donald trump WANTS YOU TO HATE. . .PART II:  THE TRUTH

To anyone paying even a moderate degree of attention, one fact is blatantly obvious.  donald trump has a real problem telling the truth.

Whether it’s Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, windmills causing cancer, wars ending with a couple of phone calls, claims that top generals are committing treason, or stating Mexico will pay for a wall, trump likes to lie.  Whether he’s a deliberate liar, a compulsive liar, or a pathological liar is certainly up for debate.  But the indisputable fact is, the guy lies.  And he lies a lot.

According to multiple fact-checking source, trump told over 30,500 downright whoppers during his first term, and is just getting ramped up with his blatantly dishonest statements in his second. 

He’s even promoted a website to proclaim these fibs, a site ironically called “Truth Social.”

Given his proclivity for lying, just using the term “Truth” to describe his media site ought to be one more lie to add to the list.  But of course, it’s nothing new.  During the glory days of the Soviet Union (the era to which trump’s buddy putin wants to return), the two major newspapers in Russia were called PRAVDA (TRUTH) and IZVESTIA (NEWS). 

Most Russians were smart enough to see through it.  They had an expression:  “There is no izvestia (news) in PRAVDA, and no pravda (truth) in IZVESTIA.    

You can see where “Truth Social” possibly got its inspiration.

trump apologists always jump in at this point and say something like this.  “He’s not really lying, he’s just exaggerating!  Don’t take him literally!  Don’t even take him seriously!  Just watch what he does, not what he says.”

The problem, of course, is that lying destroys trust.  And trump’s lies—along with his actions based on those lies—are destroying trust here at home and around the world.  More importantly, confronting and calling out lies depends on the willingness of citizens to pursue the truth.

That’s why donald trump wants you to hate it.

Let’s take a look at just a few of the truths trump wants you to hate.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH:  Whether it’s working to destroy the Centers for Disease Control, killing funding for University research, decommissioning satellites that monitor atmospheric change, or replacing seasoned scientists who’ve dedicated decades to improving environmental and public health with political hacks (and calling it “Gold Standard Science”—a pretty big lie in and of itself), trump has used both words and deeds to derail research.

The impact of this attempt to expunge the truth will damage us in two major ways.  First, the direct impact of slowing discovery that could save lives will hurt us directly.  In fact, it will kill some of us.

And secondly, we’ll lose ground to our competitors.  China, the European Union, Japan, and even Canada will blow past us.  Scientists will leave America for other opportunities (it’s already happening).  Discoveries will be made elsewhere.  The lead time to evolve new technologies into marketable products that can grow our economy will shift toward our competitors and our enemies.

This truth is painful.  That’s why trump wants you to hate it.

ECONOMIC REALITY:  The truth is that donald trump inherited perhaps the most robust economy in the history of our nation.  That’s not somehow a “pro-Biden” claim.  It’s simply a statement of fact. 

From the outset, trump’s rabid hatred of this truth hasn’t just led to verbal lies about the economy, it’s led to instigating crackpot ideas that will do massive damage to our economic future.

Radical tariffs, imposed sometimes methodically, and at other times simply out of spite, will kill our trade with other nations.  A massive tax cut favoring the wealthy will skyrocket our deficit.  Leading economists throughout the world foresee worsening inflation, followed by increasing unemployment, and ultimately a recession.

Any soccer fan will tell you exactly what this is.  It’s called an “own-goal.”

Forget economic theory.  Pay attention to history.  It’s clear that cutting interest rates in the face of rising inflation is insane (just Google the Turkish economy under Erdogan).  Yet this is something trump is not only demanding, but trying to force by strong arming the federal reserve board.

Anyone who doesn’t go along, anyone who’s actually committed to the truth?  They’re fired.

Here’s the reality.  After a post-COVID spike in inflation, prices have been declining back to pre-pandemic numbers.  But recent data indicate prices once again increasing, the result, many economists maintain, of trump’s tariff and tax policy. 

trump’s response to this truth?  Kill the ones who tell the truth.    Erika McEntarfer, a widely respected economist in charge of gathering data as the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, because her reports didn’t align with trump’s fantasy view of the economy. 

Her replacement?  A dyed in the wool trump lackey.

Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve Governor who’s refused to march to trump’s tune, is being investigated for shocking crime of not properly filling out a mortgage application.  But no mention of the fact that multiple members of trump’s cabinet have done exactly the same thing.

Will they too be charged?  Don’t hold your breath. 

