Trump Push-Poll — A Lesson in Disinformation
We saw an Ad proclaiming that the Democrats were terrified because they know they’re not going to get away with their corruption any longer. We clicked on “Get Started” and were ecarried to the below poll. At least at the time of this writing, this link https://action.donaldjtrump.com/democrat-corruption will take anyone to the same poll.
It’s not much of a poll.
It is a push poll: It acts curious about your opinions while actually attempting to influence your thinking/feeling with wordings that assume the reality they want you to accept.
And it is a work of disinformation: The reality it pretends to know is true is, in fact, not at all true.
And it is a way for the Trump campaign to connect with people receptive to the kinds of untruths they are peddling.
In short, this “poll” is a little taste of Donald J. Trump’s disinformation campaign — one of the evils with which Trump and the GOP are currently undermining US American democracy. [Our Destroy Reality, Destroy Democracy has some info on Trump’s dishonesty and his campaign’s disinformation campaign.]
If their corrosion of our democracy is allowed to continue another four years, we are unlikely to have much of democracy left, Trump et al will have perpetrated one of the greatest political evils of human history, and everyone (including Trump and his GOP enablers) will have lost. So we’re trying to push against their mistakes while there’s yet time.
[An Overview of Trump’s Threat to US Democracy attempts to present the crisis in one long web page, with links to supporting pages.
At the end of this article, we link to several articles about Trump’s dishonesty, corruption, and abuse of power. We hope to include information from those articles in the Overview.
Time permitting.]
Here’s the “poll”:
1.Do you believe the mainstream media purposely avoids reporting on allegations of corruption by Democrats for political reasons?
oYes
oNo
oUnsure
2.Should Joe Biden and his son be investigated for their corrupt business dealings in Ukraine?
oYes
oNo
oUnsure
3.Do you believe Joe Biden’s corruption in Ukraine should disqualify him from being president?
oYes
oNo
oUnsure
4.Should Adam Schiff be removed as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for making up a fake phone conversation involving President Trump?
oYes
oNo
oUnsure
5.Do you believe Nancy Pelosi has put her radical anti-Trump agenda ahead of doing what‘s right for the country?
oYes
oNo
oUnsure
6.Do you believe mainstream media outlets should stop having proven liars like Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell on their shows?
oYes
oNo
oUnsure
7.Do you believe that Democrats should focus on working with President Trump to deliver for the American people rather than wasting more taxpayer money on bogus witch hunts?
oYes
oNo
oUnsure
8.(Optional) Is there anything else you’d like to share with President Trump regarding Democrat corruption?
The “questions” (ie: misleading propaganda) are followed by some extro about Trump Pence Keep America Great!
The questions assume the answers.
The realities that the questions assume are false.
Let’s go through them together:
1.Do you believe the mainstream media purposely avoids reporting on allegations of corruption by Democrats for political reasons?
This one is the closest thing to a real question. It is leading and designed to slide into pre-established roughing-the-referee anti-journalism myths that weaken the free press and so strengthen the hand of those who don’t like their actions being brought to light (for example, would-be autocrats). But it doesn’t outright tell you what the answer has to be.
The following “questions”, however, do. And they show us where they are really going with this first question.
2.Should Joe Biden and his son be investigated for their corrupt business dealings in Ukraine?
&
3.Do you believe Joe Biden’s corruption in Ukraine should disqualify him from being president?
Notice the wording.
Does #2 read like we should investigate whether or not Joe Biden and his son had corrupt business dealings in Ukraine? Or like we know they did and we need to investigate them for these corrupt dealings?
As for #3: it clearly outright assumes that there’s good reason to believe Joe Biden was guilty of grave corruption in the Ukraine.
Hunter Biden was unwise to work as a lobbyist in countries where his father had official business, but there is no evidence that Joe Biden interfered on his son’s behalf, or that he even approved of his son’s lobbying work. Rather, the serious corruption here is the famous one: the Republican Party’s unsuccessful attempts to dig up dirt on Joe Biden’s work in the Ukraine, culminating in Trump’s blatant request that President Zelensky dig up dirt on his rival Joe Biden, while simultaneously withholding aid from the Ukraine and making it clear that the aid was dependent on Zelensky’s cooperation. Trump faced impeachment for this. The Republican Senate took the unprecedented step of preventing key witnesses from testifying. The Republicans in the US Senate then failed to impeach Trump in the face of overwhelming evidence that he did indeed attempt to coerce a foreign government to intervene against a political rival on his behalf, tying much-needed US aid to the Ukrainian government’s willingness to interfere in US politics.
