Donald Trump Gets Bashed by His Sister, Niece

Volume 2, Issue No. 12

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . .

 Our latest as of Monday, August 24, 2020 

~ Genius or simpleton? A prevaricator or straight shooter? Whatever one might believe he is, Donald Trump is a living legend of his own creation. His "false bravado" is mistaken for accomplishment, and his arrogance for strength, writes his niece. His sister says "he has no principles". As of May, the Fact Checker claims, he "had made 19,127 false or misleading claims". A journalist writing for The Atlantic says "Trump is a genius . . . "

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DONALD J. TRUMP

A Presidency Built on a Foundation of Lies

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"One lie has the power to tarnish a thousand truths.” ― Al David

TORONTO - The endless falsehoods that US President Donald Trump dispenses since assuming office in 2017 are stuff that makes one cringe.

Being the most powerful man as the leader of the world's mightiest country, anything he says or does would have an effect on friends and foes alike, let alone a historically and geographically close neighbour like Canada.

He's fair game for critics who are not necessarily voters. As a resident living just next door (straight line distance from Toronto to Washington, DC is 352 miles or 566 kilometres) to him, I am concerned. As a natural-born Filipino, I am aware of the political and emotional role the US played and continues to play in the homeland.

I feel anguished being reminded of the atrocities "our uniformed assassins" as Mark Twain had referred to invading US troops, had committed against defenseless Filipinos during the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902. (Background: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war).  

In other words, American or not, a voter or not, Democrat or Republican, I, like the nearly four million Filipinos in the US, have a stake in either electing or defeating the 74-year-old Donald Trump (net worth estimated at $2.1 billion, says Forbes) in the November 3 election.

The current White House occupant does appear to have a problem with the truth or in its telling. He speaks in a convoluted style that starts with white lies and ends with egregious lies.

So it comes as no surprise when his own 83-year-old sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal judge, said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary L. Trump, that "He (Donald) has no principles. None. None . . . His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God. I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit." (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xsj6FCe9-I&pbjreload=101).

Mary Trump, the 55-year-old daughter of Fred "Freddy" Trump Jr., the oldest of the Trump siblings, wrote a bombshell of a book, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man", which sold an estimated 1.35 million copies on its first week. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/08/mary-l-trump-i-cant-let-donald-trump.html).

"For Donald," she writes, "lying was primarily a mode of self-aggrandizement meant to convince people he was better than he actually was". That was quite a revelation about Donald Trump who now appears to have built his presidency on a foundation of lies.

"Donald's displays of confidence, his belief that society's rules didn't apply to him, and his exaggerated display of self-worth drew some people to him. A large minority of people still confuse his arrogance for strength, his false bravado for accomplishment, and his superficial interest in them for charisma".

Aides to President Trump merely shrugged off Mary Trump's assertions in her book, calling her a disgruntled family member who, like her brother Fritz, had been disinherited by the Trump patriarch, Fred C. Trump, her grandfather, who died in June 1999.

The Washington Post published in June the Fact Checker's database showing that Donald Trump, as of May 29, "had made 19,127 false or misleading claims" which translate to almost 16 claims a day over the period of his presidency.

"We have also found," the Washington Post reported, that "October is a dangerous month for the truth, especially if an election is nearing. In October 2018, the president tallied 1,205 claims, and in October 2019, 1,159 claims. That's a pace of 40 claims a day".

Donald Trump's most repeated claims - 334 times - is that the US economy today is the best in history. "Nope," said the paper. (Full story at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/01/president-trump-made-19127-false-or-misleading-claims-1226-days/).

His second most-repeated claim - 261 times - is that his border wall with Mexico is being built. The daily says the project evolved into the replacement of smaller, older barriers with steel bollard fencing that could be easily breached, contrary to his claims that it's impossible to get past.

Another falsehood Donald Trump likes repeating, in fact, he has repeated 206 times, according to the paper, is that he "passed the biggest tax cut in history". 

That's fiction, says the paper. As a matter of fact, it's ranked eighth-largest tax cut in 100 years at only 0.9 percent of the gross domestic product, far removed from President Ronald Regan's tax cut of 2.9 percent of GNP.

Writing in the March issue of The Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/trump-genius/609142/), the journalist Frida Ghitis writes:  

"Give the president his due: Trump is a genius. He is a master manipulator, a political alchemist capable of transmuting calamitous errors into political gold. Even as he continues to lie and deceive, the president has seized control of the narrative, taking possession of the national microphone to saturate the public with his self-serving version of events".

This week, Donald Trump and his vice president, Mike Pence, will be renominated as the official candidates of the Republican Party. Would his lies impact the election? (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).