Men lie when they think to profit by deception, and tell the truth for the same reason — to get something they want …
It is only two different roads to the same goal.
— Herodotus (c484 – c425 BCE), The Histories, Book 3, 440 BCE.
Truth isn't truth.
— Rudy Giuliani (1944), NBC News, August 2018.
Truth for us nowadays is not what is, but what others can be brought to accept …
[Dissimulation has become] one of the most striking characteristics of our age. …
Our understanding is conducted solely by means of the word: anyone who falsifies it betrays public society.
It is the only tool by which we communicate our wishes and our thoughts; it is our soul's interpreter: if we lack that, we can no longer hold together; we can no longer know each other.
When words deceive us, it breaks all intercourse and loosens the bonds of our polity.
— Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 92), On giving the lie, Essais, Chapter 18, Book II, 1580.
Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.
It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief … that mental lying has produced in society.
When man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
— Tom Paine (1737 – 1809), The Age of Reason, 1794-1807.
We live in a time when:— George Orwell (1903 – 50), New Statesman and Nation, 9 January 1943.
- political passions run high,
- channels of free expression are dwindling, and
- organised lying exists on a scale never before known.
Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.
— Kenneth Galbraith (1908 – 2006)
Elect a clown
Expect a circus
— peaceandlonglife
I Am Your Voice
Populist:
An adherent of a political party claiming to support the interests of ordinary people.
— The Oxford Reference Dictionary, Joyce Hawkins, Editor, 1986.
Joseph Pavlic:
We have people who are coming into this country who are trying to hurt us, and I think that we need to be protected. …
When he says "America First" and he sits there, and he talks about you:This is for you!— I really believe that. …
Tammy Pavlic:
… I think it's important that the [Mexican border] wall is built.
For the greater good, you've got to make sacrifices. …
I think he gets us. …
He isn't a politician.
As rich as the man is, he can relate to the regular person.
[We need] more people like him.
(Liz Garbus, American Carnage, The Fourth Estate: The NY Times and Trump, Episode 3, 2018)
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 – 59)
General Jackson, whom the Americans have twice elected to the head of their Government, is a man of a violent temper and mediocre talents …
[Indeed,] no one circumstance in the whole course of his career ever proved that he is qualified to govern a free people, and … the majority of the enlightened classes of the Union [have] always been opposed to him. …
(p 335, emphasis added)
We have been told that [he is:]
- prone by nature and by habit to the use of force,
- covetous of power, and
- a despot by taste.
It is by perpetually flattering [the passions of the people] that he maintains
- his station, and
- his popularity. …
(p 480)
[He] tramples on his personal enemies whenever they cross his path with a facility which no former President [has] ever enjoyed, [and] treats the national representatives with disdain approaching to insult …
(p 481)
(Democracy in America, Vol I, 1835, Bantam, 2011)
A House Divided
[A] house divided against itself shall not stand.
— Matthew 12:25 , KJV Standard, 1769.
CNN Exit Poll 2016(n = 24,537) | |||||
| Hillary's Margin per 10,000 voters | Donald's Margin per 10,000 voters | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Race | Non-white | 1,590 | Race | White | 1,470 |
| Religion | Non-Christian or No Religion | 1,035 | Religion | Christian | 1,149 |
| Residence | Urban | 816 | Residence | Suburban or Rural | 721 |
| Marital Status | Unmarried | 714 | Marital Status | Married | 580 |
| Gender | Female | 624 | Gender | Male | 576 |
| Age | 18-44 | 528 | Age | 45 and older | 504 |
| Education | College Degree | 450 | Birthplace | Born in the USA | 455 |
| Military Service | Non-veteran | 435 | Education | No College Degree | 400 |
| Income | Under $50,000 | 396 | Military Service | Veteran | 351 |
| Orientation | Queer | 390 | Income | $50,000 or more | 128 |
| Birthplace | Not Born in the USA | 297 | Orientation | Straight | 95 |
Cook Political Report:
Effectively 77,759 votes in three states [Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan] determined the Presidency [in 2016. …]
By the same logic, just three counties [in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania] re-elected President Obama in 2012 …
(56 Interesting Facts About the 2016 Election, 16 December 2016)
Contents
The Rise of Trumpism
Strategic Brilliance
The Most Powerful Man in the Universe
Trickle Down
The 2016 Russian Influence Campaign
The Enemy of My Enemy
The Enemy of the People
Crushing the Liberals
Populism in America
The Unscientific American
In Trump We Trust
CNN Exit Poll 2016
American Kleptocracy
Trump's Pharmaceutical Plan
Donald John Trump (1946)
45th President of the United States (2016-20).
Michael Kirk:
[The Taj Mahal casino was] the biggest deal of his lifetime …
[Trump] spent a billion dollars on the Taj. …
Burdened by debt, [it] would not turn a profit [and closed in October 2016.]
The Plaza Hotel — a financial disaster; the airline, Trump Shuttle, was bleeding money. …
Trump and his companies owed more the $3 billion, much of it to the banks …
[But as the bankers] stared into the Trump Organization's abyss, [they] came to believe that Trump's assets … were worth more with his name on them than in foreclosure. …
They sold the yacht and the airline; and they put Trump on a $450,000 allowance.
In exchange he would continue to promote the business.
Donald Trump had survived but his casinos were deeply in debt.
He was looking for a way out.
He found one: Wall Street. …
Trump paid himself $44 million for services … even as the stock price began to fall.
The company filed for bankruptcy 3 times, investors lost billions. …
Trump characteristically described his time in Atlantic City as a success.
For Trump — real estate was increasingly a side business — marketing his name, a full time job. …
For 14 seasons [of The Apprentice,] millions of Americans watched a carefully crafted Donald Trump. …
And for his political guru … the TV audience could become Trump voters.Roger Stone (1952) [Political Advisor]:Now he saw an issue he could turn into headlines … the birther issue …
Now, I understand that the elites say:Oh that's reality TV!Voters don't see it that way:
— it's all television.
- television news, and
- television entertainment
Herodotus (c484 – c425 BCE):
The typical vices of a monarch, [whether hereditary or elected,] are envy and pride:These two vices … both lead to acts of savage and unnatural violence.
- envy, because it is a natural human weakness, and
- pride, because excessive wealth and power lead to the delusion that he is more than a man.
