Yesterday was an
incredible day in political news. There were at least five amazing
stories all coming out at the same time!
First, after
hinting at various ways he might avoid conflicts of interest in
recent weeks Trump suddenly seemed to dismiss all concerns with his
business dealings by saying the president CANNOT have a conflict of
interest!
Of course, that
is ridiculous. It may not be illegal for the president to be involved
in business, but that involvement CAN produce actual conflicts of
interest and those conflicts CAN actually be harmful to the nation.
As far as we can
tell now, Trump is not going to worry about that anymore.
Second, in a
bombshell story, it appears the Trump Foundation is admitting, on a
federal filing, to self-dealing: giving money from the foundation
to someone, perhaps Trump himself though we don't know for sure, who
was NOT supposed to get it. This is one of the things "crooked
Hillary" was supposedly guilty of and one of the reasons we were
told it was so important to keep her out of the White House. There
never was any proof that Hillary misused Clinton Foundation funds but
now it appears we are getting very strong evidence that the Trump
foundation has done exactly that.
Maybe even more
amazing, just two weeks after the popular vote, Trump seems to be
backing away from some of his most famous campaign promises.
During the
campaign he vowed to bring back waterboarding, "and worse."
Now, after a chat with General Mattis, he seems to be deciding that
the use of torture is not such a good idea after all. I will
certainly be happy if the US does not start torturing people again
but this was a pretty firm campaign promise Trump seems to be
breaking now.
Also, after
denying the reality of global warming in past years and calling it
"mostly a hoax" during the campaign, Trump has suddenly
decided there is "some connectivity" between human action
and global warming and he has an "open mind" about adhering
to the Paris climate accords which he recently said he would not
adhere to. This is another big shift for Trump, from more
anti-climate change to more pro-climate change.
[Unless something very unusual happens with the electoral college Donald Trump is about to become President. We better learn all we can about him so here is his first book.
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But perhaps most
dramatic of all, Trump is backing away from his stern and scary
campaign promise to put Hillary in jail. Now he seems to think the
Clintons have suffered enough. Personally, I am happy to see Trump
drop this threat against Hillary but how will his followers feel
about it?
Now we all KNEW,
or at least any open-minded person who wanted to know, KNEW, that
Trump lied often about factual matters during his campaign. This was
made clear by EVERY fact checking web site on the internet. What we
did not know for sure, until now, is that Trump was also lying about
his promises to the American people, specifically about the promises
he made to persuade and energize his base.
Naturally, some
Trump supporters are angry about these broken promises. The
conservative organization Judicial Watch, for example, called his
softened stance on Hillary "a betrayal of his promise to the
American people."
But it's not just
Trump's supporters who should be angry, his opponents should be angry
too. With his lies Trump got people to vote for him who might NOT
have voted for him had they known the truth. But looking at that from
the other direction it is also likely that Trump's lies got people to
vote AGAINST him who might have voted FOR him had they only known the
truth. Trump bombarded the American people with false information and
false promises and by doing that he polluted the decision making
process for every single voter in the country - because every single
voter in the country had to make decisions in an atmosphere
of lies, without knowing the TRUTH.
If you get money
by telling people lies that is a crime called fraud. If you get
votes, and win an election, by telling people lies that is far worse
– that is a betrayal of the entire country, and of the most vital
democratic and electoral principles upon which the country was
founded.
We can all hope
Trump will do good things as president. We should all condemn the way
he deprived the American people of the truth that would have enabled
them to make an informed decision in the election.
For more on these amazing developments check out these links:
Copyright © 2016 by Joseph Wayne Gadway
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