It feels like old times again. Donald Trump gave a long interview to Time magazine and it's a bottomless morass of lies, personal grievances, evasions, and word salad. Is it even worth commenting on? Half the country has seen this before and already understands Trump is a sociopathic buffoon. The other half simply doesn't care, no matter what he says.
Here's a typical Trump exchange:
Okay, sir. Violent crime is going down throughout the country. There was a 6% drop in—
Trump: I don't believe it.
You don’t believe that?
Trump: Yeah, they’re fake numbers.
You think so?
Trump: Well it came out last night. The FBI gave fake numbers.... It’s a lie. It’s fake news.
Sir, these numbers are collected by state and local police departments across the country. Most of them support you. Are they wrong?
Trump: Yeah. Last night. Well, maybe, maybe not. The FBI fudged the numbers and other people fudged numbers. There is no way that crime went down over the last year. There's no way because you have migrant crime. Are they adding migrant crime? Or do they consider that a different form of crime?
What does Trump mean, "It came out last night"? He's apparently referring to an interview on Real America's Voice—the news network for people who think even OAN is a little too lefty—with our old friend John Lott.
John Lott! ZOMG! The guy just won't go away. He's presented as president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, and his latest schtick is telling anyone who will listen that the FBI's crime figures are bogus. This is accomplished via his usual blizzard of misleading statistics—partly by using incorrect data and partly by ignoring inconvenient facts. At the moment, his primary claim is that the FBI's 2023 figures aren't believable because they don't match figures from the NCVS survey of crime. But NCVS hasn't even released its 2023 figures yet, and they won't for several more months. In any case, as you can see, the FBI is, if anything, more conservative in its reporting than the NCVS:
NCVS figures are quite a bit more volatile than the FBI numbers, but the overall trend is pretty similar.
This has been quite the rabbit hole, hasn't it? But this is the kind of stuff Trump is referring to when he says something is "fake news." It means some right-wing quack has shown him whatever it is he wants to see. That's all.
I am so sick of Trump's never-ending dismissal of facts about the real world. Either he "knows" what the situation is (he doesn't) or he'll find a Fox/Newsmax/Daily Caller/gatewaypundit stooge who is inept (or worse) collecting data or doing statistical analysis.
The result is a MAGA bubble where the music is a calliope of nonsense. And the inhabitants are unreachable, unchangeable, ignorant, and proud of being that way.
So quit worrying about them. Unless you have good ways to exterminate them.
He also says that anything to do with abortion is somebody else's problem so you can't ask him about it, and that it would be fine with him if states had some kind of police agency actively monitoring pregnant women to prevent them from possibly having an abortion.
Also mass deportations of illegal immigrants using the army to round them up.
In another context (COVID):
'I don't take responsibility at all'
So, if one starts with 2020 instead of 2000, I gather the NCVS numbers would show an increase where the FBI numbers would show decrease.
The power of picking one’s preferred starting point…
I don't think I trust John Lott's numbers. I do wonder what Mary Rosh thinks about them, though.
+1
---- for brains is FAKE NEWS! His whole world is FAKE NEWS. He should have been purged a long time ago...like the HAIRBALL he is. Kitties know.
IIRC, John Lott wrote a book several decades ago "More Guns Less Crime". You would think that with the hundreds of millions of guns purchased since then crime would now be close to 0. The ironic thing is that instead of claiming vindication, Lott now claims the opposite.
Which clearly means we still don't have enough guns!
Trump is still trying to score points bitching about the Central Park 5.
I'd be hesitant to conclude that he is trying to "score points"--that implies that he's claiming it strategically. I think it's far more likely that he is just a delusional dummy.
I mean, remember when he was blathering about duct taped women, prayer rugs, and drug runners in super-charged cars at the border? And nobody could tell what he was talking about? And it turned out that he had watched part of a movie and apparently couldn't tell the difference between the movie and reality?
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/01/donald-trump-sicario
I know it's very easy to presume that everything Trump says is the surface manifestation of some deeper strategy, but I really do think that the actual truth is the man is a moron.
Seems like a wave of violent crime is happening on a few college campuses.
Los Angeles Police Department officers have arrived at U.C.L.A., the mayor, Karen Bass, said in a social media post just before 2 a.m., calling the violence on campus “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable.” The L.A.P.D. said that because of “multiple acts of violence” within the protest encampment, it was responding “to restore order and maintain public safety.”
