Trump's Legacy, by the Numbers (by WaPo columnist Catherine Rampell)

Here is a compendium of more memorable metrics that should forever be linked with the Trump legacy:

261,000 (and growing): If anything is “sacred,” it is human life. This number is the minimum tally of U.S. lives lost to the novel coronavirus as of Wednesday night. By the time Trump leaves office it will be higher. Even by Thanksgiving morning, it will be higher.

$750: The amount Trump reportedly paid in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. He paid the same amount his first year in the White House, too.

14.7 percent: The unemployment rate in April 2020. Also the highest unemployment rate on record since modern statistics on joblessness began in 1948 and likely the highest rate since the Great Depression.

$421 million: The amount of loans and other debts for which Trump is personally responsible, with most of it reportedly coming due within four years — that is, a period when Trump had hoped to serve his second presidential term.

100.1 percent: Federal debt held by the public as a share of gross domestic product, in the fiscal year that recently ended, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The last time this measure exceeded 100 percent was just after World War II.

$1.9 trillion: The 10-year cost of Trump’s 2017 tax cut. (This is “dynamic” cost — that is, it accounts for the effects of economic growth.) This contributes to the debt number above.

$130,000: The amount Trump paid an adult-film actress with whom he had an affair; this bought her silence ahead of the 2016 election.

26: The number of women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct.

26 million: The number of American adults who reported that their household didn’t have enough to eat just ahead of Election Day.

Eight: The number of Trump associates to date charged with or convicted of criminal offenses. The former aides and advisers are: onetime 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort; 2016 deputy campaign chair Rick Gates; former national security adviser Michael Flynn, whom Trump pardoned Wednesday; foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos; informal Trump foreign policy adviser George Nader; political adviser Roger Stone; personal attorney Michael Cohen; and strategist Stephen K. Bannon.

666: The number of separated migrant children whose parents still have not been found, because the Trump administration didn’t keep sufficient records.

23,035: The number of false or misleading claims Trump had made as of mid-September, according to the Washington Post Fact Checker team. Presumably that number will continue to grow during Trump’s final weeks in office.

$3: The amount that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club charged taxpayers for a glass of water served to Trump.

289: The number of times Trump visited a golf course while president. So far.

15: The number of times that people have to flush their toilet, according to Trump. (Why he made this claim on the campaign trail I do not know.)

One: The number of viewers Trump officials sought to reach during their TV appearances (the infamous “audience of one”).

49 percent: The peak share of Americans who said they approved of Trump’s performance as president, according to Gallup.

306: The number of electoral college votes Trump won in 2016, which he called a “landslide.”

306: The number of electoral college votes Joe Biden won in 2020.

Youth Vote Was Unprecedented -- and Decisive in 2020

Reader Ralph Taylor sent an email to me this week with the following statistics and information, which is worth sharing widely.  Thanks, Ralph!

Among Colorado voters ages 18-34, 70% of those registered voted. They made up 27% of the total vote in the state and broke two to one for the Joe Biden & Kamala Harris ticket. 

• Think about that for a second. The youngest possible voters went overwhelmingly for the oldest candidate ever to run for President. What "generation gap"? 

According to the report, these voters are not driven by party affiliations or candidates; they vote by issues. Maybe, some of Biden's success came from moving toward the same issues as Bernie Sanders: income disparity, health care, racial justice, gender equity, college costs, etc. 

• Of course, it helped Biden that Trump dismissed as a hoax and made so many obviously false promises about the pandemic that has so disrupted young people's lives. Perhaps, being out of work and out  of school kept bringing it home.  

Also, according to the report, the strongest indicator of future voting is past voting. It becomes a habit; we can expect high youth turnouts to come. . 

With this age group becoming an ever-larger fraction of the electorate -- and now VOTING -- this development has obvious implication for future politics. The party who captures youth issues will grow in power and a party who fights against them will lose power. 

It is, I think, a bad sign for Trumpism. His brand of racism and scapegoating seems doomed. And maybe for the Evangelical Right, with its emphasis on gender norms that youths abhor. 

Click here for an article from theguardian.com which covers this topic in greater detail.

