Who knew that when Ronald Reagan popularized willful ignorance and made the phrase “plausible deniability” a legitimate excuse for either lying or neglect, that Donald Trump would turn it into an art form.
Ronald Reagan went on national television and denied a three-way deal with the anti-Cuban Contras and a secret alliance with the Iranians to ultimately recover seven Iranian held hostages in Lebanon. During the Iran-Contra hearings, the words, “I don’t recall” uttered relentlessly by President Reagan are as famous as, “I did not have sex with that woman.” The history of Republican exaggeration, to put it mildly, has progressed from “read my lips” to “weapons of mass destruction” and now we have Donald J. Trump. Listening to Mr. Trump, for longer than 20 minutes, would embarrass even Geppetto.
Following the despicable shootings of five Dallas police officers, Trump and other members of the GOP have pointed to the rise of police deaths since President Obama took office. The facts are, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund at the same number of days into each Presidency, Ronald Reagan saw 576 shooting deaths of police officers as compared to 314 under the Obama administration. Of course, as with Climate Change, the birther movement, voter fraud or Benghazi, I could go on, truth is an elusive tool for decision making in the GOP.
Older, White, male Americans have now been conditioned to believe any parable or fairy tale told to them by Fox News or the Republican propaganda machine. So Donald Trump can escape revealing his taxes, obfuscate about a questionable university, survive the initiation or receipt of thirty-five hundred lawsuits( not to mention a rape allegation of a 13 year old girl in a Lisa Bloom article, www.huffingtonpost.com/...) and still be the darling of more than half a major American political party. Should some Republican happen to have stumbled out of the bubble and is reading this commentary, ask yourself, if President Barack Obama were behind the rhetoric or alleged actions of Donald Trump, what would be your reaction? Although Mr. Trump has proclaimed, “I love the uneducated” you are invited to proffer and answer.
Vote 2016!