Y’all are doing this crime is down thing wrong. Go with this instead…
“Crime is down from a recent peak, but it is still way too high. The prevalence of guns is making people feel unsafe. News reports around the country detail shootings every weekend. Recent high profile shooting attacks on police are also creating a climate of fear. So while we are happy that crime rates are falling overall in the USA, these incidents of deadly violence (including domestic murder-suicide) are still way too frequent.”
You get the idea. Try that.
When the police do it, they don't call it "crime." Moreover, the pro-Palestinian demos are spreading world wide. Israel has overdrawn its Holocaust account.
By definition, any amount of crime is too much. Instead of getting into semantics, any normal person should look at the overall decline of the last several decades, and the media reports in the same period, and wonder about the disconnect between people "feeling like crime is on the rise" and the actual facts of the matter.
And you just know now that a distressingly large part of the electorate when confronted with facts about declining crime rates will forever after describe them as fake. Just as a distressingly large part of the electorate who thinks that inflation is deliberately undercounted to help the Dems or something.
Man, I hate to be rooting for fatal heart attacks for anyone, but... (of course, were that to happen, some would believe it was part of some liberal conspiracy)
The problem with this interview, and all other media treatment of and interaction with Trump (and like minded others), is the attitude towards and deference given to him. For instance, I know American journalism ostensibly sees it as some kind of sign of respect to the system to call Presidents “sir.” It’s not. It’s a serious mistake, a self aggrandizing act by association, a groveling that inflates importance in both parties. Kind of sick, actually. If you look at how European media treat political figures, it’s much more egalitarian, even confrontational, less like the “Yes, my lord” attitude we have here. Then there’s the ‘respectful disagreement’ with Trump’s barroom bullshit, again and especially with the ‘sir’ appellative. Again, wrong, and spinelessly so. This guy is not just some asshole in a bar who thinks he knows everything, but is full of shit up to his eyeballs. He has the power to destroy this country. Weak-assed ‘polite disagreement,’ especially with a recitation of data, doesn’t even begin to cut it.
This interview, and all interactions like it, operate almost exclusively on the level of implicit subtexts, playing out in real time the cold civil war we’re in. It has nothing to do with the meaning of the words, the policies, the data; at this point everyone knows who and what Trump is and what he will do. It has everything to do with power and how our media reflexively genuflect before it, to disastrous effect on out social fabric. So - stop calling this fucktard (or any President) “sir.” Stop mewling about data. Say to his face: “No, that’s wrong.” Don’t apologize. Dismantle and dismiss his ‘sources’ for what they are - complete and utter bullshit. Do it in real time. Yes, he’ll get pissed and aggressive and probably walk out. Good. Let the nation see this. Stand up and act like fully grown adults capable of calling out not just the bullshit, but far more importantly the bullshitter. Anything - other than this self aggrandizing toadying that masquerades as ‘responsible’ journalism.
Quick addendum: of course facts matter. What matters more, far more, is the theater of power, and how American media cedes the field to bad actors, for whatever reasons. It's highly degradative to the functioning of our republic.
Giving any of these moronic clowns any coverage with any seriousness is exactly the problem. Any media source that does it is the enemy. Destroy them.
Fascism doesn't work without constant fear and rage and a convenient Outgroup to hate.
So low unemployment, falling crime, and general order and peace are their mortal enemies.
By the standards of the rest of the "First World" the United States is at no risk whatsoever of experiencing general order and peace.
Well, yeah, and thanks for giving the crime assertions (aka lies in this case) the statistical treatment they deserve. But literally every part of the blathering word salad needs attention by our infotainment media.
I mean, it's been four years since he crawled out of the Oval Office with his tail between his legs and all the government property he could grab. And now, he wants to do it again! The criminal trials can remind folks of what he did, but it's also critical to see that not only did he learn nothing (good), he's gotten even worse.
Focused on revenge. Nursing his ancient imagined grievances. Totally out of touch with the real world. Full of bs ideas, like putting an ankle monitor on any pregnant woman to keep her from visiting her "abortionist." Deporting 15 million hard working immigrants -- on day one!
Come on. This is stuff the media elides over. But it's real and it's important. More importantly, if old "Sleepy Joe" said even one of those things, he'd be raked over the coals and the denigration would never stop. Oh, and he's OLD.