Please Stop Making Up Stupid Trump Controversies
Inspired by this excellent post on faulty anti-Trump assumptions propagated by our lazy and reckless media, here are some things I’ve privately believed about Trump for a long time, but never declared publicly for fear of being seen to help Trump. Maybe this makes me a coward. I don’t know. I also don’t think it’s incumbent on everyone to publicly state every single one of their beliefs at any given moment. We are allowed to exercise discretion. You’ll notice that the three examples to follow are all “controversies” that dominated cable news chatter at various points in the 2016 campaign. They were exactly the type of controversies that had no detrimental effect whatsoever on Trump’s popularity, and maybe even helped him because they were so overblown, thus compelling people to rally to Trump’s defense out of spite.
Myth 1: Trump mocked a disabled reporter
OK, let’s review this widely-believed myth. In November 2015, Trump made a bizarre hand gesture, which was immediately taken to be a conscious attempt on his part to mock New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski:
And then here’s a video “debunking” which purports to prove that Trump actually wasn’t mocking the reporter, but just performing one of his regular bizarre physical comedy routines — watch for yourself and see if you find it persuasive:
OK. Here’s the key question. What remote reason would Trump have had to knowingly mock a disabled person? What Republican primary constituency would that have increased his support among? None. Even the most cold-hearted right-wingers don’t approve of mocking the disabled. No one does. The people who would like that type of thing are too small in number, and too marginal, for any politician in his right mind to cater to. And let’s be clear about this: Trump was trying to win the entire time, despite a constant flurry of conspiracy theories that postulated otherwise. (“He’s not actually trying to win! He just wants to start up Trump TV! This is a con!”)
So what’s more likely: that Trump was trying to purposely sabotage his electoral prospects, or that he just did some kind of weird gesture that coincidentally vaguely resembled the reporter’s physicality? Again, Trump would have to be a true idiot to consciously mock a disabled person. He’s many things, but he’s not an idiot. He just won the presidential election in one of the most stunning triumphs in world history. That’s not something an idiot could accomplish.
Here’s what’s so exhausting about this stuff. There is absolutely more than enough to object to about Trump without inventing these ridiculous non-stories. That’s been a running theme in the coverage of Trump; he supplies copious grounds to oppose him, but people still feel moved to confect additional reasons that have no basis in empirical reality, because they are so blinkered by rage and hobbled by confirmation bias. (See later in this post for some legitimate reasons to oppose him.)
Trump has a lot of weird mannerisms. Anyone who watched his rallies, speeches, interviews, and so forth over the course of this absurdly long campaign would know this. He’s a performer. He spent the bulk of his recent career as a television entertainer. People enjoy bizarre hand gestures, vocal inflections, and jokes, so he gives the people what they want. It’s not complicated.
Myth 2: Trump made fun of Megyn Kelly’s menstruation
Here’s another tiresome one. In August 2015, Trump went on CNN to comment on his debate performance the previous day. He had just gotten into a big feud with Megyn Kelly. (It was a perfect Trump story: a reality TV style, conflict-laden plot that elevated him above the rest of the GOP field.)
Does Trump intentionally try to gin up feuds with media figures as a scheme to raise his profile? Yes. Does he intentionally mock women for menstruating? That’s…not at all clear. No, he probably doesn’t do that.
Trump speaks in colloquialisms. These are New York City outer-borough wisecracks and ethnic-inflected quips. He splices them throughout his rhetoric. It’s part of the reason why, say, Italian-Americans in Staten Island like Trump so much — because they intuitively recognize his personal affect. He uses a lot of slang, so when you transcribe his statements they often appear incoherent as written text, but when you hear him speak, what he says is easily interpretable.
“He’s spinning in his grave” — “He did a number on him” — “He did it Big League” — these are all examples of Trump colloquialisms. He also speaks imprecisely, repeats himself, garbles grammar, and flubs pronunciations. Still, you can almost always understand what he’s saying.
So that’s the frame through which to view the Megyn Kelly remark. Let’s refresh our memories:
“Blood coming out of her wherever” is just another goofy Trump colloquialism to describe when a person is seething with misplaced rage. Maureen Dowd helpfully explained why she did not perceive Trump to be referencing Kelly’s menstrual cycle:
“I don’t think that’s where Trump was headed. I believe him when he says that he was going to say something about her nose or ears next, and then suddenly realized he should probably drop it. He used the same image about a man — Chris Wallace — in the same interview with Don Lemon, saying “there was blood pouring out of his eyes, too.”
