What Bizarro Universe Are These Trump Inauguration Attendees Living In?
The hour is almost upon us—I hope you’ve done some planning for what you’re going to do today instead of watching Donald Trump’s inauguration. I mean, it doesn’t seem that important to him anyway, since he’s apparently considering Monday his first day as president. Meanwhile, the Trump supporters who felt it was important enough to show up for have some very strange reasons for that support.
They truly are the stalwarts, it seems, as yesterday’s celebration concert seems to have been an embarrassing, unmitigated disaster. That’s not exactly a surprise, given Trump’s historic unpopularity (which, again, is not debunked by claims that polls got the election wrong, since they really didn’t), but in the nonsense backwards world that his supporters live in, it probably went unnoticed. If you want to know what I’m talking about, just take a look at what some of the attendees said—their actual words—in this Twitter thread from a journalist on the scene.
We already know Trump has lots of diehard fans, but what’s truly telling is the reasons they give for supporting him: his honesty, his firm positions on and “precise” understanding of the issues, and his faith. Yes, if you paid attention at all during the campaign, you’re probably looking at those words and scratching your head. Trump’s trademark is that his position on most “issues” constantly shifts—generally, it seems like he’s making it up as he goes along and playing to whatever audience he’s in front of. His faith seems to extend to telling people how committed he is to it with very little to back it up, including some very obvious blunders in addition to simply not appearing to be a very moral man.
Then, there’s the big one: honesty. Donald Trump spent the campaign as a serial liar. He lied so many times it was difficult for the press to keep up with fact checking. He would make statements and then, later, claim to have never made them. Just look at this purported picture of him “writing” his inaugural address:
So Trump wrote his inaugural address at the foyer reception desk of the Mar-A-Lago resort? pic.twitter.com/6RrJwrEXrH
— Stephen Lautens (@stephenlautens) January 19, 2017
He didn’t even bother trying to make it look authentic. Not only is the location completely staged, but he’s curling the pad in a way that we can’t see whether or not it’s blank (though I know where I’d place my bet). This may seem silly, and it is, but it’s the way he’s run his entire campaign. He cares nothing for honesty—everything he says is just there to sound good in the moment. He’s taken credit for a landslide victory that does not exist. He denied saying climate change was a Chinese hoax after he very clearly tweeted that very statement. He’s said he has no relationship with Vladimir Putin or Russia despite video evidence of him saying the opposite.
It’s one thing to watch people support a candidate whose politics you disagree with, but it’s entirely another to watch people assert that what they like about someone is honesty when the most remarkable thing about him is how often and boldly he lies. It really feels like we’re not even talking about the same person. All that’s left now is to wonder just what it will take for people so out of touch with reality to come back to it and help the rest of us undo this mess.
(image via Shutterstock)
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