Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Trump Might NOT Be A Compulsive Liar

Certainly the evidence suggests that Trump is a compulsive liar.  He seems incapable of registering what is true and what is false.  However, this suggests that perhaps he is not a liar at all, but is in fact simply completely steeped in bullshit.

Bullshit is simply unconcerned with the truth.  Rather a bullshitter is simply trying to impress the listener and obfuscate the truth or falseness of any situation.

However, the end result - whether Trump is a liar or a bullshitter - is a startingly fact free campaign.  Being fact free does seem to be the sustained condition of the Right globally.  Take Paul Ryan's budget proposal.  He produces a deficit reduction plan that cuts taxes without specifying the slashing and burning of the budget that would be necessary to pay for it.  And of course...Brexit.

Part of the problem I had with Sanders was that his numbers just never added up. Not a fudge-the-curve sort of not adding up, but a basic innumeracy.  That's not the way for liberals to win.  We don't win by adopting the fact-free politics of the Right but by illuminating them and shaming them.

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