrat party.

Except Biden didn't do that.

He did actually, clear as day

That's what the stenographer recorded at the time. There was outrage when Biden's Press team unilaterally amended the contemporaneous record. That has never been done before.

[slowster]

It's pretty disappointing to see a moderator account used to spread Trump misinformation.

I am fallible and happy to be corrected.

Most of them don't believe that, though, do they?

I am not convinced of that. Politics in the US is very polarised. Even if I misunderstood Biden's 'garbage' comment, Hillary Clinton's description of Trump voters as deplorables is a matter of record. That speech and the sentiment behind it probably reflected the views not just of Clinton, but also many in her campaign team and the Democrat party. It is unlikely that Clinton wrote the speech herself.

they'll keep failing to identify what moderates really need to do to win: tackle the fascists' media lie-storm head-on, and hard.

The US media and political commentators tried that in 2016, and it failed. This was summed up at the time by one commentator, who said that Trump's opponents made a mistake in not taking Trump the person seriously as a potential candidate, while taking what Trump said seriously. Trump's supporters did not take what he said seriously, and so they were not interested in attempts by the media to fact check or rebuttals by his opponents, but they took Trump seriously as a candidate, and faced with a choice they preferred him to Hillary Clinton, and now Kamela Harris.

I suspect that Trump's ability to get away with saying pretty much anything is due partly to his strong media persona built up over many years of being familiar to Americans who watched The Apprentice, but also due to many Americans having become fed up with politicians using weasel words and speaking like lawyers (which most of them were before entering politics) in order to evade and obfuscate, e.g. compare 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman' with 'I could shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters', the latter is BS but the audience knows it and is entertained by it, but the former makes many people angry to be lied to in such a cynical and brazen manner.

Tackling the "fascists' media lie-storm head-on" is not going to happen and would not work. Trumps' supporters do not get their news from CNN, they get it from Fox News, Truth Social and similar sources based on Facebook's and Twitter's algorithms. They are not receptive to attempts by the rest of the media to fact check Trump, and will probably dismiss it as sour grapes by the losing side or fake news. Having voted for him, they will not want to be told they made a mistake.

Negative campaigning against someone like Trump to expose him for what he really is does not work. Despite the attempts to do just that, in 2020 the number of votes for Trump *increased* by 11 million compared with 2016, and he received the second highest number of votes ever in a presidential election. He did not lose support - the Democrats were only able to win by getting millions more people than usual to vote. The fact that those extra voters have now apparently not bothered to vote again, i.e. for Harris, suggests that they consider the Biden administration failed to deliver for them, and they were not motivated to vote in 2024 by negative campaigning.

Winning elections in the US appears to require strong positive narratives about making people's lives better, e.g. Obama's 'Change we can believe in' and 'Yes we can'. Negative campaigning just comes across as itself being negative: talking about how bad the other guy is, when voters are much more concerned about how you will make their lives better.

[mjr]

Except Biden didn't do that.

He did actually, clear as day

That's what the stenographer recorded at the time. There was outrage when Biden's Press team unilaterally amended the contemporaneous record. That has never been done before.

You know the video clips are widely available, don't you? It's clear Biden could mean that on-stage supporter's speech, but phrased it badly, in a spinnable way. While the Trump comments were unambiguously calling the Democrats and the USA garbage. This double standard and the complicity of so many in it is the real scandal.

[Bonefishblues]

He did actually, clear as day

That's what the stenographer recorded at the time. There was outrage when Biden's Press team unilaterally amended the contemporaneous record. That has never been done before.

You know the video clips are widely available, don't you? It's clear Biden could mean that on-stage supporter's speech, but phrased it badly, in a spinnable way. While the Trump comments were unambiguously calling the Democrats and the USA garbage. This double standard and the complicity of so many in it is the real scandal.

Of course I have heard and viewed the footage of his response. I have heard it several times. It was clear to the professional stenographer making contemporaneous notes, as happens with every official utterance of a President.

[Pebble]

I don't think Biden meant all Trump supporters everywhere are garbage, he may have just meant the comedian with that inappropriate joke, he may have meant the more extreme maga hat wearing, rally attending pick-up truck driving rednecks with their large arsenal of guns at home - who knows. But we have to be generous in that he certainly did not mean half of the US, he's a doddery old bloke of course he will fluff his words

Equally we have to be generous when trump blurts things out (like he does on a regular basis) Take the recent comments concerning guns and Liz Cheney. I doubt he was meaning she should be shot, but that was the line the media (and esp the bbc) were selling us, he was more likely alluding to, would she be so keen to send our young men into war if she herself had to take a front line position. would putin be in the Ukraine if he had to fight himself, I doubt it

It is a shame that both sides are so willing to exaggerate and take things out of perspective, it just creates more division and that is the last thing we need.

[djnotts]

^ Pebble: "Equally we have to be generous when trump blurts things out (like he does on a regular basis) Take the recent comments concerning guns and Liz Cheney. I doubt he was meaning she should be shot,......"

