When it comes to politics, the empirical truth is something found in the history books that no one reads. Donald Trump is taking lying to a new art form. He is basically making it up as he goes along and, based on the fact that he is leading in many polls it appears that the American people are buying his lies. The group Politifacts compiled Trump's untruths and they will blow your mind.
According to Michael LaBossiere, a philosophy professor at Florida A&M University who studies theories of knowledge, via The Tampa Bay Times, " Trump perfected the outrageous untruth as a campaign tool. He makes a clearly false or even absurdly false claim, which draws the attention of the media. He then rides that wave until it comes time to call up another one."
So, you want to change Washington? Tired of the politicians just lying to you. Well, you might not want to vote for Trump then. Here are some misinformation as uttered by the Donald, courtesy of the same article -
- "I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down," he said at a Nov. 21 rally in Birmingham, Ala. "And I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering." Pants on Fire. There is no video of thousands of people in Jersey City cheering. Weeks later, Trump continues to stand by his claim but has not been able to point to evidence to back it up. Public safety officials on the ground in New Jersey say it never happened.
- "The Mexican government ... they send the bad ones over." Pants on Fire. There's no evidence to show the Mexican government encourages criminals to cross the border. Most illegal immigration comes from people seeking work. Recent estimates show illegal immigration from Mexico dropped off dramatically during the recession and has remained low.
- "Whites killed by whites - 16%. Whites killed by blacks - 81%," said an image he shared on Twitter. Pants on Fire. Most people are killed by someone they know, and someone of the same race. The correct number for whites killed by whites was 82 percent in 2014, while the number of whites killed by blacks was 15 percent."
Basically, Trump is using the old Joseph McCarthy playbook campaign. It isn't about truth or accuracy. It's about getting elected through fear mongoring. McCarthy told the American people that the State Department was littered with Communist. It, in fact, was not. He shouted as loud as he could "The Russians are coming." Trump erased the Russian part and in it's place typed "the Mexicans" and then "isis."
Tampa Times, in another article, documented Trump's trouble with the the truth, "Early in the prime time Republican presidential debate, Fox News moderator Chris Wallace pressed Trump on some of his past statements about undocumented immigration - the signature issue of Trump's campaign. Wallace asked Trump, 'What evidence do you have, specific evidence, that the Mexican government is sending criminals across the border?' Trump never directly answered the question, though he did cite conversations with "border patrol people" who told him that it was true."