(The Histories, Book 3, 440 BCE)
Nicolas de Caritat (1743 – 1794) [Marquis de Condorcet]:
If we cannot find voters who are sufficiently enlightened, we must avoid making a bad choice by accepting as candidates, only those men in whose competence we can trust.
(1785)
William King (1874 – 1950) [Prime Minister of Canada, 1921-26, 1926-30, 1935-48):
The extreme man is always more or less dangerous, but nowhere more so than in politics.
(Margaret MacMillan, History's People, Text, 2015, p 51)
George Orwell (1903 – 50):
The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions —— which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronism, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action.
- racial pride,
- leader-worship,
- religious belief,
- love of war
(Wells, Hitler and the World State, Horizon, August 1941)
Totalitarianism has abolished freedom of thought to an extent unheard of in any previous age. …
The totalitarian state tries to control the thoughts and emotions of its subjects at least as completely as it controls their actions. …
It sets up unquestionable dogmas, and it alters them from day to day.
It needs the dogmas, because it needs absolute obedience from its subjects, but it cannot avoid changes, which are dictated by the needs of power politics.
It declares itself infallible, and at the same time it attacks the very concept of objective truth.
(Listener, 19 June 1941)
Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945):
I know perfectly well … that in a scientific sense there is [no] such thing as race …
[But] as a politician [I] need a concept which enables the order which has hitherto existed on historic bases to be abolished, and an entirely new and antihistoric order enforced and given an intellectual basis …
[For] this purpose the concept of races serves me well …
With the concept of race, [we will] recast the world.
(Anthony Grayling, The Meaning of Things, Phoenix, 2001, p 51)
Don Watson (1949):
Noble and creative as it has often been, provider of an essential thread in the best of the American ideal and source of a rare grace one encounters only in the United States, American Christianity also disguises fear and feeds ignorance, paranoia and prejudice, along with a readiness to smite enemies with weapons of unspeakable destructive force.
(Enemy Within: American Politics in the Time of Trump, Quarterly Essay, Issue 63, 2016, p 23)
Alice Ollstein [Political Reporter]:
According to a book written by [Argentinian President] Macri’s father Franco, Trump threw a tantrum after losing a round of golf to Mauricio Macri and broke his friend’s golf clubs — one by one.
(There is a lot more to the Trump Argentina story, ThinkProgress, 23 November 2016)
Ying Ma [Deputy Director of a Trump Super PAC, The Committee for American Sovereignty]:
[We] know that in state-craft, every now and then, to be unpredictable is not such a bad thing in negotiations. …
One of the reasons Donald Trump won is that … he is able to simplify a lot of issues that the GOP have not been able to simplify for voters …
(The Trump victory, ABC Between The Lines, 10 November 2016)
John Ashton (1956):
Our mainstream politics is less connected to the base of society than [it has been] for generations.
Into that gap scurry opportunists, attention-seekers, populists, pied pipers and demagogues, always good entertainers, peddling the illusion of simple solutions in a complex world.
We don’t feel close to our politicians, or trust them. …
We yearn for a real conversation about who were are and where we are going as a country, a vision for the future.
(Lifting the Lid on the Politics of Climate Change, RSA, 16 May 2013)
Wikipedia:
The proposed 2018 budget includes $54 billion in cuts to federal departments, and a corresponding increase in defense and military spending. …
[Funding for] the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, [the] National Endowment for the Arts, and [the] National Endowment for the Humanities, would be eliminated entirely.
(2018 United States federal budget, 25 February 2018)
Steve Bannon (1953):
[The] core of what we believe [is] that we're a nation with an economy, not an economy just in some global market place with open borders, but that we are a nation with a culture, and a reason for being.
[That is] what unites us.
(Conservative Political Action Conference, American Conservative Union, 23 February 2017)
Jake Sullivan (1976):
[Trump] is not actually interested in doing the job of president.
He's just interested in [the prestige of] being the president.
( American policymaker Jake Sullivan on US foreign policy, ABC Between the Lines, 15 June 2017)
Barack Obama (1961):
[You run for] elected office, not just for the sake of being something, but for the sake of doing something.
(Sarah Wallis, Obamacare, Inside Obama's Whitehouse, Episode 2, BBC)
Tom Switzer (1971):
We are into the sixth month of the Trump presidency [and, according to the Wall Street Journal,] of the 558 key positions requiring senate confirmation, 427 have no nominee.
( American policymaker Jake Sullivan on US foreign policy, ABC Between the Lines, 15 June 2017)
Donald Trump (1946):
When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. …
They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us.And some, I assume, are good people.
- They're bringing drugs.
- They're bringing crime.
- They're rapists.
(Presidential Bid Announcement, 16 June 2015)
(Vivian Yee & Miriam Jordan, A 2-Year-Old’s Day in Immigration Court, The New York Times, 8 October 2018)
(John Rawls, School of Life, 9 January 2015)
Strategic Brilliance
Donald Trump (1946):
I view the situation on the Turkish border with Syria to be, for the United States, strategically brilliant.
(16 October 2019)
The 2016 Russian Influence Campaign
Nicholas Thompson & Fred Vogelstein:
[Facebook security found] a cluster of accounts, funded by a shadowy Russian group called the Internet Research Agency, that had been designed to manipulate political opinion in America.
There was, for example, a page called Heart of Texas, which pushed for the secession of the Lone Star State.
And there was Blacktivist, which pushed stories about police brutality against black men and women and had more followers than the verified Black Lives Matter page. …
[An analysis of the] most recent 500 posts from [6 of these Russian propaganda groups found] their posts had been shared more than 340 million times [ie 3,000 posts achieved an average of 113,000 shares per post. …]
[The] Russians had paid Facebook $100,000 for roughly 3,000 ads aimed at influencing American politics around the time of the 2016 election.
(Facebook's Two Years of Hell, Wired, March 2018, p 57)
(James Jacoby, The Facebook Dilemma, PBS Frontline, WGBH, 2018)
Brooke Borel:
According to collaborative research from Princeton University, Dartmouth College and the University of Exeter in England, roughly one in four Americans visited a fake news site during the five weeks between October 7 and November 14, 2016, mostly through the conduit of their Facebook feeds.
(Clicks, Lies and Videotape, Scientific American, October 2018, p 42)
Jane Mayer (1955):
According to Special Counsel Mueller’s recent indictment of thirteen Russian nationals, Kremlin-backed operatives, hiding behind fake and stolen identities, posed as Americans on Facebook and Twitter,with the aim of damaging Clinton and helping Trump.