Why on earth would you doubt that that was what he meant?

[Nearholmer]

“Blurt outs” are interesting because they often betray underlying thinking; what comes out is unvarnished by fancy words and careful nuance.

My perception is that, all other things being equal, people tend to blurt things out more once their cognitive capabilities start to decline, which usually means as they get into advanced years.

No surprise then that with two geriatric candidates, the presidential contest gave us some insights through blurts.

[Pebble]

^ Pebble: "Equally we have to be generous when trump blurts things out (like he does on a regular basis) Take the recent comments concerning guns and Liz Cheney. I doubt he was meaning she should be shot,......"

Why on earth would you doubt that that was what he meant?

In trumps case you have to stretch your imagination to come to that ungenerous conclusion - where as in Bidens case you have to stretch your imagination to be generous and conclude that was not what he meant.

[mjr]

Even if I misunderstood Biden's 'garbage' comment, Hillary Clinton's description of Trump voters as deplorables is a matter of record. That speech and the sentiment behind it probably reflected the views not just of Clinton, but also many in her campaign team and the Democrat party. It is unlikely that Clinton wrote the speech herself.

A matter of record but also old history, with most of the Clinton-era failed advisors no longer involved. It's quite unlike Trump's deliberate comments this year which almost nobody seems to talk about.

they'll keep failing to identify what moderates really need to do to win: tackle the fascists' media lie-storm head-on, and hard.

The US media and political commentators tried that in 2016, and it failed. This was summed up at the time by one commentator, who said that Trump's opponents made a mistake in not taking Trump the person seriously as a potential candidate, while taking what Trump said seriously. Trump's supporters did not take what he said seriously, and so they were not interested in attempts by the media to fact check or rebuttals by his opponents, but they took Trump seriously as a candidate, and faced with a choice they preferred him to Hillary Clinton, and now Kamela Harris.

They tried one tactic in 2016 and it failed. We know simple fact-checking doesn't work (see also Brexit, and Boris Johnson generally) and it's disappointing that the Harris campaign chickened out on the alternative tactics they tried this year and returned to that which failed again.

Other tactics are available. I don't know which will work, but hopefully something will, and figuring out what works is what they need to win

Having voted for him, they will not want to be told they made a mistake.

Maybe not, and that's a big part of the challenge. How do good US citizens de-fascist their politics before it's too late? Looking at history, I think the most famous ways to remove fascists have been that they get deposed in a revolution (often killed), they lose a big war (and their life, either suicide or a death sentence), or their chosen successor tricks them and restarts democracy after their death. But those are the famous examples, famous because they took a long time. What fascists have been removed quicker, ideally without bloodshed? I assume you can't ever convict them while in power because they can just change the law and/or pardon themselves.

Winning elections in the US appears to require strong positive narratives about making people's lives better, e.g. Obama's 'Change we can believe in' and 'Yes we can'. Negative campaigning just comes across as itself being negative: talking about how bad the other guy is, when voters are much more concerned about how you will make their lives better.

In general, I agree that winning requires a positive story. Sadly, I suspect it's necessary but not sufficient, and there also needs to be negative campaigning about how awful the alternative(s) have been and/or would be. "Trump will fix it" is such a weak positive story and easy to insult (fix what? The vote?) that it's disappointing the Democrats didn't tackle it better and come up with a stronger positive story.

As in other famous losing campaigns, it looked like they were limited by not wanting to offend their outgoing patron by accepting he failed on anything.

[mjr]

^ Pebble: "Equally we have to be generous when trump blurts things out (like he does on a regular basis) Take the recent comments concerning guns and Liz Cheney. I doubt he was meaning she should be shot,......"

Why on earth would you doubt that that was what he meant?

In trumps case you have to stretch your imagination to come to that ungenerous conclusion - where as in Bidens case you have to stretch your imagination to be generous and conclude that was not what he meant.

I feel that your stretching is only like that because of prejudices. Trump's Liz Cheney comments are far from his worst and are distasteful but, arguably, could be hypothetical, but you have to stretch much further to interpret him calling the USA "the garbage can of the world" as anything other than insulting the country's contents.

[roubaixtuesday]

Trump actually did worse than any other challenge to incumbents in free elections this year.

[Nearholmer]

Most of this years elections must be the first since the worst of the pandemic, so whatever else has played-into elector decisions, there must have been a large element of punishing incumbents for the combination of pandemic, lockdowns, and post event economic grief. That was definitely a factor in the USA, with all the wild conspiracy theories being dug-up and given an airing, as well as the more ordinary “you could have done better to protect us from the economic fallout” stuff.

[Bonefishblues]

TRiP and TRiP US both have interesting postmortems on what happened.

[Tangled Metal]

Latest update! Kyiv will revert back to Kiev after January 5th 2025. Full details of the agreement made with Putin will be annouced shortly!

I refuse to put a smillie in this as I do not think anyone could think I was being serious!!!