Let’s be blunt.  The truth is, neither the world—nor the business community—now trusts America’s economic data.  And to those unaware of how the world works, no one wants to do business with an entity that can’t be trusted. 

But that’s just one more truth trump wants you to hate.   

CLIMATE CHANGE AND RENEWABLE ENERGY

Whether it’s called climate change, global warming, or atmospheric science, trump wants you to hate it.  Early on, he called it a Chinese hoax.  Since then, he’s been even more adamant that any evidence supporting this truth should be eliminated.

The earth’s climate is rapidly warming.  Just ask any farmer honest enough to tell the truth.  Growing seasons are longer.  Crops that were impossible to grow at northern latitudes are now grown there routinely.  Lower latitudes are experiencing heat that makes agriculture much more difficult, if not impossible.

In the Rocky Mountains, marmots are coming out of hibernation 38 days earlier than just twenty years ago.

No legitimate climate scientist believes this is some random cycle, or some sort of “act of god.”  Humans are doing this, and the situation is growing more dire.

The potential economic and political fallout from all of this frightening.  Wide swaths of the world could soon become uninhabitable.  If you think people will simply lay down and die in the face of this, you’re crazy.  They’ll do everything they can to get out.

And if you believe we can isolate ourselves from all of this by just “building a wall,” you’re an idiot.

What’s trump’s response been to all of this?  You guessed it.  Lie.  Not just with words, but also with actions.

Shut down information coming in from atmosphere-monitoring satellites.  Demonize renewable energy.  Defund all research that investigates the health risks of climate change.  Withdraw from the Paris Accords, a climate alliance that consists of every developed nation in the world that has a leader with an even-moderate degree of competence. Withdraw from any joint research projects with these other countries that could provide the world with better climate insights.

Extreme weather events present a far greater risk to our security than immigrants.  But ignore that.  Slash funding for weather forecasting and instead throw it all to ICE.

Don’t look for the truth.  Just lie.

In the first half of the twentieth century, fossil fuel titans all but ruled this country.  The oil depletion allowance as well as benefits for the coal industry allowed rapid growth in this field of limited energy. 

Sure, there was some degree of development of hydro-electric power.  This had a significant impact, especially in the west. Thank god trump wasn’t president then.  The Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, Bagnell Dam (which formed the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri), and many others would have never happened.  They would have been demonized as communist plots.

Today, even by conservative estimates, the oil industry receives $16 billion in federal support each year, while coal receives over $4 billion.  Whether it’s “drill baby drill,” subsidizing coal companies through the “Clean Coal Investment Credit (an oxymoron if there ever was one), or killing incentives for solar and wind power, trump has been doing everything in his power to damage the climate, and increase our dependance on limited sources of fuel.

Most recently, trump suddenly ordered the shutdown of a nearly completed wind energy project that employed over 2500 workers, and would have provide electricity to 350,000 homes.  His reason?  An unspecified “national security risk.”

What is this risk?  Trump won’t say.  But given his track record, I can only assume it will be a lie.

Look, the world can’t just flip a switch and convert to renewable energy overnight.  Everyone understands that.  But right now, with Artificial Intelligence (AI), as well as trump’s latest darling, the crypto industry, both demanding massive amounts of energy, we need every source we can get.  But the truth is, fossil feels are far more polluting and damaging.  We need to be doing all we can to develop alternative sources.

Every second, the world is pounded with 173,000 terawatts of solar energy, enough to meet the worlds energy needs many times over (that’s 173,000 trillion watts, if you’re interested).  Gale force winds are waiting to be harnessed.  Only a country run by idiots would want to deny this, and turn their back on such sources.

Yes, the mining of rare-earth elements has environmental consequences, and we should limit those impacts as much as possible.  But scientists (increasingly scientists in competitive countries) are already developing batteries using sodium chloride—that’s right, good old table salt—which is much more readily available.  How soon before it’s commercially available?  Who knows.  But it’ll probably be somewhere else first.

And maybe in a country that wishes us harm.

But one thing is certain.  It won’t happen here any time soon if we keep denying—and hating—the truth.

OK, THIS JUST SCRATCHES THE SURFACE:  There’s plenty more to say about other things trump wants you to hate.  Books.  Education.  Colleges and Universities.  History that happens to be inconvenient.  And especially anyone who doesn’t look, act, think, or love like him.  But we’re out of space.  More next time.

In the meantime, if you know someone who likes to hate, give them this advice.  Be very, very careful about who and what you hate.

Because that hate might just destroy you in the process.

And that’s a truth I wish our country would somehow acknowledge.