- spreading lies and
- fanning ethnic and religious hatred,
The Kremlin apparently spent about a million dollars a month to fund Internet trolls working round-the-clock shifts in a run-down office building in St Petersburg.
Their tactics [included:](Christopher Steele, the Man Behind the Trump Dossier, The New Yorker, 12 March 2018)
- spreading falsehoods designed to turn voters toward extremism, [and]
- organizing of bogus pro-Trump rallies [in the US.]
RT = Russia Today.
(Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election, ODNI Statement on Declassified Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 6 January 2017, p 11)
The Most Powerful Man in the Universe
Omarosa Manigault (1974) [Director of Communications for Donald Trump, September 2016]:
Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump.
It's everyone who's ever doubted Donald, whoever disagreed, whoever challenged him.
It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.
(Michael Kirk, President Trump, PBS Frontline, WGBH, 2017)
Wikipedia:
On May 1, 1989, [Donald Trump spent an estimated $85,000 on] full-page advertisements in all four of [New York] city's major newspapers [calling for the return of the death penalty for the Central Park Five. …]
In 2002, [Metias] Reyes declared that he [had] assaulted and raped the jogger. …
The city [subsequently reached] a settlement of more than $40 million in the civil suit brought by the five defendants.
In June 2014, Trump wrote an opinion article for the New York Daily News in which he called the settlement "a disgrace" and said that the group's guilt was still likely:Donald Trump (1946):[In] October 2016 [he again] refused to acknowledge the Central Park Five's innocence and stated that their convictions should never have been vacated.
Settling doesn't mean innocence. …
Speak to the detectives on the case and try listening to the facts.
These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels. …
(Central Park jogger case, 6 July 2017)
You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful [women] — I just start kissing them. …
I don’t even wait.
And when you’re a star, they let you do it.
You can do anything.
(Billy Bush, Access Hollywood, 2015)
Michael Flynn (1958):
We do not need a reckless president who believes [he or] she is above the law. …
That's right … lock her up! …
And you know why? …
[Because] if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today.
(Republican National Convention, 2016)
Carrie Johnson [NPR]:
Trump's law is loyalty to him …
(Michael Kirk, Trumps Showdown, PBS Frontline, 2018)
The Enemy of My Enemy
If it is Russia — which it’s probably not, nobody knows who it is — but if it is …
Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.
I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.
— Donald Trump (1946), 27 July 2016.
James Comey (1960):
[Chrisopher Steele has] proven credible in the past, and so has his network …
(Presidential Briefing, 5 January 2017)
Douglas Charles [Associate Professor of History, Pennsylvania State University]:
During Whitewater investigation [James Comey] worked as a Council for the Senate Whitewater committee …
[He had] investigated Hillary Clinton [and concluded] that she wasn't to be trusted.
And now as FBI director he was in a very powerful position and felt a need, perhaps with this independent streak of his, to speak out.
And he undoubtedly had personal motivations in this as well, speaking out and editorialising about Hillary Clinton, but not Donald Trump.
So for the first time since the Hoover years, here's an FBI director using his position, using his authority to influence politics.
So he was crossing ethical boundaries and those were definitely hints of the Hoover years.
And as we can see that had undoubtedly an effect on presidential politics.
(The FBI and the President, ABC Rear Vision, 4 March 2018)
Jane Mayer (1955)
The funding for the [Steele dossier] originally came from an organization financed by the New York investor Paul Singer, [who was backing Marco Rubio against] Trump.
But, after it became clear that Trump would win the Republican nomination, Singer dropped out.
At that point, Fusion persuaded … the Clinton campaign, to subsidize the unfinished research. …
[Christopher Steele's] sources said that when Trump had stayed in the Presidential suite of Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton hotel, in 2013, he had paid
"a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him",thereby defiling a bed that Barack and Michelle Obama had slept in during a state visit.
The allegation was attributed to four sources, but their reports were secondhand — nobody had
- witnessed the event, or
- tracked down a prostitute …
[The sources] were described as:
- "a former top-level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin,"
- a "member of the staff at the hotel,"
- a "female staffer at the hotel when Trump had stayed there," and
- "a close associate of Trump who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow." …
The Russians were described as having cultivated Trump and traded favors with him "for at least 5 years."
Putin was described as backing Trump in order to "sow discord and disunity both within the US" and within the transatlantic alliance.
The report claimed that [Trump] and his top associates had repeatedly accepted intelligence from the Kremlin on Hillary Clinton and other political rivals. …
[In] November of 2014 Dutch intelligence officials … provided US authorities with evidence that the Russians had broken into the Democratic Party’s computer system. …
In April, 2016, over drinks with [Alexander Downer] at a London bar, [Trump foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos] divulged that Russia had access to thousands of Clinton e-mails. …
On July 31, 2016, the FBI had launched a formal investigation [triggered by Papadopoulos’s claims as reported by Australian intelligence. …]
According to an article by the Washington Post [in August 2016,] Robert Hannigan, then the head of the UK’s intelligence service the GCHQ, had recently flown to Washington and briefed the CIA’s director, John Brennan, [about] a stream of illicit communications between Trump’s team and Moscow that had been intercepted. …
[At that point] the CIA’s assessment that the Russians were interfering specifically to boost Trump was not yet accepted by other intelligence agencies, and it wasn’t until days before the Inauguration that major US intelligence agencies had unanimously endorsed this view. …
The US eventually sent a series of stern messages to the Russians …
In early September, 2016, Obama tried [unsuccessfully] to get congressional leaders to issue a bipartisan statement condemning Russia’s meddling in the election. …
The intelligence community had recently informed … the leaders of both parties, and the ranking representatives on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, that Russia was acting on behalf of Trump.
[However,] Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed skepticism about the Russians’ role, and refused to sign a bipartisan statement condemning Russia.