It Couldn’t Be Clearer Now: It Was Always ‘Trump First,’ not ‘America First’

  Since this is Thanksgiving week, I have to say two things — first, that I am thankful that Joe Biden is our President-Elect; and second, that “Talking Turkey” is not related to the Butterball Turkey hotline. You’re on your own, friends!

On a personal note, I am thankful for those readers who pushed my GoFundMe campaign to $11,931. That is less than the $17,000+ I paid to print this column in the Denver Post each week starting in March, but I would have gladly spent the entire amount myself if I had to, and I’m happy if this column somehow contributed to Joe Biden’s landslide win in Colorado and gave some comfort to my fellow progressives that they were not outnumbered by members of Cult 45.

Now, as Joe Biden said in his Thanksgiving address, we need to turn our attention to healing the partisan divide. But how do we do that when the president himself is sowing disbelief in our American electoral system? How will his supporters, egged on as they are by Trump, the Fox News opinionistas, OAN, Newsmax and QAnon, ever accept President Biden and Vice President Harris as legitimately elected leaders?

   In 2009, the Republican leadership in Congress committed themselves to being the “Party of No” and making President Obama a one-term president. With only 2 years of Democratic control in both the House and Senate, it’s impressive that the 44th President accomplished as much as he did.

I have donated to the Democratic Senatorial campaigns in Georgia in hopes that Joe Biden will have the same advantage for at least his first two years as president.

As Chris Christie put it on Sunday, Trump’s fight to overturn the election, led so appropriately by Rudy Giuliani, is a “national embarrassment,” but more to the point, it demonstrates even to his supporters who claim to love America and the constitution, that Donald Trump has never put our country first. As John Bolton expressed in his best-selling book, every decision and every action that this president took was predicated on what was best for Donald Trump, not for the country. Click here to read psychiatrist Vincent Greenwood’s treatise demonstrating how Donald Trump exceeds the criteria of a narcissist and meets the criteria of a psychopath. Read it and weep — but weep tears of joy that he will be put out of pasture in January, ready to face $400 million in debts and countless criminal charges, especially in the Southern District of New York.

As I predicted in the past, once the man reaches the end of his “I won” rope, I believe that he will resign for two reasons. First, he can then be pardoned by Pres. Mike Pence, protecting him from federal prosecution, and, second, his fragile ego will not permit him to attend the inauguration of President Biden. He’s such an insecure child — but we already knew that, didn’t we?

From the picture of Donald Trump painted by Mary Trump, John Bolton, Anonymous and so many others, it’s so in character for Donald Trump to be acting the way he is. His supporters haven’t grasped that picture yet, but maybe this current behavior, once it has run its course, will enlighten even them.

At a closed door meeting  on April 16, 2016, Trump told Republican leaders, in effect, that the “act” he was putting on during his campaign would change once he became president. The same day, at a Pennsylvania rally, he told the crowd, “I’m going to be so presidential that you people will be so bored.”

“Promises made, promises kept”? Not that one! And the reason is simple. Immediately after his inauguration, he announced his re-election campaign and continued his “act” at rallies throughout his time in office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

unpresidential term. .

 

Like Jimmy Kimmel, It’s Hard for Me to Understand Trump’s Larger Following

  Last Friday, Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show on ABC was a re-run of his Nov. 4th show, providing his first monologue after election day, and it resonated with me for the following section, which I had to transcribe for you (emphasis added):

I’m shocked that it was this close… It is unimaginable to me that close to half of American voters saw what this man has done to this country over the last four years, how he kowtowed to Vladimir Putin, he cozied up to Kim Jung Un, he alienated us from our allies, he put children in cages, he villainized the free press, he hid his tax returns, he tear gassed peaceful protestors, he pardoned all his criminal buddies, he extorted Ukraine, he misled us about Covid, he dismantled the pandemic response team, he dismantled health care, he called neo-Nazis “very fine people,” he hired a never-ending parade of imbeciles, he lied, he lied, he lied, and then he lied some more. He’s a liar and a cheat who wants them to stop counting thousands of legitimate votes – and almost half of us are apparently okay with that.  Half of us want to keep it going for four more years. Which, listen, I don’t care what you think of Joe Biden. If Joe Biden stopped by my house every morning to key my car and pee in my pool, still there’d be no question which one of them I would vote for. None! I mean, what more would Donald Trump have to do to show us he’s insane and not fit to lead this country?  I feel like I overestimated the American people, and I underestimated the village people…

   Here’s the bottom line: Donald Trump is going to serve another term.  We just don’t know whether it will be in Washington or in prison yet.

