Political Irony

With the primaries essentially wrapped up, PolitiFact did an analysis of the 2016 presidential primaries and the statements from all the candidates. It is an interesting read.

The primaries lasted 465 days (100 days more than a year), and PolitiFact published 650 fact checks (1.4 checks a day).

The first conclusion is somewhat unexpected — the rating given the most to statements from political candidates was “Mostly True”. So those who think that all politicians lie all the time are being a little too cynical. In addition, if you divide the ratings into two groups, they are almost evenly split between those that rate True, Mostly True, and Half True, and those that rate Mostly False, False, or Pants on Fire. In fact, the “truthy” ratings slightly outnumber the “falsey” ones.

But when they compare the two last politicians standing (Trump and Clinton), the results are sadly expected. Donald Trump received more “Pants on Fire” ratings than all the other candidates for president combined. And 78% of all his ratings were “falsey”.

On the other hand, 73% of the ratings received by Hillary Clinton were “truthy”. She only received one “Pants on Fire” rating (she claimed she was the only presidential candidate — on either side — who had ads run against her by Wall Street).

Bottom line? “Donald Trump lies. A lot. Even for a politician.”

One of the things that Trump lies about is his generosity and charity. He keeps claiming to have given lots of money to charities, even when the charities have no record of him making any donations.

But it is much worse than that. Four years ago, at a charity fundraiser, Trump bought a Denver Bronco’s helmet autographed by Tim Tebow, and a Tebow jersey. The $12,000 he paid went to the Susan G. Komen foundation (which itself has been the subject of controversy).

The problem is that Trump used money from his Trump Foundation to pay for the helmet and jersey, and then kept the items himself. The Trump Foundation is largely funded by other people’s money — at the time of the fundraiser, Trump had not put any of his own money in the foundation for at least three years.

That’s right, Trump took money that other people had donated to his “charity” and used it to buy a rather expensive gift for himself. So Trump not only lies, he steals. And despite Trump’s claim to be a good businessman, now that Tebow is no longer quite as famous, the helmet and jersey that Trump bought for $12,000 can be bought online for about $415.

Actor Aziz Ansari recently published an opinion piece in the NY Times titled “Why Trump Makes Me Scared for My Family“. Ansari isn’t a religious person, but he is the son of Muslim immigrants.

You should read the whole article, but I just wanted to quote one thing. Mainly because it supports my theory that the nasty things that Donald Trump says about other people really apply more to Trump himself.

Xenophobic rhetoric was central to Mr. Trump’s campaign long before the attack in Orlando. This is a guy who kicked off his presidential run by calling Mexicans “rapists” who were “bringing drugs” to this country. Numerous times, he has said that Muslims in New Jersey were cheering in the streets on Sept. 11, 2001. This has been continually disproved, but he stands by it. I don’t know what every Muslim American was doing that day, but I can tell you what my family was doing. I was studying at N.Y.U., and I lived near the World Trade Center. When the second plane hit, I was on the phone with my mother, who called to tell me to leave my dorm building.

The haunting sound of the second plane hitting the towers is forever ingrained in my head. My building was close enough that it shook upon impact. I was scared for my life as my fellow students and I trekked the panicked streets of Manhattan. My family, unable to reach me on my cellphone, was terrified about my safety as they watched the towers collapse. There was absolutely no cheering. Only sadness, horror and fear.

Mr. Trump, in response to the attack in Orlando, began a tweet with these words: “Appreciate the congrats.” It appears that day he was the one who was celebrating after an attack.

© David Horsey

I don’t get it. If Bill Clinton wanted to compromise the Benghazi investigation by having a sneaky private conversation with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, why would it happen in a public place?

And after dozens of Republican investigations into Benghazi, why does anyone even listen to this noise anymore?

Ronald Reagan’s son Ron has rented a billboard in Cleveland so he can troll the GOP convention using his father’s own words. Here’s an example:

© FFRC

The quote on the billboard really is from the Republican’s Saint Ronnie. The speech it comes from is even more explicit:

We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.

Even though Republicans claim to revere Reagan, it is clear that Reagan would have trouble getting elected as a Republican in today’s party. But that’s ok, because the feeling is definitely mutual. Reagan’s other son, Michael, has tweeted that he would not vote for Trump, and that his father wouldn’t have either, saying there’s “nothing really Reaganesque” about Donald Trump.

© Tom Tomorrow

Has it really been just a year since Donald Trump announced he was running for the presidency? It seems way longer for some (unknown) reason. You can make a 23 panel comic just by quoting Trump’s greatest hits from the last year. And as Tom Tomorrow put it “Obviously I’m only scratching the surface, though — sad!”

And the lies just keep on coming. After an embarrassingly bad month of fundraising, Trump’s campaign just announced that a single campaign email blast raised $3.3 million. That’s more than he just raised in a whole month, which is frankly impossible. Plus we remember when he claimed that he raised $6 million for veterans, then had to repeatedly lower that number after the media questioned it.

Will Republicans start accusing the Wall Street Journal (owned by the same people who own Fox News) of having a liberal bias? It wouldn’t surprise me after they published an article titled “Study Sees Debt Jumping Under Trump, Staying Steady Under Clinton“.

This is not just the WSJ’s opinion. Several studies have analyzed the tax and spending proposals from both major (presumed) candidates, and come to the same conclusion.

The most recent study is from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (who promotes bringing down the national debt). They estimate that under current laws, the national debt will grow to 86% of the entire US economy (mainly driven by an aging population that will increase spending on Social Security and Medicare). So 86% is our baseline.

Under the economic plan put forward by Donald Trump, the US debt will grow to 127% of the entire economy, a stunning increase of $11.5 trillion to the national debt.

On the other hand, Clinton’s plan is estimated to increase the debt to 87% of the US economy (1% more than the baseline, which is within the margin of error for the study).

Other studies, from the Tax Policy Center, and the Tax Foundation, have similar results. They estimate that Trump’s tax changes would reduce government revenues by $9.5 trillion and $10 trillion, respectively.

And of course, there is the analysis from Moody’s Analytics a week ago that found that Trump could plunge the US economy into a prolonged recession with heavy job losses because his policies on immigration and trade would dramatically increase the cost of goods and labor. But that’s only if Trump isn’t lying and really does do what he repeatedly promises to do (although as we have seen with Brexit, even the threat of doing something really stupid was enough to severely damage the economy of the UK).

The bottom line is that Trump is likely to be far worse for our economy than Brexit was for the UK’s. But there may be a silver lining, as Trump could make more money on his golf courses in the US.