[On] October 7, 2016 … James Clapper, Obama’s director of National Intelligence, and Jeh Johnson, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, issued a joint statement saying that the US intelligence community was "confident" that Russia had directed the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s e-mails. …
James Comey, then the FBI director, had reportedly changed his mind about issuing a public statement, deciding that it was too close to the election to make such a politically charged assertion. …
30 minutes after the statement was released, the Washington Post brought to light the "Access Hollywood" tape, [and a] few hours after that, WikiLeaks, evidently in an effort to bail out Trump by changing the subject, started posting the private e-mails of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman. …
[On] October 28, 2016, Comey sent a letter to congressional leaders: the FBI had come across new e-mails bearing on its previously closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server as Secretary of State. …
Two days before the election, Comey made a second announcement, clearing her of wrongdoing …
To Steele [it] seemed that the Bureau had one standard for Clinton and another for her opponent. …
On January 5, 2017 … in a top-secret Oval Office meeting, the chiefs of the nation’s top intelligence agencies briefed Obama and Biden … for the first time about the dossier’s allegation that Trump’s campaign team may have colluded with the Russians. …
[The dossier was published online by BuzzFeed on 10 January 2017.]
Orbis has landed several new clients as a result of the publicity surrounding the dossier.
The week after it became public, the company received two thousand job applications.
(Christopher Steele, the Man Behind the Trump Dossier, The New Yorker, 12 March 2018, emphasis added)
Poor Little Rich Boy
Donald Trump (1946):
It has not been easy for me. …
My Dad gave me a small loan of a million dollars. …
And I had to pay him back.
I had to pay him back with interest.
(Town Hall Meeting, New Hampshire, October 2015)
David Barstow, Susanne Craig & Russ Buettner:
… Fred and Mary Trump transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million … on gifts and inheritances [of which the] Trumps paid [only] $52.2 million …
… Fred Trump [successfully] transferred 1,032 apartments to his children without incurring [any] gift taxes …
[He made Donald] vice president of dozens of companies. …
[Donald] and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents …
By age 3, [Donald] was earning $200,000 a year in today’s dollars from his father’s [real estate] empire.
He was a millionaire by age 8. …
Soon after [graduating] from college, he was receiving the equivalent of $1 million a year from his father.
[This] increased with the years, to more than $5 million annually in his 40s and 50s. …
All told [Fred Trump created] 295 streams of revenue … over five decades to enrich his son. …
[Despite this, in 1976 (age 30), Donald's] taxable income was $24,594 [and between 1978 and 1979 he did not pay] any federal income taxes at all …
(Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father, The New York Times, 18 October 2018)
Michael Wolff (1953)
[Before the election, Donald] offered his wife a solemn guarantee: there was simply no way he would win.
And even for a chronically — he would say helplessly — unfaithful husband, this was one promise to his wife that he seemed sure to keep.
(p 15)
[On the night of victory,] Melania, to whom Donald Trump had made his solemn guarantee, was in tears — and not of joy.
[In] the space of little more than an hour, [Steve Bannon witnessed] a befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a quite horrified Trump [before finally metamorphosing into] a man who believed that he deserved to be, and was wholly capable of being, the President of the United States.
(p 18)
On Friday, January 27, the travel ban was signed and took immediate effect.
The result was an emotional outpouring of horror and indignation from liberal media, terror in immigrant communities, [and] tumultuous protests at major airports …
Why did we do this on a Friday when it would hit the airports hardest and bring out the most protesters?almost the entire White House staff demanded to know.
Steve Bannon (1953):[This] was the way to crush the liberals: make them crazy and drag them to the left.
Errr … that's why!
So the snowflakes would show up at the airports and riot.
(p 65)
[After the election, Jared and Ivanka] made an earnest deal between themselves: if sometime in the future the time came, she'd be the one to run for president (or the first one of them to take the shot).
The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton, it would be Ivanka Trump.
(p 69)
[In] the Trump White House, it could often seem that … reality simply did not exist, if it did not happen in Trump's presence.
[If] something happened and he wasn't present, [Donald] didn't care about it and barely recognized it.
His response then was often just a blank stare. …
[As a] former military academy cadet, [Donald] had touted a return to military values and expertise.
In fact, he most of all sought to preserve his personal right to defy or ignore his own organization.
This … made sense, since [it] was the most efficient way:
- to sidestep the people in your organization, and
- to dominate them.
(p 109)
[Donald] had a set of beliefs and impulses, much of them on his mind for many years, some of them fairly contradictory, and little of them fitting legislative or political conventions or form.
[Translating this incoherent] set of desires and urges into a [policy program] required a lot of guess work.
Katie Walsh (1984) [White House Deputy Chief of Staff, 20 January – 30 March, 2017]:(p 113)
[It was] like trying to figure out what a child wants.
[Donald] not only didn't … read, he didn't listen.
He preferred to be the person talking.
And he trusted his own expertise — no matter how paltry or irrelevant — more than anyone else's.
What's more, he had an extremely short attention span, even when he thought you were worthy of attention. …
[But surely,] nobody became the president of the United States … without unique astuteness and cunning.
Right? …
[Donald] must know what he was doing, his intuition, [if not his intellect,] must be profound.
(p 114)
One of the ways to establish what Trump wanted … and what his underlying policy intentions were — or at least the intentions that you could convince him were his — came to involve an improbably close textual analysis of his largely off-the-cuff speeches, random remarks, and reflexive tweets during the campaign.
Bannon doggedly went through the Trump oeuvre highlighting possible insights and policy proscriptions. …
[He] acted as disciple and promoted Trump to guru — or inscrutable God. …
If Trump cared about something, he usually already had a fixed view based on limited information.
If he didn't care, he had no view and no information.
(p 116)
[Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus and Jared Kushner all] saw the president as something of a blank page — or a scrambled one.
(p 117)
Each man … in his own astute fashion, found [a] way to appeal to the president …
- Bannon offered a rousing fuck-you show of force;
- Priebus offered flattery from the congressional leadership;
- Kushner offered the approval of blue-chip businessmen. …
- He wanted to break things,
- he wanted a Republican Congress to give him bills to sign, and
- he wanted the love and respect of New York machers and socialites.
[This produced] something like executive paralysis within the first month of the new administration [as] Bannon, Priebus, and Kushner [strove to both] influence the president, and undermine [each other, at the same time.]
(p 121)
One of Jared Kushner's many new patrons was Tony Blair … whom Kushner had gotten to know when, on the banks of the River Jordan in 2010, they both attended the baptism of Grace and Chloe Murdoch, the young daughters of Rupert Murdoch and his then wife, Wendi.
Jared and Ivanka had also lived in the same Trump building on Park Avenue [as the Murdochs] for four years [during which] period Ivanka Trump had become one of Wendi Murdoch's closest friends.
