"Though, through all of the individual issues discussed, it was Trump’s comfort with misleading the American people through half truths, lies, and deceptions that should truly terrify citizens." -- Miles De Rosa
President Trump entered the chamber of the Capitol wearing a blue tie, deviating from the red power tie we’re used to seeing him in. He was greeted with applause and spent three minutes making small conversation in passing and shaking hands before moving up to the podium, where he spent another couple minutes rousing the audience.
In his first minutes at the podium, Trump outlined the struggles America and all Americans have experienced and since overcome in the last year. Hurricane Harvey, and the Las Vegas shooting were both mentioned, undercut with rhetoric inscribing togetherness. To give a face to his tales of American glory, Trump pointed to the heroic Ashley Leopard, a coast guard, first responder, and hero from Hurricane Harvey (right), to start off a parade of anecdotes that constructed a series of one-off narratives.
The overall message of Trump’s State of the Union is summed up in one poignant quote. One that will undoubtedly be slapped on T-shirts and bumper stickers, allowing his supporters to remind the rest of America that “The state of our union is strong, because our people are strong strong.” This line signifies the break from the divisive and rambling rhetoric that was highlighted in this speech.
In his first minutes at the podium, Trump outlined the struggles America and all Americans have experienced and since overcome in the last year. Hurricane Harvey, and the Las Vegas shooting were both mentioned, undercut with rhetoric inscribing togetherness. To give a face to his tales of American glory, Trump pointed to the heroic Ashley Leopard, a coast guard, first responder, and hero from Hurricane Harvey (right), to start off a parade of anecdotes that constructed a series of one-off narratives.
The overall message of Trump’s State of the Union is summed up in one poignant quote. One that will undoubtedly be slapped on T-shirts and bumper stickers, allowing his supporters to remind the rest of America that “The state of our union is strong, because our people are strong strong.” This line signifies the break from the divisive and rambling rhetoric that was highlighted in this speech.
Despite this digression from his traditionally divisive style, a lot was troubling about President Trump’s first state of the union address. His demand to rebuild the nuclear arsenal and “fully fund” the United States military after discussing the threat North Korea poses along with his propositions for completely closed borders made for moral and tangible terror for many Americans. Though, through all of the individual issues discussed, it was Trump’s comfort with misleading the American people through half truths, lies, and deceptions that should truly terrify citizens.
The ease with which Trump lies should be the scariest, most captivating thing that the state of the union unearthed for the people about the state of their government. However, Trump’s lying is no secret. After Trump was elected, The Washington Post published a nearly year long fact check on Trump that was conducted by Glenn Kessler (award winning journalist and fact checker), Meg Kelly (former Fox news correspondent and NBC morning show host), and Nicole Lewis (a multimedia journalist). The total of “false or misleading claims” landed at 1,628 in 298 days. Essentially, lies are nothing new coming from our president.
For comparisons sakes, according the the New York Times, Trump has told six times as many lies in his first ten months in office as Obama did in his full 8 year stint. George W. Bush was also famous for his lying, his most notorious claim being the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush’s false claims, contrary to Trump’s, have often seemed to come from a place of genuine belief. Where as Trump will lie about things such as the number of people who attended his inauguration or the amount who turned in to watch his state of the union. Things anyone could prove to be untrue.
But the State of The Union, like the inaugural address, carries more weight than what a president says on the campaign trail, or in the day-to-day. During a campaign, a candidate’s primary goal is to get elected, but the goal of the State of the Union is and should be for the president to paint an honest picture of the state of our nation for the people. To address both the successes and the shortcomings of the last year, and to lay out legislation to address those shortcomings.
Trump had no problem celebrating American success stories. He trotted out a parade of war heros, first responders, and a North Korean defector to show the strength and greatness of the American people and support the nationalism woven throughout his speech. Phrases like “America First” and the concept of ceasing to give aid to countries who don't support us in the U.N. were brought up repeatedly.
The issues comes when Trump claims successes that are not his to claim. Many of these instances came when Trump touched on the economic issues that had become such a large part of his campaign, as well as his discussion of ISIS. Trump bragged about the United States military success in Iraq and Syria against the terrorist group, despite the success being found using a strategy that was implemented during the Obama administration according to The New York Times.
