Fox’s Lou Dobbs was in prime form the other night, caught up in his nightly Trump fever dream, panting:
“Everyone is winning with this President . . . . He’s rolled back the oppressive values and policies of the Obama years. Obama the Oppressor, we might have called him . . . . Imagine what the national leftwing media would be doing to this great President if he weren’t historic, and failing America like his predecessor, instead of succeeding…”
Trump has even been able to convince himself and his supporters that he’s two inches taller than 6’1’’ President Barack Obama. This cognitive dissonance applies to everything Trump.
Is Obama wearing heels?
NPR’s Jack Beatty had to apologize a few months ago for referring to Trump’s core supporters as “cult-like,” but he was right—they have all the hallmarks of a cult, beginning and ending with a charismatic leader that is always right.
In large part because Obama was roundly applauded for his handling of Hurricane Sandy, Trump pledged his hurricane responses would be “better than ever before.”
Then the embarrassing, Katrina-like response to Puerto Rico happened. But, you'd never suspect anything from hearing Trump or his supporters talk about it—just another “A+” hurricane response.
Just this week, even though Trump’s own FEMA has acknowledged they mishandled the disaster relief of Puerto Rico’s 2017 hurricanes that resulted in 2,975 deaths, instead of apologizing, Trump called it an “unsung success” and said that the death toll was made-up “by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible.” (In a rare dissent, Florida’s Republican Governor Rick Scott correctly noted via tweet, “an independent study said thousands were lost and Gov. Rosselló agreed. I’ve been to Puerto Rico 7 times & saw devastation firsthand.”)
Like clockwork, Lou Dobbs reflexively defended the President’s new truth and ironically once again calling the true information “fake news”:
And, of course, Trump immediately retweeted and down the rabbit hole we go.
Nothing is ever a mistake, though. And every endeavor is a blinding success.
North Korea is already a success and “no longer a Nuclear Threat,” despite not a single long range nuclear missile leaving Kim Jung Un’s grasp.
The “unfair Trade Deals” that he's fixing? It’s easy to tear up deals and ruin relationships, but nearly two years into his presidency, the trade deficit he talked about in the campaign hasn’t gotten any better—in fact, it’s gotten significantly worse.
When Trump took office, the trade deficit stood at at 42.2 billion, it is currently at 50.1 billion. Earlier in the year, it was at 54.5 billion, or higher that any time under Obama, post-recession. Even if Trump does come through with the “greatest trade deals ever to be made,” the proof will be in the pudding and so far the pudding isn’t all that great:
Yes, he has increased military spending and put more pressure on NATO to increase their military spending, but with no real threats this makes as much sense as someone with 100 cats pressuring his neighbors to get 10 cats… because it’s not fair that he carry the burden of having all the cats!
Not to mention, that making one of the biggest defense budgets in U.S. history hasn’t done anything for the national debt that candidate Trump promised to completely eliminate. On the contrary, the U.S. is set to borrow $769 billion, or the most since The Great Recession. Remember when Rand Paul made the point back in 2015 that we were borrowing a million a minute? Using his math, we’re now borrowing at nearly double that rate—1.7 million a minute.
Trump also claims that “for the first time in 19 years,” because of his tax cuts to corporations and massive deregulation, “wages are going up.” However, wages have remained stagnant since he’s been in office:
It's also important to note that despite Obama’s choking of U.S. corporations with over-regulation and taxes, they still managed to post record profits during his tenure. (Spoiler alert: When corporations have record profits, those profits almost never find their way into workers’ wallets.)
What about the GDP? Despite Trump’s claims, “that since I've taken over its doubled and tripled,” the reality is that Trump’s first year in office the GDP growth of 2.5%, which is below three of Obama’s years.
And, finally, Trump loves to make the point that more Americans are working now than ever before—a claim that could have been made by every President since WWII, thanks to the strange phenomena known as population growth.
As far as actual employment numbers, the rate of employment growth has held very steady since Obama’s post-recession era:
And these are just the positive aspects of Trump’s presidency. It’s no wonder that with family separation at the border, ripping up the Paris Climate Accord, calling neo-Nazis “good people,” and the Mueller investigation and his daily buffoonery that this President is deeply unpopular.
But, don’t tell that to the Trump Cult and the former Republican Party they’ve seized control of. To them, Trump towers over Obama and every other previous President.
However, while it may make you chuckle to think the most powerful person in the world would be so insecure that they’d lie about their height, stating a death toll is “fake news” is no laughing matter.
Although, I’m sure there some of the death toll deniers are “good people.”