This is part of a series of posts on Election 2016.
I don’t know what Trump believes, and honestly, you don’t,
either. Let’s forget how his website is
devoid of policy discussions (compare his to hers). On every major issue, he changes positions,
sometimes hourly. Here is one compiled list of flip flops. Don’t believe NBC (maybe because it’s
a member of the “mainstream media” and relies on “facts” to do “reporting”)? We
can look to Rush Limbaugh to hear him laugh over a flip. Of course, Trump flopped back later.
Is abortion the litmus test? “I’m very pro-choice,” Trump
said in 1999. “I hate the idea of abortion, I hate it … But you still – I just
believe in choice.” Russert’s follow-up question is whether Trump would ban
partial-birth abortion. “No,” Trump clearly says. Fast forward to 2011, when he tells the Conservative Political Action Congress that he is “pro-life [and] against gun
control.” In 2016, he not only disagrees with his original position, but he disagrees with himself 3 or 4 times within a single day.
None of this is to question someone’s right to change their mind; indeed, the
ability to reconsider past positions in light of new evidence should be a mark
of wisdom. It is to say that I honestly have no idea what he believes here, and
it certainly seems like his ideas are flexible and murky. That would seem to be
questionable to the true pro-lifers.
He flipped on both the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars, and
then he has repeatedly lied about how he was against the Iraq war.
Maybe you think Israel is important? Trump surprised the
world when he said that he would be neutral in relation to one of our biggest
allies in the world: “I want to be very neutral and see if I can get both sides together,” he said in December, and reiterated it in February. But later he said that “the days of treating Israel like a second-class citizen will end on day one.” A bit later, he said that “nobody is more pro-Israel” than he is. What does that mean? I don’t know.
Maybe he just doesn’t know the law, like when he says that
torture works, and when he was told that military officers could and should
disobey illegal orders by the Commander-in-Chief, he responded, “Frankly, when I say they'll do as I tell them, they'll do as I tell them.” He walked the remarks back the next day.
And maybe you just hate Hillary. Trump praised her and her policies as recently as March, 2012: “[S]he really works hard and I think she does a good job.” Maybe you think the Iran deal is one of the worst deals ever made, and that
Hillary is a horrible negotiator. Trump didn’t, in 2007, when he said she would make a good deal in Iran.
Here is another list of big flip-flops, for your perusal.
One reason that he gets away with these is that they are
somewhat pale when put against his legion of lies. All politicians spin facts,
but his controversial statements are more likely to be false than true. See Politifact (the Pulitzer-prize winning
organization) or FactCheck.org. I know that some think that any fact
checkers must be liberal, but you can always read the underlying sources.
The truth is that Trump lies, and is often caught red-handed
in his lies and doubles down, like continuing to say that he was opposed to the
Iraq war before it started; or that he didn’t hear the name “David Duke” even
when he said the name himself; or that he saw thousands and thousands cheering
in New Jersey as the Towers came down; or that we are the most highly taxed
nation in the world. These claims earned him the dubious distinction of 2015 Lie of the Year from Politifact.
Politicians are known for spinning the truth, but Trump
claims to be a “straight shooter” and not a politician, able to avoid
“political correctness.” But he can be compared against Nixon, Reagan (the“Teflon President”), or even McCarthy, while Clinton appears to simply be a normal politician.
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