Blair, godfather to Grace, would later be accused by Murdoch of having an affair with his wife …
(p 156)
[From] the start it … was apparent that the Trump administration could just as easily turn into a country club Republican or a Wall Street Democrat regime.
Or just a constant effort to keep Donald Trump happy.
Trump had his collection of pet-peeve issues … but none seemed so significant as his greater goal of personally coming out ahead of the game.
(p 177)
(Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Little, Brown, 2018)
The Enemy of the People
Trump Supporter [Conservative Political Action Conference, February 2017]:
There's no confusion and chaos [in the Trump administration] except as felt by the 5 enemies: …
- ABC,
- NBC,
- CBS,
- Washington Post,
- New York Times.
George Orwell (1903 – 50):
The Hate had started.
As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen.
There were hisses here and there among the audience.
The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. …
[Goldstein] was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity. …
Before the Hate had proceeded for 30 seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. …
[Goldstein] was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. …
[As] the Hate rose to a frenzy [people] were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices …
[In Winston's mind] Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein … seemed like some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of civilization. …
[Then,] drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother … full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen.
Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying.
It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. …
The little sandyhaired woman had flung herself forward over the back of the chair in front of her.
With a tremulous murmur that sounded like 'My Saviour!' she extended her arms towards the screen.
(Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949)
Otto Dietrich (1897 – 1952) [Press Chief, 6th NSDAP Party Congress]:
Truth is the basis on which the power of the press stands and falls.
Our only demand of the foreign press, and our own press, is that they report the truth about Germany.
(Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will, 1935)
Donald Trump (1946)
[The fake news] are the enemy of the people. …
[They] have no sources, they just make ’em up …
They’re very dishonest people.
[The] dishonest media did not explain that I called the fake news the enemy of the people. …
They dropped off the word "fake."
And all of a sudden the story became: "the media is the enemy." …
… I’m not against the press.
I don’t mind bad stories if I deserve them. …
I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources.
They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name.
Let there be no more sources. …
[Let’s] not even mention names, right?
Shall we? …
Well, you have a lot of them.
Look, the Clinton News Network is one. …
Take a look at polls over the last two years: …
- maybe they are just bad at polling?
- maybe they’re not legit?
- look at CBS,
- look at ABC, …
- look at NBC,
[Throughout] the entire campaign, and even now, the fake news doesn’t tell the truth. …
[The] best thing we can do [about Obamacare] is nothing.
Let it implode completely …
[Then, in two years, the] Democrats will come to us and beg for help …
(Conservative Political Action Conference, 24 February 2017)
The only people giving a platform to these hate groups is the media itself, and the fake news. …
These are sick people. …
You would think they would want to make our country great again, and I honestly believe they don't.
If you want to discover the source of the division in our country, look no further than the fake news and the crooked media.
(Trump Rally, Phoenix, Arizona, 22 August 2017)
Franklin Roosevelt (1882 – 1945)
Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital — all undreamed of by the [founding] fathers — the whole structure of modern life [has been] impressed into [a new royal servitude. …]
It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, [should reach] out for control over Government itself.
They [have] created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. …
Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. …
The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business.
They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.
Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair.
If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place. …
Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales.
Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
(Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Democratic Convention, Philadelphia, 27 June 1936)
Ignorance is Strength: The Unscientific American
George Washington (1732 – 1799):
There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature.
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
(Address to Congress, 8 January 1790)
Vannevar Bush (1890 – 1974) [Director, Office of Scientific Research and Development]:
Basic research … provides scientific capital.
It creates the fund from which the practical applications of knowledge must be drawn. …
A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowledge will be:
- slow in its industrial progress, and
- weak in its competitive position in world trade …
Ronald Reagan (1911 — 2004):
Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?
(Campaign Speech, 1980)
Larry Marshall (CEO, CSIRO):
[We're making] a fundamental shift away from curiosity-led research …
(The inconvenient scientists, ABC Background Briefing, 29 May 2016)
Genevieve Bell [Professor & Director, Autonomy, Agency and Assurance Institute, ANU]:
[According to CSIRO's Data61, industry and] government funding of R&D has diminished in Australia.
[The] amount of money Australia is willing to spend in thinking big ideas about the future is on the decline across the board.
We are underspending compared to both comparable countries and countries that we like to benchmark ourselves against.
(Is Australia still an innovative and inventive country?, ABC Big Ideas, 19 November 2018)
peaceandlonglife:
Stories trump facts.
Donald Trump (1946):
Science is science and facts are facts.
Joseph Stiglitz (1943):
While the most immediate symptom [of inequality] is disillusionment leading to a lack of participation in the political process, there is always a worry that voters will be attracted to populists and extremists who attack the establishment that has created this unfair system and who make unrealistic promises of change.
(The Price of Inequality, Penguin, 2012, p 160)
Markets do not exist in a vacuum: they are shaped by rules and regulations, which can be designed to favor one group over another.
President Donald Trump was right in saying that the system is rigged — by those in the inherited plutocracy of which he himself is a member.
And he is making it much, much worse. …
[Just] three Americans [have] as much [wealth] as the bottom 50% [ie 160 million people.]
Families in the bottom 50% hardly have [$400 in] cash reserves to meet an emergency.
(A Rigged Economy, Scientific American, November 2018, p 57)
Francisco Goya (1746 – 1828):
The sleep of reason produces monsters.
