Trump’s January 2019 prime-time speech was fact-checked before and after it was given. As was expected, the speech was filled of hyperbole and riddled with what can only be charitably called errors.
While it is a standard tactic in politics to exaggerate a problem, lying to exaggerate a problem seems irrational when there is an abundance of problems that are both serious and real. Ironically, Trump referenced some of these problems in his speech, such as drug addiction in the United States and the families seeking asylum. The problems are that Trump characterized the problems incorrectly and that his proposed solution, the wall, would not address these problems in any meaningful way.
Trump has claimed that the wall will reduce the flow of criminals into the United States. He has, of course, grossly exaggerated the number of criminals that enter via the southern border and relies heavily on the fallacies of anecdotal evidence and scare tactics. The wall would do little, if anything, to address whatever real problem exists in terms of criminal intrusions. There is, of course, always a crime problem—one that would be better addressed by using the resources that would be wasted on Trump’s wall to prevent or solve crimes in the United States.
Trump has also claimed that the wall is needed to stop the flow of terrorists across the border. Trump did not make this claim in his speech, presumably because Sarah Huckabee Sanders tried that line on Chris Wallace. Sanders, and many others, were shocked when Wallace did a live fact check on Sanders’ claim that “…nearly, 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally, and we know that our most vulnerable point of entry is southern border.” Wallace responded by pointing out that none of these suspects were captured crossing the southern border, but mostly at airports. Even Sanders’ number was exaggerated and misleading—there were 2,554 encounters with suspected terrorists and only six people were actually detained. Based on the actual numbers, the problem is miniscule and the wall would do nothing to address it. As such, those who are focused on terrorism should accept that resources would be better used elsewhere.
Trump was correct to point out that there is a humanitarian problem on the border: people are fleeing Central America and seeking asylum in the United States. Given what the United States did to Central America, some would argue that we have an obligation to the people escaping a disaster we helped create. Laying that aside, the obvious problem with Trump’s wall is that those seeking asylum are not trying to sneak across the border, they seek out border agents so that they can start the process of requesting asylum. Given the backlog in the legal system and the problem with housing these seekers, Trump is right that money should be spent solving these problems. But the wall is not part of the solution.
Trump was also quite right that America is suffering from a drug epidemic. However, his wall would do nothing about this problem. First, drug smugglers use the legal points of entry (typically hiding the drugs in vehicles) rather than entrusting their product to people walking in on foot. Many drugs also come in to the country from China; our great wall would not stop these drugs. It is true that marijuana is sometimes smuggled in this way, but the legalization of marijuana in many states is already solving this problem or at least transforming it. The wall will not stop the flow of the dangerous drugs.
Second, the drug dealers are not forcing drugs on Americans—if there was no demand for illegal drugs, there would be no drug smugglers. Trying to address the drug problem by stopping smugglers has been attempted for decades and has proven ineffective—if it worked, we would not have a drug problem. Building a wall will not reduce the demand for drugs. Addressing the root causes of drug use (which is often poverty and economic despair) would be a better use of resources that building a useless wall.
Trump also laid out various other problems, such as the old, false claim that migrants are stealing jobs and social services to the detriment of Americans. It is true that there are economic woes and problems with the social services, but these are not due to a lack of a wall.
Given the abundance of real problems that even Trump seems to be aware of, it might be wondered why Trump and his fellows persist in their lies and their obsession with the wall. One explanation is that the wall was made into the keystone of Trump’s campaign and that he is dedicated to keeping that promise. Since the facts will not justify the wall, Trump must lie to argue for it. Another explanation is that there are other reasons for wanting the wall, reasons that would not appeal to the public or even be appalling to most. As such, advancing lies is seen as preferable to giving the real reasons. Third, the wall seems to be a matter of pride and ego for Trump—he does not care about solving problems, he wants the wall that gets him cheers from his base. Since there are no good reasons for the wall, he must lie. Finally, lying might simply be the norm in the Trump Whitehouse—they lie simply because that is what they do.
Sadly, once again, you are allowing your partisan politics and your emotions overshadow your professional responsibility to detach from the nit-picking, accusatory ground game and apply some intelligent critical thinking to the issues at hand.
Again, I will say that engaging in this kind of snipping is better left to the Never Trumper Facebook crowd, and the left-leaning CNN, where much of your content came from.
I will give you that it is a popular opinion, to which you are entitled of course, but there’s not a lot of the kind of truth that you, as a philosopher, would seek, in the way you would seek it professionally.
Unless we have been living in a cave for the past two years, a few things are patently obvious. The first, of course, is that Donald Trump spoke as expected, with exaggeration, hyperbole, and cherry-picked facts, unvetted facts, and opinion masquerading as fact.
But it’s not just Trump, it’s every politician. From the Wall Street Journal, in an op-ed piece titled “Politicians Never Lied Before Trump”:
“Lying is the other mother’s milk of politics. Political leaders are always making less-than-optimal decisions. They act within political constraints. They are often less concerned with the thing itself than how it might affect the next election or progress on some unrelated priority.
All political speech is a means to an end. Getting their priorities enacted is more important to politicians than telling the truth about them. Whether their policies even have the desired effect often is less important than racking up a “win” and avoiding a “loss.”
Of course, this was just as true during the Obama administration. From the same article:
“An aide to President Obama boasted to the New York Times about lying and manipulating the media to sell the administration’s Iran policy. Mr. Obama himself proselytized for his health-care plan by saying that, despite mandatory requirements that outlawed millions of individual health plans, you’d be able to keep your existing plan. Nor is there the slightest ambiguity now: His administration deliberately lied to the American people about the origins of the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya.