On the economy, Trump proudly touted the growth the job market has seen in his first year in office saying, “We have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,00 new jobs in manufacturing alone.” Though this figure is correct, it implies that this growth is new and is Trump’s doing. Over the seven years before Trump’s election under Obama, the country averaged 185,000 new jobs a month. After Trump took office, though we are still on the rise, that growth has slowed to 169,000 a month. Trump also brought up black unemployment hitting an all time low, something that is true and should be recognized, but is the culmination of trends that began under the Obama administration. For more fact checks on the state of the union visit The New York Times.
Trump not only claims successes that are not his, but he creates problems that don’t exist, or uses fallacious lines of reasoning to turn things into problems that just simply are not real issues. And on the flipside, these fake-issues detract from true, imminent problems facing the nation.
A perfect example of Trump’s creation of issues is immigration. Obama deported more people over his eight years in office than any other president, net migration last year was 3.9/1000 people, which ranks around 30th in the world. In truth, we do not have open borders and immigration is certainly not a leading cause of violent crime or economic downturn.
Non citizens, according to the Department of Justice, accounted for just four percent of our prison population in 2015. Implying that they are responsible for just a small percentage of the crimes committed in the country. But among Trump’s parade of anecdotal appeals was the story of the murder of two teenage girls in Rhode Island by MS-13 gang members. Prefacing it by saying, “For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities… Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives.”
It is at this point in the speech when he points to Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Quavous, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. The parents of the two girls. Their posture is collapsed in the crowd. It is clear that all four have been crying. All four work black into their outfits. After setting up their harrowing story with his preemptive remarks on the loss of innocent life and then delivering said story, President Trump continues to build and peddle the misconception that immigrants are a primary cause of the loss of innocent life.
Immigration is not the only issue in which a gross misappropriation of the facts and of stories is used to make his point. Trump does this across the board. For example, Trump often sited the manufacturing sector shrinking as a sign of economic downturn during his campaign and over his first year in office. Though this did result in the loss of jobs, especially in the rust belt, as a whole over the last eight years unemployment has plunged. But still he was able to use the stories of those who had lost their factory and assembly line jobs, some overseas and some to mechanization, to monger fear about a democrat run economy and win votes and the continuing trust of his base.
Despite the information that is available to discredit and discount his lies, this strategy continues to work. In the week after his address his approval rating spiked to 45% according to a gallup poll. It has sense fallen back to 40, no doubt receding to the mean of 38%. His low point of 35% was just a month before the speech. If you need to be convinced more about the success of this blatant lying you need look no further than the last election. The campaign Trump ran was one based off of twisting the facts and creating a climate of fear among his base. He painted his proposed solutions as a cure for a sick nation, and painted himself as the only man who could deliver it.
Trump has asserted himself as a master manipulator. Both because of the frequency of his attempted manipulations and the success of them. He has pitted the nation in a constant battle between those who know the facts, and those who take what he and his administration say as fact. And in all the battle, in all the mess, he further divides the nation and creates a war on fact. Allowing his lies to rule the day, and leaving the rest of us without health insurance and an economy based in “trickle down” capitalism. His lies not only mislead us, they pit us against one another, which is possibly the most dangerous act of all.
The ease with which Trump lies should be the scariest, most captivating thing that the state of the union unearthed for the people about the state of their government. However, Trump’s lying is no secret. After Trump was elected, The Washington Post published a nearly year long fact check on Trump that was conducted by Glenn Kessler (award winning journalist and fact checker), Meg Kelly (former Fox news correspondent and NBC morning show host), and Nicole Lewis (a multimedia journalist). The total of “false or misleading claims” landed at 1,628 in 298 days. Essentially, lies are nothing new coming from our president.
For comparisons sakes, according the the New York Times, Trump has told six times as many lies in his first ten months in office as Obama did in his full 8 year stint. George W. Bush was also famous for his lying, his most notorious claim being the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush’s false claims, contrary to Trump’s, have often seemed to come from a place of genuine belief. Where as Trump will lie about things such as the number of people who attended his inauguration or the amount who turned in to watch his state of the union. Things anyone could prove to be untrue.
