Bear Flat Dispatch. January 31, 2015
Unless you live in a cave without Wi-Fi, you will be aware of the chaos that has resulted by Trump’s threat of 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico. Placing tariffs against your closest trading partners and allies with whom mutually beneficial trade arrangements exist is highly disruptive to all countries involved. So why is he doing this? In the case of Canada, Trump has stated illegal immigration, drugs, and a trade imbalance as the reasons.
Trump believes that he is the smartest person in the room, and as illustrated in “The Art of the Deal”, this is perhaps a negotiating ploy by him. If you thought that seems like a disrespectful and poor way to treat your longtime friends and neighbors, you would be right, but then that doesn’t matter to someone like Trump. To Trump, everything centers around him and what he wants. He knows that he is the most powerful person in the entire world, and when combined with his lethal cocktail of character traits, that is scary. A list of those traits that he either possesses or clearly admires would include narcissism, bully, authoritarian, dictator, oligarchy with little regard for the poor, lack of empathy, and perhaps most scary, his shameless willingness to lie in our increasingly “post truth” society.
The Cambridge Dictionary describes “post-truth is an adjective that describes a situation where people are more influenced by emotions and beliefs than by facts.” In other words, facts don’t matter anymore. Sure, politicians have long told lies to advance their cause, but Trump has shamelessly taken post-truth to a whole new level to advance his personal and political agenda.
Many media outlets will often fact check his statements and call out his lies, but that doesn’t seem to make any difference anymore. Lies that support a certain agenda are simply accepted as fact by supportive media and segments of society, so Trump just continues to lie. It seems to be working out well for him at the expense of the greater good of society.
Back to his tariff threat against Canada that he now says will start tomorrow (February 1st). I am no expert, but if there is some truth to his drug and immigration concerns, then indeed Canada should do something about that. Regarding the so-called trade deficit, Trump is greatly exaggerating (lying) about the amount, and most of that trade is economically healthy for both nations. Most economists are opposed to the proposed tariffs.
Since the inauguration, Trump has unleashed a torrent of executive orders and other actions unlike any other new administration. Much of this aligns with the “Project 2025” playbook that Trump tried to distance himself from while campaigning. Many of his actions in the last 2 weeks are pushing the limits of legality and what is permitted under the Constitution, and will be held up by the courts, but the lack of resistance by the Trump/ MAGA dominated Congress is scary. Trump has very successfully pushed out non-MAGA Republicans from Congress and has surrounding himself with only the most faithful supporters who often back up his lies. His choice of many unqualified to downright unsuitable candidates for cabinet positions appears to be based mainly on their allegiance to him and his agenda.
Following the tragic plane crash in Washington DC on Thursday, Trump gave a press briefing that started out in a respectful manner but quickly deteriorated. There is so much wrong with how Trump handled this matter that I post it here if you wish to see what I mean:
https://www.wsj.com/video/watch-president-trump-remarks-on-deadly-midair-collision/7B0E56AF-A229-40EF-81F4-9CF01B0ADEA0 That one press conference does show the real Trump and his callous agenda driven new order supported by his handpicked minions.
For our sanity, it is important to remember that much of what Trump does is not normal and acceptable to much of society. As Canadians who probably will be impacted negatively by Trump, all we can do is our best to counter Trumps worst actions against us in the next four years, and hope for a better President in the next term. However, in this time of post-truth combined with siloed media sources, we might be destined to be led by the most effective liars. It is on all of us to serious fact- check what we are being told, and not to simply accept what conveniently fits our beliefs.
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