(Los caprichos, No 43, 1799)
peaceandlonglife:
According to a pre-election evaluation by Scientific American, Donald scored 0/5 in 12 out of 19 areas of science policy:
- Climate Change
- Biodiversity
- Energy
- Education
- Public Health
- Water
- Food
- Regulations
- Opioids
- Ocean Health
- Scientific Integrity
Grading the US Presidential Candidates on Science(Christine Gorman & Ryan Mandelbaum, Scientific American, 26 September 2016) | ||
Hillary | Donald | |
|---|---|---|
| Total Score | 64/95 | 7/95 |
| Innovation | 4/5 | 1/5 |
| Research | 2/5 | 1/5 |
| Climate Change | 4/5 | 0/5 |
| Clinton acknowledges that "climate change is an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time." She outlines a [10 year plan:]
Clinton loses a point for not saying where she will find the money to pay for such initiatives. |
Trump refers to "climate change" in quotation marks, apparently to signal that he still believes — as he has asserted in the past — that human-caused global warming is a hoax. Then he suggests that "our limited financial resources" are best spent on things such as clean water and anti-malaria efforts, without acknowledging the argument that the success of such efforts could be largely influenced by how climate change is addressed. | |
| Biodiversity | 3/5 | 0/5 | Clinton says "climate change, pollution, habitat destruction," and other forces "pose serious threats to biodiversity and our way of life." She mentions plans "to double the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants" to help communities and tribal nations conserve various types of wildlife "before they become threatened or endangered." She also wants to "establish an American Parks Trust Fund" to "modernize how we protect and enhance our natural treasures." Clinton loses points for not discussing the funding or execution of these plans. |
Trump blames "agencies filled with unelected officials" for "writing rules and regulations" that "cater to special interests." He says there should be a "shared governance of our public lands" and that "state and local governments" should be empowered to protect "wildlife and fisheries." A healthy ecosystem—crucial to the survival of humans and other species—is not a "special interest." |
| The Internet | 3/5 | 1/5 |
| Mental Health | 3/5 | 1/5 |
| Energy | 5/5 | 0/5 |
Clinton "rejects the notion that we as a country are forced to choose between
She plans to:
|
Trump says Americans should "achieve energy independence as soon as possible," and that "a thriving market system" will allow for a consumers to pick "the best sources of energy for future consumption." Scientific American has previously reported on why the free market alone cannot stop climate change and has characterized the goal of "energy independence" as a bipartisan pipe dream. Trump fails to provide any details for his energy policy. | |
| Education | 3/5 | 0/5 |
| Clinton lists statistics including that "less than one in five high school students has ever taken a computer science course." She supports President Barack Obama's existing "Computer Science for All" initiative, and hopes to "train an additional 50,000 [computer science] teachers in the next decade." She mentions plans to support states that develop "innovative schools" and to support diverse institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities. More than one reader wrote to Scientific American criticizing her response for focusing too much on "computer science." |
Trump says "there are a host of STEM programs already in existence," and wants to focus on "market influences to bring better, higher quality educational circumstances to more children." Yet recent investigations of private education companies such as ITT — not to mention Trump University — for deceptive advertising practices, among other things, make clear that the for-profit education industry is no panacea. | |
| Public Health | 4/5 | 0/5 |
| Clinton argues that "we are not investing in public health preparedness and emergency response the way we should," and backs up her claim with evidence showing that "spending on public health had fallen more than 9% since 2008." She says she plans to address the problem in part by creating a "Public Health Rapid Response Fund" that offers "consistent, year-to-year budgets, to better enable" public health officials "to quickly and aggressively respond to major public health crises and pandemics." Clinton loses a point for not detailing how much money she thinks the rapid response budget should contain or how it will be funded. |
Trump suggests that "in a time of limited resources," public health spending may not provide "the greatest bang for the buck." In fact, studies show that public health efforts typically offer returns on investment of between 125% and 3,900%, depending on the program. Trump offers no indication that he has grappled with the issue in any detail. He also states that he will work with Congress to make sure that "adequate resources are assigned to achieve our goals" — not noting that Congress has still declined, as of press time, to approve money to deal with the Zika threat that has emerged in the southern US. Would you like to know more? | |
| Water | 4/5 | 0/5 |
| Clinton says she worries about our country's "chronic underinvestment" in drinking and wastewater systems, and is concerned with risks to humans, wildlife and ecosystems. She hopes to "invest in infrastructure" to modernize water resources and that the federal government will be a "better partner" to "improve water security" on the local level. She adds that she would like to create a "Western Water Partnership" to handle these issues in the west and to establish a "Water Innovation Lab" to bring farmers, engineers, entrepreneurs and others together to deal with water issues. She does not outline a time schedule or monetary assessment of these plans. |
Trump says water "may be the most important issue we face as a nation for the next generation," but offers no solutions other than "making desalinization more affordable." But as one reader noted, we "cannot desalinate our way out of the problem." Increasing supply without boosting conservation and reuse is not sustainable. Meanwhile, Trump told a crowd at a rally in Fresno that "there is no drought" in California. His inconsistencies earn him zero points. | |
| Nuclear Power | 3/5 | 1/5 |
| Food | 2/5 | 0/5 |
| Clinton proposes to do more to "support family farms," which made up 97% of farm operations in the US in 2011. She also plans to expand investment in the rural economy and health care. Most of her answer is based on economic arguments and does not address using "objective knowledge from science," as described in the question. |
Trump thinks that "the agriculture industry should be free to seek its best solutions through the market system," but offers no guidance on how to unravel the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the industry via
| |
| Global Challenges | 3/5 | 0/5 |
| Clinton says she would like to "appoint our country's first Special Envoy for Climate Change" and make climate policy "a key part of our broader relationship with China" and others. She plans to cut emissions by "at least 80 percent of 2005 levels by mid century" through "more clean energy investment in emerging economies" and other methods. She would like to create a "dedicated Rapid Response Fund" and "comprehensive global health strategy" to help "shore up our defenses" against epidemics and pandemics. Clinton loses points for offering plenty of facts but few specifics as to what multilateral partnerships or a comprehensive global health strategy will look like. |
Trump believes that "a prosperous America is a much better partner in tackling global problems." And yet, there is little evidence that wealth automatically translates into better decisions on a variety of issues. The gross domestic product of the US is one of the highest of any country in the world according to the CIA's The World Factbook, but the US is also one of the top greenhouse gas emitters and ranks 31st in life expectancy, according to the World Health Organization. Trump’s answer is built on an incorrect premise. | |
| Regulations | 3/5 | 0/5 |
| Clinton says "it is essential that environmental, health, and energy regulations, among other areas, use the best available science to guide decision-making." She does not, however, address how to maintain a thriving business sector without compromising American health and the environment. |
Trump says we must balance a "thriving economy" with resources and "protecting citizens from threats," and that "science will inform our decisions." These assertions are inconsistent with previous false statements on climate change and vaccine safety rendered throughout his campaign. | |
| Vaccination | 4/5 | 1/5 |
| Space | 2/5 | 1/5 |
| Opioids | 4/5 | 0/5 |
| Clinton touches on a variety of concerns, which shows that she has thoroughly engaged in the issue. Among other things, she wants to allow first responders to administer naloxone (an anti-overdose treatment). |
Trump focuses on illicit drug smuggling, leaving out the arguably larger problem of addiction to prescription drugs. He asserts that he can stop the flow of opioids into the US but offers no details on how he would change current drug enforcement policy, demonstrating a near-total lack of understanding of the issue. | |
| Ocean Health | 4/5 | 0/5 |
| Clinton promises to "oppose efforts in Congress that seek to weaken" current legislation against overfishing in US Waters. She also promises to "act globally to address the fisheries crisis" as well as the negative impact of rising temperature and acidification of ocean water. |
Trump does not mention the ocean, fish, fisheries, coral reefs or coastlines in his answer. | |
| Scientific Integrity | 4/5 | 0/5 |
| Clinton recognizes one of the largest issues in objective science: conflicts of interest that can lead to self-serving results. (A prime example: the recent realization that some companies had suppressed or redirected scientific findings regarding sugar's effect on coronary heart disease.) While her answer can use more detail, it demonstrates a willingness to fight for evidence-based knowledge rather than results that are politically or economically driven. |
Trump says "science is science and facts are facts," and yet his campaign has repeatedly demonstrated an utter disregard for facts. His PolitiFact scorecard shows more than two thirds of his statements to be "Mostly False," "False," or "Pants on Fire," which is unprecedented in its evaluation of politicians. In an evaluation sent to us, a college instructor from Michigan characterized Trump's response to this question "as so simplistic that it made me concerned that he may not actually understand the scientific method or the government structures that support it." | |
In Trump We Trust: From Reality Television to Fantasy Government
John Quiggin (1956):
[In the late 1990s, when debating about the Great Depression, Real Business Cycle advocates] downplayed the huge downturn in output between 1929 and 1933, focusing instead on the slowness of the subsequent recovery, which they blamed, unsurprisingly, on Franklin D Roosevelt and the New Deal.