But the State of The Union, like the inaugural address, carries more weight than what a president says on the campaign trail, or in the day-to-day. During a campaign, a candidate’s primary goal is to get elected, but the goal of the State of the Union is and should be for the president to paint an honest picture of the state of our nation for the people. To address both the successes and the shortcomings of the last year, and to lay out legislation to address those shortcomings.
Trump had no problem celebrating American success stories. He trotted out a parade of war heros, first responders, and a North Korean defector to show the strength and greatness of the American people and support the nationalism woven throughout his speech. Phrases like “America First” and the concept of ceasing to give aid to countries who don't support us in the U.N. were brought up repeatedly.
The issues comes when Trump claims successes that are not his to claim. Many of these instances came when Trump touched on the economic issues that had become such a large part of his campaign, as well as his discussion of ISIS. Trump bragged about the United States military success in Iraq and Syria against the terrorist group, despite the success being found using a strategy that was implemented during the Obama administration according to The New York Times.
On the economy, Trump proudly touted the growth the job market has seen in his first year in office saying, “We have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,00 new jobs in manufacturing alone.” Though this figure is correct, it implies that this growth is new and is Trump’s doing. Over the seven years before Trump’s election under Obama, the country averaged 185,000 new jobs a month. After Trump took office, though we are still on the rise, that growth has slowed to 169,000 a month. Trump also brought up black unemployment hitting an all time low, something that is true and should be recognized, but is the culmination of trends that began under the Obama administration. For more fact checks on the state of the union visit The New York Times.
Trump not only claims successes that are not his, but he creates problems that don’t exist, or uses fallacious lines of reasoning to turn things into problems that just simply are not real issues. And on the flipside, these fake-issues detract from true, imminent problems facing the nation.
A perfect example of Trump’s creation of issues is immigration. Obama deported more people over his eight years in office than any other president, net migration last year was 3.9/1000 people, which ranks around 30th in the world. In truth, we do not have open borders and immigration is certainly not a leading cause of violent crime or economic downturn.
Non citizens, according to the Department of Justice, accounted for just four percent of our prison population in 2015. Implying that they are responsible for just a small percentage of the crimes committed in the country. But among Trump’s parade of anecdotal appeals was the story of the murder of two teenage girls in Rhode Island by MS-13 gang members. Prefacing it by saying, “For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities… Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives.”
It is at this point in the speech when he points to Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Quavous, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. The parents of the two girls. Their posture is collapsed in the crowd. It is clear that all four have been crying. All four work black into their outfits. After setting up their harrowing story with his preemptive remarks on the loss of innocent life and then delivering said story, President Trump continues to build and peddle the misconception that immigrants are a primary cause of the loss of innocent life.
Immigration is not the only issue in which a gross misappropriation of the facts and of stories is used to make his point. Trump does this across the board. For example, Trump often sited the manufacturing sector shrinking as a sign of economic downturn during his campaign and over his first year in office. Though this did result in the loss of jobs, especially in the rust belt, as a whole over the last eight years unemployment has plunged. But still he was able to use the stories of those who had lost their factory and assembly line jobs, some overseas and some to mechanization, to monger fear about a democrat run economy and win votes and the continuing trust of his base.
Despite the information that is available to discredit and discount his lies, this strategy continues to work. In the week after his address his approval rating spiked to 45% according to a gallup poll. It has sense fallen back to 40, no doubt receding to the mean of 38%. His low point of 35% was just a month before the speech. If you need to be convinced more about the success of this blatant lying you need look no further than the last election. The campaign Trump ran was one based off of twisting the facts and creating a climate of fear among his base. He painted his proposed solutions as a cure for a sick nation, and painted himself as the only man who could deliver it.
Trump has asserted himself as a master manipulator. Both because of the frequency of his attempted manipulations and the success of them. He has pitted the nation in a constant battle between those who know the facts, and those who take what he and his administration say as fact. And in all the battle, in all the mess, he further divides the nation and creates a war on fact. Allowing his lies to rule the day, and leaving the rest of us without health insurance and an economy based in “trickle down” capitalism. His lies not only mislead us, they pit us against one another, which is possibly the most dangerous act of all.