Friday, September 06, 2024

MY UNPOPULAR OPINION ABOUT TRUMP'S RHETORIC: IT'S NOT GIBBERISH, IT'S BULLSHIT

Yesterday, after his speech to the Economic Club of New York, Donald Trump responded to questions, including this one:
If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable, and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?
Here's his response:


A transcript of his long, meandering answer:
Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down, and I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It's a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about, that, because, look, child care is child care is. Couldn't, you know, there's something, you have to have it – in this country you have to have it.

But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I'm talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they're not used to — but they'll get used to it very quickly – and it's not gonna stop them from doing business with us, but they'll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Uh, those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we're talking about, including child care, that it's going to take care.

We're gonna have - I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I'm talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about.

We're gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care, uh, is talked about as being expensive, it's, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we'll be taking in. We're going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we'll worry about the rest of the world. Let's help other people, but we're going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It's about Make America Great Again, we have to do it because right now we're a failing nation, so we'll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question. Thank you.
I'm supposed to believe that this is incoherent word salad, and is further evidence that Trump is in an advanced state of dementia. However I think what he said makes sense -- in a way. Brendan Nyhan sums up my take on this:
For the record, he's trying to say the cost of child care will be taken care of by his tariff and economic growth, but he can't say one thing about child care because he *doesn't know anything about it* and he's blustering through like a student who didn't do the reading.
Right. Trump knows nothing about the cost of child care or specific proposals to fund it, so he talks around that and says that his magic tariffs will generate massive amounts of revenue -- presumably with zero inflation! -- as will economic growth and the same crackdowns on "waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country" that every Republican has promised since at least the late twentieth century, and as a result we'll be able to toss huge amounts of child care money at families with young children and still have plenty left over for everything else we need to do. Oh, and we'll stop running deficits!

This isn't dementia. This is lying. It's actually the same sort of lying Republicans have done for decades, except that they've said that their tax cuts won't result in revenue-reducing shortfalls and he says that tariffs will make all of our economic problems go away, including revenue shortfalls, without creating any new problems of their own. Being a dishonest used car salesman who'll promise you anything to make the sale is, in part, how Trump got here. He wins or comes close in general elections because, after a decade of The Apprentice, many people who aren't superfans hear him and say, Well, he's a brilliant businessman, so I trust him when he says he can do this.

I understand why Kamala Harris's campaign and other Trump critics want to portray this as the product of a brain that no longer works the way its owner wants it to work. I hope that message hurts Trump at the polls. But Trump's brain is still working more or less as intended. He's a lifelong bullshit artist and he's still reasonably good at bullshitting. (At the end of his answer, the audience gives him a round of applause, even though his listeners are people who know his numbers can't possibly add up.)

And now here's a riff from the speech itself that's being mocked:


But this also makes sense -- at least if you consume massive amounts of right-wing media. It's not about the school shooting. Here's a transcript:
Colorado. Aurora. Has anyone been there? I think you'd better stay away for a little while. They had AK-47s. The ultimate guns. AK-47s. They can blow lots of people away real fast. And the sheriff didn't want to touch 'em. Nobody wants to touch 'em. "Sheriff, there's eighteen Venezuelans attacking my building. Would you please come over and straighten out this situa--?" He's got a deputy. You know what they say? "Ah, well, no thanks. Let's call in the military." They're taking over, and I said this four years [clip cuts off]
Like your right-wing uncle whose rants every Thanksgiving are incomprehensible unless you watch six hours of Fox News a day, Trump is assuming that everyone in his audience is familiar with a story that's been heavily pushed by the New York Post, Fox, and other right-wing outlets.

If you believe these sources, you think the entire city of Aurora, Colorado, has been taken over by a Venezuelan criminal gang. But other news sources tells a different story. Here's AP:
Police in the Denver suburb of Aurora say a Venezuela street gang with a small presence in the city has not taken over a rundown apartment complex — yet the allegation continues to gain steam among conservatives and was amplified by former President Donald Trump in a Wednesday Fox News town hall where he said Venezuelans were “taking over the whole town.”

The unsubstantiated allegation gained momentum following last month’s dissemination of video from a resident in the complex that showed armed men knocking on an apartment door, intensifying fears the Tren de Aragua gang was in control of the six-building complex.

However, city officials indicate the buildings, along with two other apartment complexes, were run down because of neglect by the property manager, CBZ Management.
The news site Denverite tells us this:
There are a handful of apartment buildings in Aurora owned by CBZ Management, a company based in Brooklyn, New York. For years, residents of several of those buildings have complained about rats, mice and insects, concerns over crime and poor treatment by management.

All that predates the arrival of tens of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants in the Denver area.

For the past two years, Aurora has been working to get the property owners into compliance with the law, said Jessica Prosser, Aurora’s director of housing and community services, at a press conference in August.

Many newly arrived Venezuelans and other Spanish-speaking immigrants were placed into those apartments by nonprofits....

We know there have been recent assaults and shootings at and near some of the properties. Aurora Police arrested a man on suspicion of attempted homicide and say he is connected to Tren de Aragua.

Police also said the allegations of rent theft have surfaced at several CBZ Management properties....

We also know there is a video of men with guns entering one of the apartments at The Edge at Lowry. Aurora Police have not confirmed the identity of those men.

At that same apartment complex, Denverite reporters saw multiple mice and bedbugs; mold growing in a bathtub; a stove that hasn’t worked for two months; a sink that won’t drain; and a broken fan.

However, the entire city of Aurora has not been taken over by the gang, as the Colorado Republican Party claimed in a fundraising email. Police have been at The Edge at Lowry speaking with residents, and the Aurora police chief says that no gang is running the apartment complex. Residents said the same at a Tuesday press conference at the building.
The video is disturbing.


But it's clear that CBZ Management, the Brooklyn-based company that runs this building, is extraordinarily neglectful. The Republican mayor of Aurora called the company "out-of-state slumlords." Online comments about the company, in both Colorado and Brooklyn, are universally negative (click to enlarge):


We can have a conversation about immigrant gangs in America. That's fine. But this is a complicated story. And it's definitely not a story of a gang takeover of an entire city, as Denverite notes:
Walk through Aurora, and it’s clear: The gang has not taken over the city, even as some gang members have committed a handful of crimes. Blocks away from The Edge at Lowry, neighbors shop in local stores, mow their lawns, ride their e-bikes and carry on life as usual.
Trump's rhetotic is dishonest, hyperbolic, and inflammatory -- but that's bog-standard for Republicans in 2024. He's not losing his marbles. He's just telling phony stories.
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