“Questions” #2 & #3 support several lies:
They support the lie that there’s compelling evidence that Joe Biden’s dealings with the Ukraine were corrupted by his son’s business interests there.
They support the lie that the Republicans have not already spent a great deal of time and energy in failed fishing trips for dirt on Joe Biden’s work in the Ukraine.
They support the lie that President Trump was impeached for trying to stop corruption, rather than for trying to use aid money from the Federal Government of the United States of America to bribe a foreign leader into discrediting a domestic political rival.
They support the lie that Trump is an anti-corruption president, rather than what he is: an extremely corrupt president.
And they support the lie that Trump’s various statements about Joe Biden and the Ukraine are true, when in fact they have been shown again and again to be untrue.
For Donald Trump’s campaign to rail against Joe Biden’s corruption is to turn reality upside down.
It is a lie: Part of the large billowing cloud of confusion and dishonesty with which Donald Trump erodes the cause of truth, justice, and the US American way.
FactCheck.Org — 5/18/2020 — The RNC’s Misleading Message About the Bidens
Atlantic Monthly — 2/2/2020 — Why Romney Voted To Impeach Trump
BBC News — 2/2/2020 — Trump Impeachment — The Short, Medium, and Long Story
PoliFact.Com — 5/7/2019 — Fact Check About Joe Biden’s Threat to Withhold Aid from the Ukraine
BBC News — 12/4/2020 — Impeachment Evidence Overwhelming — House Report
AP Fact Check — 12/1/2019 — Trump’s Ukraine Defense at Odds with Facts
ABC News — 10/10/2019 — Fact Checking Trump’s Accusations Against Ukraine Whistleblower & the Bidens
Bloomberg — 10/9/2020 — On Bidens & Ukraine, Wild Claims with Little Basis
NBC News 9/25/2019: There is No Evidence Trump’s Biden Accusations are True
FactCheck.Org 9/24/2019: Trump Twists Facts on Biden & Ukraine
New Yorker 7/8/2019: Will Hunter Biden Jeopardize his Father’s Campaign? [a portrait of the Bidens]
4.Should Adam Schiff be removed as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for making up a fake phone conversation involving President Trump?
Adam Schiff did not make up a fake phone conversation involving President Trump.
He said, “Shorn of its rambling character and in not so many words, this is the essence of what the President communicates. … ” And then he made a fairly accurate dramatization of Trump’s blatant attempt to pressure the Ukranian government to dig up dirt on a political rival. You could argue that he should’ve avoided sarcasm in his summary of Trump and Zelensky’s exchange, but saying he made up a fake phone call is not accurate, and it purposefully muddies the waters about the character of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky.
The logical trick is this:
You could support the claim that Schiff was not careful enough to delineate between the words in the conversation, his reading of those words, and his reaction;
therefore Schiff made the whole thing up;
therefore the impeachment process is a witch hunt;
therefore it is in the Democrats, not the Republicans who are corrupting our democracy.
The premise is not completely unfounded, but none of the subsequent “therefores” actually follow. Indeed, the gist of what Schiff said is the case: There is very good reason to believe Trump pressured a foreign president to do his political dirty work for him, tying this request to both the good will of the president the United States, and to aid money from the the United States.
CNN 9/27/2019: Breaking Down Adam Schiff’s Account of Trump’s Ukraine Call
AP Fact Check — 12/1/2019 — Trump’s Ukraine Defense at Odds with Facts
Politico: Read the Trump Ukraine Phone Call
5.Do you believe Nancy Pelosi has put her radical anti-Trump agenda ahead of doing what‘s right for the country?
&
6.Do you believe mainstream media outlets should stop having proven liars like Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell on their shows?
#5 is not a question at all; it tells you that Nancy Pelosi has a radical anti-Trump agenda, and is thus so obviously crazed and rabid that she’s forgotten her duty to the country. The truth is that the democrats were slow to impeach an extremely impeachable president, a president who is still in power not because the charges brought against him were shown to be untrue or even dubious, but because the republican senate abdicated its duty.