(Zombie Economics, Princeton University Press, 2012, p 101)
Jane Mayer (1955):
[A 2013] survey of leading American economists chosen for their ideological diversity and eminence in the field, taken by the Initiative on Global Markets, a project run by the University of Chicago, found nearly unanimous consensus that the Recovery Act had achieved its goal of reducing unemployment.
Only one of the 37 economists surveyed disagreed.
The free-market orthodoxy that dominated the Republican Party in Washington had completely veered from rational, professional expertise …
As it was, Obama’s opponents forced the administration to adopt a smaller stimulus package than many economists thought necessary, undercutting the recovery.
(Dark Money, Doubleday, 2016, p 176)
Tim Jackson (1957):
[Labour] productivity growth in the advanced economies has been falling consistently tor several decades, and was doing so long before the financial crisis. …
Growth rates of 4% or more were typical in the 1950s and 1960s.
A sharp decline in in the 1970s was stabilised briefly during the 1980s and 1990s, primarily through the productivity gains from the emerging digital economy.
But these were not to last.
Trend productivity growth has fallen consistently since the turn of the millennium and in 2015 was less than 0.5%.
(Prosperity Without Growth, 2nd Edition, 2017, p 44)
Mary Kissel (1976)
Editorial Board Member, The Wall Street Journal
The American people were discontented with the economic malaise that we have seen over the Obama presidency.
We have had the worst recovery since the Great Depression …
{[In] a normal recovery America would grow 4-5% a year and what President Obama did was tax and spend, and crush the private sector in red tape and so [we] didn't get the normal bounce-back recovery. …
So when you hear that there's some sort of new normal out there and we should just accept this kind of growth; well it isn't normal and Americans don't accept that level of growth …}
Voters [have] repudiated government paternalism.
The Obama administration have injected … an enormous about of regulatory diktat on the American public.
They've inflicted:
- their cultural mores in the forms of transgender bathrooms …
- their law suits against Catholic nuns, and
- their views on religion.
They want to return to growth and they want to return to American leadership in the world …
US Presidential General Election Results (David Leip, Accessed 26 April 2024) | ||
| Donald (1946) | Joe (1942) | |
| Popular Vote | 74,225,926 (46.80%) | 81,286,454 (51.25%) |
| Electoral Vote | 232 (43.1%) | 306 (56.9%) |
| Donald (1946) | Hillary (1947) | |
| Popular Vote | 62,985,153 (45.93%) | 65,853,677 (48.02%) |
| Electoral Vote | 304 (56.5%) | 227 (42.2%) |
| George W (1946) | Al (1948) | |
| Popular Vote | 50,462,412 (47.87%) | 51,009,810 (48.38%) |
| Electoral Vote | 271 (50.4%) | 266 (49.4%) |
Edward Rosenthal:
Since 1824, three different presidential candidates have lost the popular vote but won the election:(The Complete Idiot's Guide To Game Theory, 2011, p 187)
- Rutherford B Hayes in 1876,
- Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and
- George W Bush in 2000.
[Hillary won the popular vote by 2,868,524 and lost the electoral vote by 77.]
Among the 24,537 respondents to the CNN exit poll, 47% voted for Donald (vs 50% for Hillary):]
- 42% of women [and 53% of men (vs the 54% of women and 41% of men for Hillary) …]
- a larger percentage of the black vote than Mitt Romney — 8%, [and]
- 29% of latinos and asians …
peaceandlonglife:
53% of respondents approved of Barack Obama as president, of whom 84% (45% of all respondents) voted for Hillary.
Over 50% of respondents had a unfavorable opinion of each candidate:69% were dissatisfied/angry with the federal government, of whom 58% (40% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
- Donald (60%)
- Hillary (54%)
- Both (18%)
50% thought the government was doing too much, of whom 73% (36% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
45% thought the government was doing too little, of whom 74% (33% of all respondents) voted for Hillary.
62% thought the country was on the wrong track, of whom 69% (43% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
39% felt that being a change agent was what mattered most in a candidate, of whom 83% (32% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
66% of were from suburban or rural areas, of whom 53% (35% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
Of the 34% from urban areas, 59% (25% of all respondents) voted for Hillary.
64% reported earning $50,000 or more, of whom 49% (31% of all respondents) voted for Donald (vs 47% for Hillary).
Of the 36% who earned less than $50,000, 52% (19% of all respondents) voted for Hillary (vs 41% for Donald).
70% were white, of whom 58% (41% of all respondents) voted for Donald:50% had a college degree, of whom 52% voted for Hillary (vs 43% for Donald):
- 63% (21% of all respondents) of white men, and
- 53% (20% of all respondents) of white women.