I think that’s correct. Again, there are still plenty of reasons to oppose Trump. You don’t need this one in order to maintain your posture of opposition. Really, you don’t.
3. Trump stealthily courted the endorsement of David Duke
I just don’t think this one is true either. I think Trump is a sloppy speaker. When he was asked this particular question by Jake Tapper in February, he responded sloppily, and the sloppiness was taken as some kind of shocking entreaty to David Duke. This doesn’t seem plausible. Why would he then have gone on to repeatedly denounce and disavow David Duke? People love to claim that Trump is a fool, but then they attribute these exceedingly clever little tactics to him in the same breath. Which one is it?
Slate Star Codex comprehensively debunks the Duke thing, and I agree with every word. So I’m not going to re-litigate the whole issue here, just go read the post. (By the way, David Duke has almost no support even in Louisiana, which might be the most racially-fraught state in the country — he just finished in 7th place, despite endless unwarranted national media hype.)
There are some more of these non-troversies that I could list, but here’s the point. In order to affirm that Trump is bad, it’s not necessary to affirm that every bad allegation about him is true. Suppose someone claims that Trump personally murdered a baby in 1986. Acknowledging this allegation to be false doesn’t mean affirming that Trump is somehow good, it’s simply to acknowledge that false information is false. The falsity of a particular bit of information doesn’t detract from the overall conclusion that Trump = bad.
Likewise, acknowledging that Trump has done some discrete things that are “good,” or has caused some “good” outcomes, is not tantamount to professing support for Trump overall. You saw this made manifest a few days ago with the story that Ford had canceled plans to move certain SUV production capacities from Kentucky to Mexico, as an act of “good will” toward Trump. On its face, this seems like a good thing. If it had happened under President-elect Hillary Clinton, it would also have been a good thing. But because it’s associated in the popular liberal imagination with Trump, the typical pundit set went absolutely bonkers trying to explain why Ford’s decision was #actually a bad thing, or never happened, or was a lie.
Why do they do this? It’s so stupid. The best argument the screeching pundits had was that Trump tweeted that the “plant” is not going to move to Mexico now, per his conversation with the Ford chairman, whereas the more precise way of putting it would have been to say that “certain SUV production capacities” are not now going to move to Mexico. OK, fine, he misleadingly paraphrased something in a tweet. Great job, gang. You really nailed him this time. How will Trump ever recover?
When people fixate on made-up Trump faults, they waste time that could be spent fixating on actual Trump faults. So here are some actual Trump faults:
- Trump’s “Muslim Ban” proposal
Trump really did propose that “all Muslims” be banned from the United States after the San Bernadino mass shooting in December 2015. You can go back and watch. He said it. There was nothing ambiguous about his statement, which he read from a prepared text:
I’ve said over and over again that this was the very moment that I determined that I could under no circumstances back Trump. His support for this repugnant policy — however he might have later modified it — for me precluded any possibility that I’d ever endorse Trump. Why is it that a certain type of pundit gets inordinately worked up about Megyn Kelly, a multi-millionaire TV celebrity who profited immensely from the Trump “feud,” but treats the Muslim Ban thing as an afterthought? Are they just that fundamentally vapid? I don’t know.
2. Trump surrounds himself with horrible people
Trump has always had a coterie of scumbags, deranged lunatics, and corrupt idiots surrounding him. This is not up for debate. Rudy Giuliani, one of his top advisors, is a contemptible ghoul and someone I’ve always loathed. One of the most undesirable aspects of a forthcoming Trump administration is the apparent certainty that Giuliani will play a prominent role.
Other detestable figures that Trump has elevated include Gen. Mike Flynn, the designate to be National Security Advisor, and Chris Christie, who is corrupt out the wazoo and should probably be in jail rather than managing Trump’s “transition team.” Sarah Palin, Jerry Falwell Jr., etc. Jeff Sessions, the next Attorney General, is absolutely a hardline conservative. Why not focus on this, rather than confabulating fake controversies?
3. Trump’s business practices were ridiculously sleazy
Just as he has surrounded himself with sleazy characters in the political arena, so too did Trump in the business arena. Go back and read Wayne Barrett and David Cay Johnston on Trump’s past dealings. (I’m not linking here, you can take 2 seconds to google it if you feel compelled.) It’s still amazing to me that a casino mogul and beauty pageant proprietor — two of the most ridiculously debased industries anywhere — has ascended to the most powerful position in the history of the world. Casinos are just the ultimate scams. They prey on the vulnerable. They feed on the dispossessed and desperate. And that’s where Trump made (a large portion of) his fortune. So focus on that, rather than making stuff up.
