This morning, upon encountering the Washington Post's headline — "In a 30-minute interview, President Trump made 24 false or misleading claims" ("at a rate of one every 75 seconds") — it occurred to me that in yesterday's NY Times' headline — "10 Falsehoods From Trump’s Interview With The Times" — no intentional implication of only 10 falsehoods was made. The Times was merely exhausted — and besides, only so many Trumpian lies can hold the reader's attention.
Of greater importance than his lies was Trump's revealed mental state. After reading the interview's deeply worrying transcript, I concluded (re-concluded, rather) that "No one of any political or intellectual integrity could read [it] and walk away believing that its formulator is of sound mind." Of course in my assessment, there was nothing unique. Whole armies of neurologists and mental-health professionals have observed Trump's cognitive dysfunction, as have other laymen. CNBC's John Harwood wrote that "What made the president's year-end New York Times interview notable was repetition of a particular brand of untruth … — 'delusions of omnipotence.'" Esquire's Charles Pierce, whose father suffers from Alzheimer's and thus the son is familiar with its symptoms, wrote that "the interview is a clinical study of a man in severe cognitive decline, if not the early stages of outright dementia." And, there was Vox's Ezra Klein — the incarnation of worry in simplest form: "The president of the United States is not well." One needn't be a mental-health professional to be thunderstruck by the bloody obvious.
As noted, to those of integrity, the obvious is indeed bloody. The president of the United States is a man seized by violent decay. His mind is severely disheveled; his language, chaotic; his fallacies, pathological. In the NYT interview there are multiple instances of Trump's hallucinatory notions, but as evidence, we shall let one suffice. All these false charges of collusion with Russia, he said, "what it’s done is, it’s really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is stronger than it’s ever been." Against this, Klein sought the data-journalism of 538's Harry Enten, who in September reported that the "fact" is, "Trump has lost the greatest number of supporters in red states," which "is perhaps the clearest indication yet that he is losing ground among some form of his base."
This brings me to the enlightening mother lode of this post. Yesterday I engaged, on Facebook, a member of that base — Trump's core base that I have always contended was grossly unpersuadable, hence pointlessly engage-able. There is no shortage of centrists and leftists who insist that these chaps should be addressed with compassionate kid gloves, for maybe they are persuadable, if only clear and politely produced evidence of Trump's abominations can be brought to bear on them. Therefore, to this particular chap I presented a link to the NYT's "10 Falsehoods From Trump's Interview" and requested that he read it and then offer reasons — valid ones if possible — as to why the Times was mistaken in its clarifying analyses. I shall now present his reply in all its agonizing fullness, which, I warn you, will require heroic stamina on your part.
"Wow. Where do i begin. First. This sounds legit. However trump has 130+ iq. He has been 3 steps ahead of everyone. All i just read is the same thing i read before however they have changed statistics. My buddy watched that interview and showed it to me. They changed the narrative to make ppl think he doesnt know what hes doing. If hes so quilty why hasnt anyone caught him. So your pushing the narrative that ppl cant change things to make dems crazy. Is it so hard to expect dems to try to see things differently as i have just done to try to work together. This stupid left right crap keeps us divided. Thats what dems want. They are pushing a civil war. Im never gonna admit trump is perfect. Hes not. Hes a business man. Not a politician. However hes already rich, bought his own campaign. So we know he doesnt have any agendas(unlike dems) look at the states they run. All high crime, run down states. Dems hate for trump keeps them off the subject of looking at how they run states. They dont care about you or anyone thats not of color. They want migrants by the millions.... Why. So they keep themselves in power. Have you seen UK lately. Like really see what they are going through. Million and millions of migrants. Its happening all over europe. Sweden has been split in two. One side is Sweden citizens the other half is islam. George moore was innocent. Have you heard from those girls since the polls. Just gone. I seen this morning a judge is recalling the counts. However it wont happen because at the last second they got a judge to allow all votes to be destroyed immediately after. Who does that.... Why when normally these records are saved in case of a recount.... Think about that. An american tradition of keeping records in case of cheating.... Hmmm seems the only reason to pull something like that is if you know(dems) are planning on cheating... Then add in false sexual allegations. Remember in america your innocent till proven quilty. Now lets break down trumps sexual allegations. Remember these women of both roy and trump were 30-40 yrs ago. Past time to file charges. Waits till a person runs for office then claims sexual abuse. Ok. Trumps sexual abuses were all clearly debunked because wow the stories these ppl had is wow. Trump still gets elected. Then all the sexual abuse with dems come out. Ohhhh now dems see a clearing to get trump out or spread more trump hate... How you ask. Im glad you asked... They begin to spin the allegations that were coming out so quickly that they use that to force AL franklin and conners or whatever to resign. Then guess what... 4 days later here comes...... The sexual allegations back on trump.... Wait for it..... Boom then they try to say trump should step down. WTF.... I relistened to the allegations and laughed harder cause not one had a creditable story. Every move trump makes he has msm changing stories. What really happened has been edited. Or made in a dark way. No shit i bought a new york times paper.. Walked 20 blocks. Bought another new york times. Front page was a trump story. I looked at both and wow it had the same stories. However one was positive if trump and one was negative about trump. Same stories but both had narratives differences. They keep both the left and right from working together cause once dems see we cab work together the the left america will see them for who that really are liers and have been making huge profits off americans(all of us) taxpayer money. Obama has 3 homes and been buying up property all over the white house. Clintons are valued wat higher then she should. Maxine waters... Lmao she has a 5.4 million dollar home with 2 more just over 2 millionm, on 174k salary... Trump doesnt ever collect his presidential salary of 200k he donates it to charities. Hes donated 1 million of his own money to disaster relieve. I could keep going but probably isnt worth it cause many will shrug this off without even trying to see if im in any way right cause dems have control over the hate for trump. So whos really blind ill ask?"
To which I replied: "You are." The miserably, blindly intoxicated wretch had said he'd be happy to read the story, for he's "open" to all information. But it seems he didn't read it, for first off in his response he dismissively claimed that he had already seen the underlying interview on video — even though it wasn't video-taped. From there he asserted the Times "changed the narrative" — huh? — "to make ppl think [Trump] doesnt know what hes doing." How is the "narrative" of an interview "changed," when it's merely the words straight from the interviewee? And from there, in a disorienting disjointed follow-up, the Trump supporter abruptly asked, "if he's so guilty, why hasn't anyone caught him?" That of course shows a fundamental misapprehension of prosecutorial procedure, which is time-consuming. (And, by the way, Trump has been "caught," in lawsuit after lawsuit, in scam after scam).
And therein were only the first 72 words of a rambling, 743-word embarrassment.
So, my dear centrists and leftists and center-leftists of compassion and understanding, tell me again how significant blocs of Trump's base are persuadable, if only we approach them with … you got it … compassion and understanding. I appreciate that this anecdotal post is egregiously insufficient in evidentiary numbers, but I've encountered this Trumpeteer's racist blather and paranoia in countless comment sections. His ilk is vastly uninformed, visibly limited in intelligence, and profoundly disingenuous — just like Trump, which is why they support him. And ain't nobody gonna change their minds.