Of the 50% who did not have a degree, 52% voted for Donald (vs 44% for Hillary):
- 49% (18% of all respondents) of whites with a degree voted for Donald (vs 45% for Hillary),
- 54% (9% of all respondents) of white men with a degree voted for Donald, while
- 51% (10% of all respondents) of white women with a degree voted for Hillary,
- 71% (9% of all respondents) of non-whites with a degree voted for Hillary.
- 67% (23% of all respondents) of whites without a degree voted for Donald, while
- 75% (12% of all respondents) of non-whites without a degree voted for Hillary.
[I wouldn't] classify Colin Powell as a Republican.
[He backed] President Obama. …
[Foreign] policy is a concern with Donald Trump.
He doesn't seem to know much about the world. …
What isn't known is [whether what says about the alliance system and trade protectionism] is simply a negotiating ploy from the guy who wrote "The Art of the Deal'; [a guy] who takes an extreme [ambit position before moving to a] more reasonable stance when he's actually at the negotiating table — we just don't know.
The idea that Trump would abandon American alliances in Asia is absurd.
[The liberal] media often takes Trump literally, when he speaks … because that's how they've treated every other president, but … Donald Trump is [not] like any other president …
They've called him a fascist — I don't believe that he's that …
I believe [that] we have a system of checks and balances [in this country] and that it will function very well …
I caution against hearing his words and taking him literally, I don't think that's how we can hear him and understand him. …
Climate change, for the left, means imposing an enormous amount of regulation and cost on the American consumer, and it means favoring certain politically connected industries namely solar and wind, and that is probably going to go away with the Donald Trump presidency, and that's not a bad thing. …
The American people were [also] concerned that a Clinton presidency would usher in a Supreme Court that simply made up the law to suit the liberal progressive agenda; [and, they] voted resoundingly against Obamacare …
peaceandlonglife:
30% of respondents indicated supreme court appointments were not an important voting issue.
Of the 70% for whom it was important:75% were Christians, of whom 56% (42% of all respondents) voted for Donald, including:
- 50% (35% of all respondents) voted for Donald, while
- 46% (32% of all respondents) supported Hillary.
47% thought Obamacare went "too far", of whom 83% (39% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
- 81% (21% of all respondents) of white born-again or evangelical Christians,
- 52% (12% of all respondents) of Catholics, and
- 61% (1% of all respondents) of Mormons.
{In many respects Donald Trump is a leap of faith.
We know there is at least a potential upside with him on the economic growth front.
Whereas, [with Hillary Clinton, there was] zero economic upside [combined with a record of] many poor decisions [such as] the Iran deal and … the Russian reset with Putin.
So voters did have a clear choice, and now we're going to live with the consequences.}
(The Trump victory, ABC Between The Lines, 10 November 2016)
CNN Exit Poll 2016
Each candidate was considered dishonest/untrustworthy by over 60% of 24,537 respondents:
- Donald (63%)
- Hillary (61%)
- Both (29%)
63% thought Donald did not have the right temperament to be president (vs 43% for Hillary).
However, of these, 20% (13% of all respondents) voted for him anyway.
Of the 14% who thought neither candidate had the right temperament, 71% (10% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
49% had an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, of whom 85% (42% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
55% had an unfavorable view of the Republican Party, of whom 73% (40% of all respondents) voted for Hillary.
63% felt the state of the national economy was poor, of whom 63% (40% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
31% thought the financial situation had improved in the last 4 years, while 27% thought it had worsened.
A greater proportion thought Donald (49%) would better handle the economy than Hillary (46%).
However, of the 52% who thought the economy was the most important issue facing the country:
- 52% (27% of all respondents) voted for Hillary, while
- 42% (22% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
45% were bothered "a lot" by Hillary's use of private email, of whom 87% (39% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
43% thought the US criminal justice system treated everyone fairly, of whom 74% (32% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
56% were aged 45 and older, of whom 53% (30% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
13% were veterans, of whom 61% (8% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
50% of native born Americans voted for Donald (vs 45% for Hillary).
70% of respondents thought illegal immigrants working in the US should be offered legal status, of whom 60% (42% of all respondents) voted for Hillary.
Of the 25% who thought they should be deported, 84% (21% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
41% supported a wall along the entire Mexican border, of whom 86% (35% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
13% thought that immigration was the most important issue facing the country, of whom 64% (8% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
65% were Liberal or Moderate in ideology, of whom 65% (42% of all respondents) voted for Hillary.
Of the 35% who were Conservative, 81% (28% of all respondents) voted for Donald.
48% of Independents voted for Donald (vs 42% for Hillary).
13% made their voting decision in the last week, of whom 47% (6% of all respondents) voted for Donald and 42% (5% of all respondents) for Hillary.
Government of the People, by the President, for the President (and his family)
Emoluments Clause:
No … person holding any office of profit or trust under [the United States,] shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.
(Article I, Section 9, Clause 8, US Constitution)
Judd Legum
Donald Trump is leveraging his new position as president-elect to empower his business empire …
Instead of liquidating his assets and placing them in a Qualified Diversified Trust, as President Bush did, or investing in index funds and government bonds, as President Obama did, Trump has done nothing.
He’s waved away concerns about conflicts-of-interest, saying that he would just hand over control of his business interests to his children.
He called this a “blind trust” but it is actually the [complete] opposite.
A blind trust is when you hand marketable assets over to a neutral third party to control.
The contents of the trust, since they can be traded at any time by the administrator, are soon unknown to you.
Trump knows what his assets are and says he is handing them to his children.
Immediately after Trump’s election, he named three of his adult children — Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Jr — to his transition team.
This means the same people running the Trump Organization will also be choosing the top officials in the Trump administration. …
[And since] Trump will retain ownership in his businesses, [success of those businesses] will mean money in Trump’s pocket.
(This isn’t just a photo of Ivanka Trump. It’s a middle finger to democracy, ThinkProgress, 18 November 2016)
Alice Ollstein
[There is mounting evidence that Donald] Trump and his adult children are leveraging the presidency to advance their business interests. …
[Felipe] Yaryura, the Argentinian investor working on building a Trump Tower in Buenos Aires, … breakfasted with Ivanka, Eric, and Don Jr the [morning after the election,] where they spoke about how Trump’s presidency would improve his company’s brand worldwide, and in Argentina in particular.
{Trump rejected the State Department’s help in fielding calls from around the world, and chose instead to wing it on unsecured phone lines.}
(There is a lot more to the Trump Argentina story, ThinkProgress, 23 November 2016)
