Thousands show up to hear lies and cheer

      Imagine if someone told you that one day, tens of thousands of wildly enthusiastic, cheering fans would pack a stadium to hear a confirmed liar tell more lies.  I'd probably ask the person what they're smoking.  But believe it or not, this actually happens all across our nation, on a regularly-occurring basis.

      Of course I'm talking about Donald Trump's campaign rallies.  Hundreds of these rallies were held before the 2016 election, and over a million people attended in total.  As of this writing, about twenty have been held, or are planned, for the 2020 election. For the rally in New Jersey on January 28, over 150,000 people requested tickets for a stadium that held roughly half that amount, and a few thousand more would-be attendees watched it on monitors in the parking lot. 

     After the rally is over, the fact-checkers get a transcript and get to work.  And the numbers are downright shocking.  Nearly everything he says is either totally pants-on-fire bogus, or a seriously twisted exaggeration.  At his New Jersey rally on January 30, he told a staggering twenty-seven whoppers.  You can read all about it here.

      And the crowd just eats it up!

      It seriously perplexes me how he can do this, time and time again, and get away with it.  Yes, many politicians often lie or tell half-truths.  It's a rare breed of political leader indeed who strives for honesty and integrity at all times.  But Trump has taken the art of making up "facts" to a whole new level.  And at his campaign rallies, where he gets the praise and adoration he so highly craves, there is absolutely nothing holding him back from making up ANYTHING that sounds good.  And the cheers just keep on coming.

      Somebody please explain to me why this is happening!  It's a well-established fact that Trump lies all the time.  There are scores of fact-checking websites and other such services all over the place, plus social media, so nobody can realistically claim that they don't know that it's all phony-baloney.  So why do otherwise intelligent people flock to his events in droves to hear still more lies, screaming in approval the entire time?  

      One possible theory is that they don't care, because of some supposedly great things he has accomplished.  After all, so the conventional wisdom goes, the economy is booming, and the numbers of immigrants seeking asylum are down, and he just signed the new USMCA trade deal, and so on.  Well, let's look at some of these claims:

      Regarding the booming economy, I have addressed this topic numerous times; see my article. Nothing Trump has done for the economy is consistent with any kind of limited-government, pro-free-market ideals.  So let's be honest here:  he and his supporters love big-government, big-spending programs and hard-handed market intervention.

      Regarding asylum-seeking immigrants, let's be clear:  He has instituted policies where the goal is to inflict the greatest amount of pain and suffering possible on these people.  Tactics include everything from forced family separation, imprisonment, and sending them back to be raped, tortured, and murdered.  Why?  Well because on this continent that our European ancestors stole from the original natives, only WASPs (white Anglo-Saxon protestants) are allowed in.  If you don't fit the right demographic profile, you're not wanted.  So if ethnic cleansing is the goal, then at least let's be honest about it.

      Honesty is a good policy.  But asking for THAT from Trump is a fantasy dream.  And his wildly cheering supporters are his enablers.  I'm no Hillary Clinton fan, but maybe, just maybe, she was on the right track calling them "deplorables".