So republican voters are saying Hilary Clinton is entitled, untrustworthy, untruthful. Many say they will have trouble voting for Trump but Clinton is just too dishonest to even consider. Blows my mind.
Trump is a pathological liar - he lies constantly, putting really very little effort into it - a field day for fact checkers who now just assume he's lying before they do a five minute google search and discover - yet again - that he's lying. The non-partisan fact checker PolitiFact has rated 76% of Trump’s statements as lies – 57% false, 19% “Pants on Fire”, Clinton – 28% lies, 1% “Pants on Fire”. Trump has been shown to lie 70 times in a single event – and they are not little lies. An executive of Trump University called that venture “a total lie”, a sales manager calling it “a fraudulent scheme” bringing financial ruin to many struggling students and ruining their futures. His modus operandi has always been to renege, at least partially, on business deals – it’s how he has conducted business his entire life. A practice that has embroiled him in over 3,500 lawsuits in the last three decades. 3,500 lawsuits over 30 years is one lawsuit every three days!
And he has lied constantly this entire election cycle. Nearly every time he has spoken publicly - he has lied. Worse, he has a remarkable capacity to either believe himself in the moment or just not care about truth as he makes his point.
The ghost writer of Trump’s 1987 autobiography, “The Art of the Deal”, Tony Schwartz, who did most of the actual writing, now tells us in an article in the New Yorker, that he has a “deep sense of remorse” for portraying Trump in a positive light. He admits he needed the money at the time and regrets making Trump “more appealing than he is”. Now 29 years later, and after turning down an offer from Trump to write a sequel, with nothing to gain and plenty to lose, Schwartz speaks out to warn us of Trump’s true nature. He tells us if he were writing the book today he would title it “The Sociopath”. “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization”. And yet to many republican voters his behavior still just makes him shrewd and 'successful'? Or they just give him a free pass because he's so different while bitterly lamenting Clinton's lack of trustworthiness? Clinton is expected to climb up on the political pedestal and be judged, Trump? - just show up.
Why are people so focused on Clinton's trustworthiness? It’s probably not as simple as men are shrewd and have their reasons - while women doing the same sort of things are untrustworthy and entitled. No it’s more complicated than that - but sexism most definitely plays a role here.
Faced with picking either Clinton or Trump, republican voters start to carry on how tired they are of having to pick the least offensive candidate. They pine for the more perfect candidate to behold on the pedestal of perfection. Almost always good, honest, truthful, with little or no personnel flaws - say like John Wayne (on screen) or daddy when we were six. Oh poor us. Golly.
But the truth is there has never been a perfect president or even one not deeply flawed in some way - ever. Political pedestals are illusions of a naive and spoiled society.
Contrast Obama the candidate vs Obama the president or for that matter any president’s campaign promises versus their presidential record. Politicians lie all the time as a means to an end. George Bush misrepresenting threat to this country in order to engage in an unnecessary war that killed hundreds of thousands and and destabilized the entire middle east. Bill Clinton the infidelity king. Ronald Regan who lied repeatedly about illegally trading weapons for hostages with Iran. Richard Nixon, where do we start? Johnson who misrepresented events in the Gulf of Tonkin to push us deeper into a war with Vietnam. Kennedy – well maybe he is the infidelity king, Clinton a close second. And on and on and on.
To all of this I say grow up America. Clinton is a career politician no better or worse than many as regards trustworthiness. Stop giving Donald a free pass while applying childish standards of perfection just to Clinton. Donald Trump is a narcissistic, unethical, and perhaps most importantly - mentally unstable hater. We cant trust Clinton as a politician to always be completely truthful. But we can’t trust Trump to even remain rational. How can we trust him with our futures, with our children's future? His selfishness, thin skin, anger and hate renders him utterly unqualified to lead the world in an age of nuclear weapons. Clinton is a seasoned capable world leader. Do I like her? What in the hect does that have to do with anything? She is the more capable candidate. Simple.
Trump is a pathological liar - he lies constantly, putting really very little effort into it - a field day for fact checkers who now just assume he's lying before they do a five minute google search and discover - yet again - that he's lying. The non-partisan fact checker PolitiFact has rated 76% of Trump’s statements as lies – 57% false, 19% “Pants on Fire”, Clinton – 28% lies, 1% “Pants on Fire”. Trump has been shown to lie 70 times in a single event – and they are not little lies. An executive of Trump University called that venture “a total lie”, a sales manager calling it “a fraudulent scheme” bringing financial ruin to many struggling students and ruining their futures. His modus operandi has always been to renege, at least partially, on business deals – it’s how he has conducted business his entire life. A practice that has embroiled him in over 3,500 lawsuits in the last three decades. 3,500 lawsuits over 30 years is one lawsuit every three days!
And he has lied constantly this entire election cycle. Nearly every time he has spoken publicly - he has lied. Worse, he has a remarkable capacity to either believe himself in the moment or just not care about truth as he makes his point.
The ghost writer of Trump’s 1987 autobiography, “The Art of the Deal”, Tony Schwartz, who did most of the actual writing, now tells us in an article in the New Yorker, that he has a “deep sense of remorse” for portraying Trump in a positive light. He admits he needed the money at the time and regrets making Trump “more appealing than he is”. Now 29 years later, and after turning down an offer from Trump to write a sequel, with nothing to gain and plenty to lose, Schwartz speaks out to warn us of Trump’s true nature. He tells us if he were writing the book today he would title it “The Sociopath”. “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization”. And yet to many republican voters his behavior still just makes him shrewd and 'successful'? Or they just give him a free pass because he's so different while bitterly lamenting Clinton's lack of trustworthiness? Clinton is expected to climb up on the political pedestal and be judged, Trump? - just show up.
Why are people so focused on Clinton's trustworthiness? It’s probably not as simple as men are shrewd and have their reasons - while women doing the same sort of things are untrustworthy and entitled. No it’s more complicated than that - but sexism most definitely plays a role here.
Faced with picking either Clinton or Trump, republican voters start to carry on how tired they are of having to pick the least offensive candidate. They pine for the more perfect candidate to behold on the pedestal of perfection. Almost always good, honest, truthful, with little or no personnel flaws - say like John Wayne (on screen) or daddy when we were six. Oh poor us. Golly.
But the truth is there has never been a perfect president or even one not deeply flawed in some way - ever. Political pedestals are illusions of a naive and spoiled society.
Contrast Obama the candidate vs Obama the president or for that matter any president’s campaign promises versus their presidential record. Politicians lie all the time as a means to an end. George Bush misrepresenting threat to this country in order to engage in an unnecessary war that killed hundreds of thousands and and destabilized the entire middle east. Bill Clinton the infidelity king. Ronald Regan who lied repeatedly about illegally trading weapons for hostages with Iran. Richard Nixon, where do we start? Johnson who misrepresented events in the Gulf of Tonkin to push us deeper into a war with Vietnam. Kennedy – well maybe he is the infidelity king, Clinton a close second. And on and on and on.
To all of this I say grow up America. Clinton is a career politician no better or worse than many as regards trustworthiness. Stop giving Donald a free pass while applying childish standards of perfection just to Clinton. Donald Trump is a narcissistic, unethical, and perhaps most importantly - mentally unstable hater. We cant trust Clinton as a politician to always be completely truthful. But we can’t trust Trump to even remain rational. How can we trust him with our futures, with our children's future? His selfishness, thin skin, anger and hate renders him utterly unqualified to lead the world in an age of nuclear weapons. Clinton is a seasoned capable world leader. Do I like her? What in the hect does that have to do with anything? She is the more capable candidate. Simple.
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