Yes, ten million more people voted for Donald Trump in 2020 than did in 2016.  Joe Biden only won because of a historic voter turnout by right-thinking Americans, but it’s still amazing that so many other Americans like this man.

As I’ve written in previous columns, many or even most of his supporters agree the man is a poor excuse for a human, but they like his policies — some because they are wealthy and it has made them wealthier, but others because he speaks to the nascent racism in them which they can’t always express outwardly, but which they can silently express with their votes. As many Trump supporters have said, “He speaks what I’m thinking.” 

I have to admit that I have lived a sheltered life. I was raised in New England by parents who instilled in me that lying and cheating is not acceptable behavior. This was reinforced by the private schools I attended (on scholarship, since we were poor) for 7th grade through 12th grade, where lying or cheating could get you expelled. That is still true, I’m sure.

Having been an employer rather than an employee all my adult life, I have encountered lying and cheating, and every time it was a firing offense.

You probably have the same mentality about it. Namely, if someone lies to you once or twice, or cheats you even once, that is not forgivable. It’s a red flag reflective likely of future behavior which is simply unacceptable.

Willful lying is so offensive, even in political life, that it took a year or longer for the media to use the word. They used softer phrases like “misstated” or “was not truthful,” but hesitated to say, “the president lied.”  That’s how big a deal it was to use the word, yet now it is easily stated multiple times per day by every news organization that isn’t partisan by its charter. And even the supporters of the president must recognize some of his lies, such as when he said in October that we are “rounding the corner on the pandemic,” and that “they won’t talk about it after the election.” Here’s the corner that we were rounding as he spoke:

Joe Biden Is Wrong: Trump’s Refusal to Concede Befits His Legacy

   We all remember 2016, when Donald Trump said he would only accept the election results if he won. So it is no surprise that he won’t accept the election results now that he has lost.

Never mind that it defies the constitution and threatens national security. Trump has provided adequate evidence that he doesn’t care about either.  He only cares about himself and his fragile ego.

My July 2nd “Talking Turkey” reported on Dr. Vincent Greenwood’s psychiatric analysis of the president as meeting most of the 20 criteria of a psychopath. Refusal to accept loss is not one of them, but it is certainly consistent with them. Reviewing those 20 criteria now makes them ring truer than ever. Only two or three don’t apply:

1. Glibness/superficial charm

2. Egocentricity/grandiose sense of self-worth

3. Proneness to boredom/low frustration tolerance

4. Pathological lying and deception/gaslighting

5. Conning/lack of sincerity

6. Lack of remorse or guilt

7. Shallow affect

8. Callous/lack of empathy

9. Parasitic lifestyle

10. Poor behavioral controls

11. Promiscuous sexual behavior

12. Early behavioral problems

13. Lack of realistic long-term goals

14. Impulsivity

15. Irresponsibility

16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

17. Many short-term marital relationships

18. Juvenile delinquency

19. Revocation of conditional release

20. Criminal versatility

News Flash: Trump’s a Loser

Yes, Donald Trump is now a loser, whether he accepts it or not. He is even on record saying that he’s a bad loser.

A Nov. 7 Fast Company column by Joe Berkowitz has the simple headline, “Donald Trump is a Loser,” In it, he wrote that Trump has in fact been a loser in many ways (e.g. getting Mexico to pay for his wall) and lists 14 things we will lose with his departure:

1)  The “fascist cruelty of Stephen Miller.”

2)  Acceptance of white supremacy, “making racists feel happy, comfortable and validated.”

3)  Loss of international esteem.

4)  Denial of climate change.

5)  Conversations about building “the wall.”

6)  The “top-down politicization of the pandemic.”