We could go on. Candidate Obama, in a formal address, explained that Detroit’s financial troubles were due to its large, gas-guzzling cars. This was ridiculous. Businesses fail because of products that don’t make money, not the ones that do. But smart pols know which fibs the media will applaud.”
It is also no surprise for all of us non-cave dwellers that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer would spout just as many talking points as Trump in rebuttal, peppered with innuendo, half-truth, exaggeration, hyperbole and nit-picking parsing of every word – with nearly every point with which they disagree called a “lie”. We’ve seen this all before – with Obama’s speeches being rebutted by the likes of Boehner and Ryan, and with CNN and FOX and NBC and the WSJ all clamoring to accuse or defend, depending on their own partisan editorial bent.
Trump is no exception, but the level of accusation, anger, and outright hatred of him has definitely escalated.
This wall is very similar to Obama’s health care plan. As the practical reasons for it (and the ROI, for lack of a better term) start to come under attack, it becomes a symbol of the administration – a signature achievement that may or may not have its intended result, but becomes massively important to the legitimacy of the politicians. From the same WSJ article:
“The wall is mostly symbolic in relation to the issue of illegal immigration. It’s more important now to the president’s standing with his voter base, and to his hope of re-election. To Mr. Trump and his opponents, the current shutdown fight is a test of power. The Democrats are looking for a chance to defeat the president for the sake of defeating him.
Yet one thing is also true: As with just about everything Donald Trump does, his blunt and often grossly hyperbolic statements and gestures are in the service of deeply conventional policy.”
“Deeply conventional policy”. You know this. I know this. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi know this. Forget the little details – it is much more important for the Democrats to win the test of power, to defeat Trump for the sake of defeating him, than it is for them to compromise with him. Just as Trump is “playing to his base” with his speech, so too are they, with their abject rejection of everything Trump, fomenting the hatred that already exists in this country.
Immigration reform has been at the forefront of every administration since before Bill Clinton.
WSJ again:
<i?"Mr. Trump quickly learned what Presidents Obama and Bush knew: Our legal and humanitarian inhibitions about the handling of small children are a particular lacuna. Since a 2003 immigration reshuffle, the processing of minors has been dumped in the lap of the Health and Human Services Department. It soon developed a reputation for handing children back to traffickers and sweatshop operators purporting to be their legal guardians. Happily, Sens. Rob Portman and Tom Carper, leaders of a Homeland Security investigative subcommittee, have been trying to right the mess since before Donald Trump took office.
But everything Mr. Trump does and says must now be attacked by the media in a way that didn’t apply to the lies and evasions of his predecessors. Photos of caged immigrant children shot during the Obama administration must be attributed to Trump policy. Mr. Trump must be shown to be illegitimate."
So is it somehow not a lie in service of some agenda when “Photos of caged immigrant children shot during the Obama administration must be attributed to Trump policy?”
Maybe this is some kind of utilitarian argument for you – that it’s OK to tell a lie in service of a greater truth – that it’s acceptable to show these Obama-era caged children and attribute them to Trump, as long as that lie can contribute to the greater good of his impeachment. Are you making that case? Are the Democrats? The Media? Is that ethical?
The challenge for you, as a philosopher and professional critical-thinker, is to apply some of your previous analysis of deductive reasoning to these political issues – in the context of illegal immigration AND the ACA for starters.
Politician P identifies a serious problem in America
Politician P exaggerates or lies about the particulars of this problem
Therefore, the problem does not exist
Or you might talk about how lying is the stock-in-trade of politicians of both sides, and that winning is more important than actually addressing issues or enacting measures that might have some effect. Schumer’s and Pelosi’s rebuttal to Trump’s speech were equally riddled with misstatements, purposeful misrepresentation of facts, and exaggerations as Trump’s speech. Is that OK? Is it OK for Pelosi to claim that the Democrats have made many proposals to re-open the government, painting themselves as the good guys, when all they really did was stage a provocation as a political ploy … ? (From NBC):
“Pelosi: “On the very first day of this Congress, House Democrats passed Senate Republican legislation to re-open government and fund smart, effective border security solutions.”
The facts: House Democrats did pass spending bills to re-open government as their first act upon taking control of the chamber. But the bills were more of a provocation than real legislation; Democrats knew they would not be taken up by the Senate or signed by Trump.”
Is it OK to say that there is no security threat at the border, when we all know there is, just to oppose Trump and make him out to be a liar? (NBC again):
“Overall, CBP encountered 16,831 foreigners with criminal convictions in an 11-month period during fiscal year 2018 … 37 percent, [or] 6,259 people, were arrested by border patrol agents.
But approximately half of those arrested by border patrol agents were convicted of illegal entry or re-entry; 98 were convicted of illegal weapons possession, transport, or trafficking, while 1,062 were convicted of driving under the influence.”
If Trump is exaggerating the problems of criminality among illegal border crossings, Pelosi and Schumer are downplaying them. Neither are productive.
But, once again, led by your partisanship and your emotion, you ignore these very salient and far-reaching philosophical topics and just jump down into the fray. Once again, your are entitled to your opinion, but a post like this only serves to undermine your credibility as a “critical thinker”. Once again, this post is better suited for Facebook, or for a blog titled “Why I Hate Trump”, rather than “A Philosopher’s Blog – Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects”.
This is not a philosophical essay.
Your right, your blog – but this kind of post isn’t what many of us come here for.