New Yorker — 48 Hours that Sealed Trump’s Impeachement
Time Magazine — How Trump was Acquitted
The GOP was able to allow Trump’s corruption to continue because the American people are too polarized to impeach a president. To impeach a president, you need to be able to get a majority of senators to think they will lose their job if they don’t impeach and will keep their job if they do impeach. To do that, you need to be able to convince the American people to first demand their senators demand a fair hearing with all facts and witnesses present and then you need to be able to convince the American people to pay attention to those facts and witnesses and make a decision based on those facts and witnesses.
[As of 9/6/2020, we started this Republican reality vs Democrat reality essay, which so far concludes with:
“I don’t know what to do.”]
#6 is absurd: Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell have not been demonstrated to be particularly dishonest politicians, whereas Donald Trump has now been caught in over 20,000 lies since he’s become president of the US.
To get a sense for who is lying in this country, see the Polifact scorecards (arranged in order from most to least checks end of August 2020):
Donald Trump (827 checks: 14% true or mostly true; 23% half true; 55% mostly false or false; 15% pants on fire; so a total of 70% or 594 statements that were found to be mostly false, false or pants on fire false)
Obama (604 checks: 47% true or mostly true; 26% half true; 22% mostly false or false; 1% pants on fire; so a total of 23% or 151 statements that were found to be mostly false, false, or pants on fire false)
Hillary Clinton (300 checks: 49% true or mostly true; 23% half true; 24% mostly false or false; 3% pants on fire; so a total of 27% or 83 statements that were found to be mostly false, false or pants on fire false)
Mitch McConnell (37 checks: 36% true or mostly true; 18% half true; 42% mostly false or false; 3% pants on fire; so a total of 45% or 15 statements that were found to be mostly false, false or pants on fire false)
Schiff (two checks: one true; one false)
Swalwell (two checks: one mostly true; two half true).
Of the two Adam Schiff checks, one was true and the other false.
The false statement was “We have not spoken directly to the whistleblower”.
The true statement had to do with the interpretation of the 25th amendment (It can be used to replace a president when he is seriously incapacitated).]
#7.Do you believe that Democrats should focus on working with President Trump to deliver for the American people rather than wasting more taxpayer money on bogus witch hunts?
The preceding analysis has demonstrated that there was good reason to impeach Trump.
Donald Trump and his GOP abettors are undermining our democracy with disinformation, corruption, cronyism, attacks on the election process, and unchecked abuses of power.
Articles in support of the above claims listed below.
As mentioned above, we hope to integrate the below info into the An Overview of Trump’s Threat to US Democracy we are 9/6/2020 working on.
Atlantic article on Trump’s digital disinformation campaign
[also note the above fact-check comparisons]
American Prospect map of Trump’s corruption (discussing corruption and cronyism)
GQ article: “How Trump corrupted the presidency in every imaginable way”
Mother Jones article: “Donald Trump’s corruption is killing Americans”
Washingtonian: One chart shows why Trump’s attacks on the election will work
Vox: How Trump’s mail voting sabotage could result in an election night nightmare
Rolling Stone: The GOP’s plan to suppress the vote and sabotage the election
American Prospect: Trump’s abuse of power from Ukraine to coronavirus
We need to remove Donald Trump and those who have aided his autocratic and incompetent behavior.
And we need to work with Joseph Biden’s administration and the democrats to pass meaningful reforms so that the next would-be autocrat decides to just stay home and privately applaud political gangsters.
We need to reclaim our democracy.
How to win on November third?
We need support, we need our supporters to go vote, and we need to make sure they are not intimidated at the polls and that their votes are not thrown out.
It is in everyone’s best interest that Trump and his enablers are removed from office and our political class hears us loud and clear when we together stand up and say: “The ends do not justify the means. Don’t harm our democracy for the sake of your political goals. If you do, you will be removed from office.”
God help us help ourselves do what is best for everyone.
Authors: The NYC Journal Editorial Board
Somehow involved: B. Willard & A. Whistletown
Copyright: AM Watson (obviously not the Trump ad or the articles we linked to; we don’t copyright that; we copyright the parts we wrote, commenting on the ad and the articles.)
[The story is included on Bartleby Willard’s NYC Journal Politics page]
