A DESPERATE PRESIDENT CONTINUES TO LIVE IN A WORLD OF UNTRUTHS

…Beto O’Rourke, a possible presidential candidate

Two rallies along the US-Mexico border demonstrate the fierce debate over illegal immigration and border security

As expected, once again, the president out did himself in lying.  As usual, this was again particularly true regarding Trump’s bogus crowd sizes statements.

It was estimated by the El Paso officials that Beto O’Rourke had about 8,000 at his Monday El Paso rally, which was about ¼ mile from President Trump’s rally.  Trump, of course, at first told his audience that he had about 35,000 attendees to Beto’s 200.

Trump later admitted that his crowd had been given permission for there to be up to 10,000 in attendance.  But the El Paso officials have said that no special attendance permission was given and the maximum attendance at Trump’s rally was 6,500.

These two events along the US-Mexico border encapsulated the fierce debate over illegal immigration and border security that has been upsetting Washington and is emerging as a flash point in the presidential campaign.

At the start of a desperate week in the US Capitol, where congressional negotiators are working to avoid another government shutdown, the president tried to use the backdrop of O’Rourke’s hometown of El Paso to argue that a wall would help protect border communities.

With four days to go before a another partial government shutdown, Trump took Air Force One to the border in an attempt to gain a advantage in an immigration debate that the polls show he has been seriously losing.

In his usual meandering 75-minute speech, Trump tried to paint an image of crime and lawlessness on the border, while falsely claiming that violent crime went down in El Paso after a wall was built.

“We need the wall, and it has to be built, and we want to build it fast,” he said. Pausing to listen to chants of “Build that wall!,” Trump sought to correct his supporters: “Now, you really mean finish the wall,” he said, also falsely claiming that his promised border wall was already under construction.

This was all, total lies.

President Trump continued to mock the size of Beto O’Rourke’s counter-rally down the street, which as I said, the officials have said Beto’s crowd was much larger.

Trump referred to O’Rourke several times during the rally, mocking the former congressman by saying “a young man who’s got very little going for himself.”  Trump flat lied claiming O’Rourke’s rally was poorly attended and that his 2018 election loss to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). should disqualify him from seeking higher office.  

Why barely losing an election would disqualify a presidential candidate is beyond me....?

“How about Beto?” Trump said, during a lengthy attack at Democrats over policies he falsely labeled as “socialism.” “Beto was defeated, too. But he suffered a great defeat.’’  

No he didn’t.

The crowd included many local Republicans who had said they were excited to see so many like-minded people gather in such a liberal area to support the president and the wall.  

But it was admitted that few of those in Trump’s rally crowd were from the local area.  Many of Trump’s 6,000+ supporters had driven for hours to get to the rally from elsewhere in Texas and even from New Mexico and Louisiana.

About a ¼ mile down the road, thousands of demonstrators gathered at a local high school, most carrying American flags, rainbow banners, and “Beto for President” flags.  In addition, there were flags for Mexico and Texas. There were many signs against Trump and his border wall, such as: “Trump made America hate again”, and chants from the crowd that included “Make tacos, not walls!”

O’Rourke, has seriously disagreed with Trump’s El Paso description as being crime-ridden before the construction of a border fence.  Beto pointed to the real statistics showing that the city was one of America’s safest cities long before the border fencing was installed, just a decade ago.  Local officials also said that the physical barrier has had virtually no impact on the city’s relatively low rate of violent crime.  Many El Paso residents got together with posters of Donald Trump, showing him as a criminal president, and the residents were upset that President Trump was spreading lies about their city.

But Trump didn’t stop at his rally with just attacking Beto O’Rourke and lying about El Paso.  Trump also attacked Democratic Senators, Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) over their weekend announcement of their presidential campaigns.

“Amy Klobuchar announced that she is running for President, talking proudly of fighting global warming while standing in a virtual blizzard of snow, ice and freezing temperatures,” Trump said Sunday on Twitter. “Bad timing. By the end of her speech she looked like a Snowman(woman)!”

Yes, our ignorant president still doesn’t know the difference between “climate” and “weather”.  “Climate” is composed of statistics recorded over years and decades, “Weather” is what occurs from day to day.

Klobuchar, whose presidential announcement came during that serious snowfall in Minnesota, shot back, asking the audience how do you think Trump’s “hair would fare in a [snow] blizzard.”

Klobuchar’s hair-focused statements were one approach to attacking the Trumpster.  This approach was also employed by Elizabeth Warren, who called Trump a: “loser, a thin-skinned fraud and the large orange elephant in the room.”

…Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth announced their presidential campaigns

The president sharply attacked US Democrats, falsely calling them “the party of socialism, late-term abortion, open borders and crime.”  However, for the first time, Trump singled out the “Green New Deal”.  This is a climate-change action plan backed by several of the presidential contenders.

But Trump just had to tell another stupid lie by falsely saying it would virtually eliminate air travel.

“To pave the way for socialism, Democrats are calling for massive tax hikes and the complete elimination of private health care,’’ Trump said. “They’re coming for your money and they’re coming for your freedom.”

As Trump continues to lose with the American public, he is more and more sounding like a desperate totalitarian dictator that will say any lie to save his position of political power.

“As I was walking up to the stage, they said that progress is being made with this [Wall] committee,” Trump told his El Paso crowd. “Just so you know, we’re building the wall anyway.”

But the deal that the committee has come up with will be millions of dollars less than what Trump could have gotten if he had agreed to the deal that was offered back in December.

And just so you know the truth, the wall that Trump says is being built, is not being built.  All that is happening today is that sections of the current border wall and fence are being fixed or reinforced.  No new sections have been started.  It’s all just more Trump lies.

O’Rourke offered a direct contrast to Trump’s rhetoric during his opposing rally. On the previous Friday, O’Rourke had published a Medium.com post laying out his argument for why Trump’s description of El Paso was wrong and why a wall is not needed.  He did this plus offering 10 proposals for new immigration policy.

 “The President, using the same racist, inflammatory rhetoric of years past, seeks to build a wall, to take kids from their parents, to deploy the US Army on American soil, to continue mass deportations and to end the protection for Dreamers,” wrote O’Rourke, who has said he will decide by the end of this month whether he is also going to run for president.

“What you are seeing in these candidates’ response for how to deal with Trump is how undefined today’s ‘electability’ is,” Jill Normington, a Democratic pollster said. “Some of them are choosing to engage the president directly. Some of them are choosing to engage from a geographic standpoint, some from a temperament standpoint, some from an adversarial standpoint.”

The reality is that to win over Donald Trump, is that the candidate will need to call Trump out by using the truth about Trump’s falsehoods, and to not let him draw his opponents into stupid confrontations. 

But most importantly, the Democratic candidates will need to offer serious solutions that fulfill what today’s Americans are most concerned about.  That includes health care, lower cost of prescription drugs, dealing with income inequality, infrastructure investments, improving public education, dealing with foreign intrusions into our government, and preparing for the jobs of the future with real programs for dealing with our immigration issues. 

Not for building bogus walls that Mexico was going to pay for, and that will solve nothing.

Copyright G. Ater 2019