7)  A Trump-dominated news cycle.

8)  Distrust of White House announcements, which typically focus on Trump’s inherent greatness.

9)  Spite “as the prevalent motivating force,” aimed at “making liberals cry again.”

10)  Loyalty to the president as the primary employment qualification.

11)  The concept of “alternative facts”

12)  The idea that the media is the opposition party and “enemy of the people.”

13)  The president as a negative role model for children.

14)  The president’s sense of infallibility, that he can do no wrong.

But this is such a limited list, isn’t it? I can think of several more things I look forward to losing.

1)  “Shooting from the hip” without thinking and without consultation with advisors. Example: Middle-of-the-night tweeting in general, but specifically announcing troop withdrawal from Syria, abandoning our Kurdish allies.

2)  The president thinking he knows it all — more than the generals, more than epidemiologists, more than climate scientists or scientists in general.

3)  The president making policy decisions based solely on the desire to reverse the policy of his predecessor, regardless of whether the policy was a good one.

4)  A president who is a psychopath, unable to express compassion, such as upon the death of Sen. John McCain, calling him a “loser.”

 

I Can’t Get Over the Fact that Many People Voted for Trump Based on Lies

   As I watched the Florida returns on Tuesday evening, I was struck by the statement that the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade voted for Trump because they had been convinced that Biden was a stalking horse for communism, from which they had fled in Cuba.

That is such a blatant lie, which Trump has been happy to promote in his rallies, and those Cuban-Americans actually believed him.  It they and other Floridians had known they were being duped, it’s possible the state would have gone to Biden, and the election would have been over more quickly.

And that’s just one of the innumerable lies which were utilized by the Trump campaign to draw voters away from the Biden/Harris ticket. How many voters, for example, believed the QAnon line that Democratic leaders like Clinton and Pelosi were part of a Satan-worshipping cult that engaged in pedophilia and drank babies’ blood?

In such a close election, any one lie that is believed by lots of people can make a difference, and the Trump campaign convinced millions of followers of so many lies that one wonders how poorly the president would have done without engaging in any of those lies and if the Russians and other hackers hadn’t spread multiple lies in 2016 as well as this year.

It’s time to realize that our country was suckered in by one of the greatest con men of all times. If you haven’t watched Frontline’s program, “The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden,” you can view it free online.  His niece, Mary Trump, describes him as a con artist on that program and in her best selling book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.

For that matter, the same picture of Trump was painted by Frontline in their program four years ago, “The Choice 2016: Trump vs. Clinton” (also available to view free online), but it wasn’t enough to counter the big con that won Trump the presidency.

The biggest con, of course, still being played by Trump, is that he’s a successful businessman and great deal maker. It’s simply not true. His business life it littered with failures, including multiple bankruptcies. Mark Burnett can be credited (or blamed) with creating the false mystique about Donald Trump, who was, in fact, rescued from failure by “The Apprentice.”

Now that the campaign is over, it’s useful and appropriate, I believe, to take stock of what we have all witnessed ever since Donald Trump and Melania came down that gold escalator in June 2015. (Did you know that those people in the Trump Tower atrium were in fact extras paid $50 each to be there and cheer him on?)

There are plenty of books written by persons in a position to know which can educate Americans about the big con. The “bible” would have to be the book published earlier this year by the Fact Checker staff of The Washington Post: Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth: The President’s Falsehoods, Misleading Claims and Flat-Out Lies.

Speaking of The Washington Post, I’d like to acknowledge how all the mainstream media have stayed true to their professional standards throughout these years of being ridiculed and called “the enemy of the people.”

One book which really portrays that experience is Jonathan Karl’s best seller, Front Row at the Trump Show.  Karl has known and covered Trump longer than any other White House correspondent, including back when he was a rising real estate developer in New York City. As a journalist myself, I enjoyed his perspective, including his criticism of some other correspondents who strayed, but rarely, from journalistic standards and ethics. If you are intrigued by the role of journalists, I heartily recommend Karl’s book.

Another writer who I recommend is Heather Cox Richardson, a professor of history at Boston College, who writes a nightly newsletter called “Letters from an American.” Visit https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe