In the crush of daily outrages (there’s no
judgment implied there; as a human being, there are plenty of reasons to be
outraged on a daily basis), it’s easy to lose sight of the broader narrative.
Here is the broader narrative. There are people who will read this and will
deny the overwhelming evidence. There are perhaps other ways to explain this
phenomenon, but the best one that I can come up with is that we are living in
different and competing versions of reality, of what really happened, of what
is objectively true. Truth is almost certainly the most significant casualty of
the past half decade in America.
“Sometimes it’s worth stepping back to look at
the full picture.
He has pressured
a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 American presidential election.
He urged a
foreign country to intervene in the 2016 presidential election.
He divulged
classified information to foreign officials.
He publicly undermined
American intelligence agents while standing next to a hostile foreign autocrat.
He hired a
national security adviser whom he knew had secretly worked as a foreign
lobbyist.
He encourages
foreign leaders to enrich him and his family by staying at his hotels.
He genuflects to
murderous dictators.
He has alienated
America’s closest allies.
He lied to the
American people about his company’s business dealings in Russia.
He tells new lies
virtually every week — about the economy, voter fraud, even the weather.
He spends hours
on end watching television and days on end staying at resorts.
He often declines
to read briefing books or perform other basic functions of a president’s job.
He has aides, as
well as members of his own party in Congress, who mock him behind his back as
unfit for office.
He has repeatedly
denigrated a deceased United States senator who was a war hero.
He insulted a
Gold Star family — the survivors of American troops killed in action.
He described a former first lady, not long after she died, as “nasty.”
He described a former first lady, not long after she died, as “nasty.”
He described
white supremacists as “some very fine people.”
He told four
women of color, all citizens and members of Congress, to “go back and help fix
the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.”
He made a joke
about Pocahontas during a ceremony honoring Native American World War II
veterans.
He launched his
political career by falsely claiming that the first black president was not
really American.
He launched his
presidential campaign by describing Mexicans as “rapists.”
He has described
women, variously, as “a dog,” “a pig” and “horseface,” as well as “bleeding
badly from a facelift” and having “blood coming out of her wherever.”
He has been
accused of sexual assault or misconduct by multiple women.
He enthusiastically
campaigned for a Senate candidate who was accused of molesting multiple teenage
girls.
He waved around
his arms, while giving a speech, to ridicule a physically disabled person.
He has encouraged
his supporters to commit violence against his political opponents.
He has called for
his opponents and critics to be investigated and jailed.
He uses a phrase
popular with dictators — “the enemy of the people” — to describe journalists.
He attempts to
undermine any independent source of information that he does not like,
including judges, scientists, journalists, election officials, the F.B.I., the
C.I.A., the Congressional Budget Office and the National Weather Service.
He has tried to
harass the chairman of the Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates.
He said that a
judge could not be objective because of his Mexican heritage.
He obstructed
justice by trying to influence an investigation into his presidential campaign.
He violated
federal law by directing his lawyer to pay $280,000 in hush money to cover up
two apparent extramarital affairs.
He made his
fortune partly through wide-scale financial fraud.
He has refused to
release his tax returns.
He falsely
accused his predecessor of wiretapping him.
He claimed that
federal law-enforcement agents and prosecutors regularly fabricated evidence,
thereby damaging the credibility of criminal investigations across the country.
He has ordered
children to be physically separated from their parents.
He has suggested
that America is no different from or better than Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
He has called
America a “hellhole.”
He is the
president of the United States, and he is a threat to virtually everything that
the United States should stand for.”
- David Leonhardt, The New York Times
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