Deception. It’s been a plague on humanity since Eve was beguiled to take a bite from the apple. Whether self-induced, or seeded and cultivated by those determined to profit from it, deception has driven many wars and resulted in incalculable destruction, heartache and loss of human potential. Hitler lured Germans into believing Jews were to blame for their economic problems, President Johnson told the American people not to “worry about Vietnam” and sent tens of thousands of young men into a war he knew we wouldn’t win, and George W Bush pressured us into believing Iraq had WMDs while the CIA warned him they didn’t. These are just a few examples of “leaders”, bent on their own self-serving agendas, bent on gaining and holding onto power, choosing to lure people into believing falsehoods, with disastrous consequences.
Tragically today, Trump and MAGA Republicans, from within my own Party, are vigorously promulgating gross distortions of the truth in a concerted effort to grab power. Their strategy, quintessentially Machiavellian, is to always look just, while doing whatever is necessary to gain and hold power. Here are a few examples.
Perhaps the most pervasive deception Trump and Republicans are promulgating is that the economy is doing terribly and Trump did a better job handling it. This needs to be broken down into three parts: jobs, inflation and immigration.
With respect to jobs, the most important determinant of people’s economic well-being, the facts are that during the Trump presidency, the US lost roughly three million jobs. During the Biden presidency, the US gained seventeen million jobs. To draw sound conclusions from these facts, they must be understood in the context of time, tax cuts and the pandemic.
While Trump inherited a steadily growing economy, he did boost the economy through significant tax cuts. Tragically, however, when Covid hit, he downplayed it, refused to encourage masking and vaccinations, and allowed the depth and duration of the pandemic to grow more than would have happened with appropriate precautions and what other countries experienced. The result was a health and economic shock that’s reverberating through the economy to this day.
While some of the job gains during the Biden presidency can be attributed to a bounce back from the pandemic, the rise in inflation was also driven by the bounce back. With deaths and illnesses shrinking the workforce, significant disruptions in supply chains, consumers eager to buy again, and corporations eager to take advantage of that demand, prices surged. While Trump continues to deceive people into believing that Biden and Harris are to blame, the truth is that Trump’s bungled handling of the pandemic, the significant recovery response required, and corporate greedflation were the real drivers of inflation.
Trump and Republicans have also deceived people into believing they are fiscally conservative. In 2017 when the economy was steadily growing, Trump and Republicans chose to stoke the economy with a $1.5 tax cut, the majority of which went to the top 1%. From Q4 2016, Obama’s last quarter in office, to Q4 2019, the quarter just before the pandemic hit, the federal deficit soared 70%. This data irrefutably demonstrates Trump and today’s Republicans are anything but fiscal conservatives.
With respect to immigration, Trump and Republicans have fed people’s worst instincts. They’ve talked up how immigrants are taking people’s jobs, while the truth is our economy wouldn’t have experienced the strong growth it has if it weren’t for immigrants filling jobs most Americans don’t want. If it weren’t for immigrants filling agricultural and meat packing plant jobs, as well as many low paying jobs in hotels and restaurants, inflation would have been worse, and the services we enjoy would have been even more scarce.
Trump has also led people into believing that many immigrants are bringing crime and drugs into our country, “poisoning our blood”, and eating pets. The facts are that while a very small number of bad actors have come into our country, the vast majority of immigrants want to work, integrate into our country, and stay well clear of anything criminal. For decades we have needed a more secure border and many more border agents and immigration judges. In February of this year, Trump and Republicans chose to kill a strong bipartisan bill that would have gone a long way in securing the border, and speeding up deportations and legalization cases, just so they could blame Biden and win votes. It’s hard to imagine a more patently maniacal, Machiavellian tactic. Tragically, many Trump supporters have bought into Trump’s lie that he cares about illegal immigration, when the fact is he killed the very legislation that would have reduced it.
Another gross deception Republicans continually feed people, especially those with ProLife beliefs, is that they are defenders of life and unborn children. Their drive to reduce abortions through hard restrictions on women has resulted in abortion rates, not going down, but rising from roughly 600,000 per year to over one million per year. Republicans’ strategy to use of the abortion issue to secure power has also brought great personal pain to many women, damaged the reputation of churches, and caused civil discourse on this issue to sink to new lows. All evidence points to the fact that Republicans have used the abortion issue as a ruse to win votes and gain power.
Further evidence of Republicans’ proclamations that they are ProLife is nothing more than a ruse, can be found in the fact that they cheered for themselves when they were on the verge of taking healthcare away from 23 million people. If Trump and Republicans bent rescinding the ACA were to win, the number of people losing health insurance would be double that. How can taking healthcare away from people possibly be ProLife? Beyond this, Republican controlled legislatures in ten states are still refusing to allow an expansion of Medicaid.
Republicans’ pitch that they are ProLife can also be recognized as an election ploy by looking at how they’ve treated funding for schools. During Trump’s presidency he tried cutting funding for public education by 18%. Recently, Republicans in Congress tried cutting funding for public education by 80%. These efforts reflect a betrayal of the weakest among us. Trump and Republicans can say they’re ProLife, but their repeated efforts to strip healthcare away from people and willingness to cut the resources children need to succeed, clearly demonstrate otherwise.
Another significant disconnect it’s imperative we recognize is that while Republicans extend sympathies to those suffering the ravages of hurricanes, they readily forget that they rolled back the very environmental measures that restrain the global warming pollutants fueling these hurricanes. While in office the Trump Administration rescinded nearly 100 environmental regulations, including 28 that restrained global warming air pollutants. Tragically, Trump has already promised oil executives more environmental rollbacks if they help him win.
Perhaps the most damaging deception Trump continues to lead people into is that our elections are rigged. Despite 63 court cases finding no election irregularities in 2020, Trump has led tens of millions of people into fervently believing he won and, by implication, that if he doesn’t win again, it will be because of fraud. This attack on the integrity of our elections seriously undermines our democracy, and when coupled with Trump and Republicans’ other deceptions, hopefully gives all reason to pause before continuing to support my fellow Republicans this election cycle.
George Zadigian