Alternative Insight
Democrats are Failing Again
Trump Will Sacrifice the Nation to Remain its President
Mix together, Joe McCarthy, Bernie Madoff, Judas Iscariot, George C. Wallace, and Pinocchio, and Donald Trump will emerge. Not one of the mentioned characters could obtain more than a miniscule number of votes in the next present election - the combination even less. Yet, a Fox News poll data released Thursday, August 13, has 49 percent of registered voters casting ballots for Biden and 42 percent for Trump. Joe Biden is running only seven percentage points ahead , which means only 3.5 percentage points to a tie if a Biden 3.5 percentage loss becomes a Trump 3.5 percentage gain. Less than a 30 point margin in favor of Joe Biden means something is wrong. How can this be?
Well, it is, and the obvious explanation is that Biden is running an ineffective campaign. Donald Trump will do anything — lie, deceive, fabricate, slander, provoke, recite meaningless statistics — in an effort to convince the American people that America leads in all categories, and he is responsible for the leadership. For someone who is a total failure, this is an effective strategy that gains votes from the gullible; with the discerning, it is counterproductive; for the electorate that resides between gullible and discerning, the message is confusing. More has to be done by the Democrats to translate that confusion into discernment. Prevarications are easily exposed, and exposure should have buried Trump’s election chances; yet, Trump is still hanging on when a candidate of his low mentality should receive fewer votes than Kanye West. The Democrats are failing again, failing to expose Trump’s disgusting nature and alert the electorate that Trump will sacrifice the nation to remain its President. Go further; Trump is not being exposed as being guilty of criminal negligence and, possibly, of involuntary manslaughter.
Trump has a four-prong deceptive strategy to win the election:
In each of the endeavors, Trump has placed the health, wealth, and welfare of the American people at jeopardy; and he does not care.
Provoke China
The Democratic Party lacks clear responses to Trump’s manufactured reasons for a confrontation with China, which is leading to a Tonkin Gulf style incident, to belligerent action, to military skirmishes with China. These are his reasons, which many commentators believe and repeat,
China’s pattern of misconduct is well known. For decades, they have ripped off the United States like no one has ever done before. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year were lost dealing with China, especially over the years during the prior administration. China raided our factories, offshored our jobs, gutted our industries, stole our intellectual property, and violated their commitments under the World Trade Organization. To make matters worse, they are considered a developing nation getting all sorts of benefits that others, including the United States, are not entitled to.
Check the words carefully and few of them are credible. As one example, take U.S. steel Imports, a significant manufacturing sector, which has had a great decline from peak operations, and is one indicator in Trump’s version of “China gutting our industries.” From the U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration:
The top 10 source countries for U.S. steel imports represented 78 percent of the total steel import volume in 2019 at 20.4 million metrics tons (mmt). Canada accounted for the largest share of U.S. imports at 19 percent (5.0 mmt), followed by Brazil at 18 percent (4.8 mmt), Mexico at 13 percent (3.3 million metric tons), South Korea at 9 percent (2.3 million metric tons), Japan at 4 percent (1.1 mmt), Russia at 4 percent (1.0 mmt) and Germany at 4 percent (965 thousand mt).
China is not even represented in the top ten of steel exports to the United States.
Trump’s policy toward China is provocation, try to make Xi Jinping react aggressively and then have the savior of the nation check the aggression and subdue the aggressive yellow peril.
China’s policy is summarized in one word - fear - a willingness to harm its economy and appease the U.S. in order to prevent a U.S. attack. An intended attack might be exaggerated, but Xi Jinping would rather take caution; after all, the U.S has engaged in about 26 military conflicts with other nations since the end of World War II. Trump has lived by making others fearful. He will use his menacing attitude to full advantage, which means heightening the confrontation until voting day.
The Dems walk a tight rope in answering; contradicting Trump signals appeasement to an American audience that is tough on China; allowing Trump his deceptive maneuver gives him an advantage. This lose-lose situation calls for a unique and clever strategy. Biden has not presented that strategy.
Neglect the CoVid-19 Pandemic
The Dems published ads revealing the Trump administration’s catastrophic response to the pandemic and highlighted his failures in the opening of the Democratic Party convention. Evidently, the Dems have not been sufficiently convincing in their approach. Trump continues with the outrageous lies that would ordinarily bury anyone under the s—t. It’s not just Trump; an assembly line of manufacturing, feeding, and marketing of spurious statistics serve to deceive the public. Trump says,
Framing the statistics as an increase or decrease and comparing 50,000 plus cases to 1000 plus cases by this basis are ridiculous deceptions. Numbers go up and down on a daily basis, certainly, 50,000 plus cases is magnitudes more dreadful than 1,000, no matter how the statistics are framed.
When Trump uttered this statement, U.S. deaths/capita was lower than only six nations and higher than the other 206 nations that have been attacked by CoVid-19. Since making that statement, U.S. deaths have continued at a high rate, whereas, in other nations, the death rate has becom nil. As of August 15, the U.S. has a death rate lower than only four nations in the world and higher than 208 nations.
I think the world is looking at us as a leader in COVID-19, because the chart I showed you, where you have mortality rate — and Italy and UK up here and across Europe, and you have the United States at a low case mortality rate — it’s because of the extraordinary work that we’ve done on therapeutics and getting PPE and leading on ventilators and having excess ventilators that we were able to deploy around the world and help other countries. So that’s what I would have to say on COVID.
During the week of June 30 to July 6, the UK had 350-750 daily cases, which gradually increased to 1000 in August 13; and 50-100 deaths, which gradually decreased to the teens on August 13.
Italy had 142-235 cases, which gradually increased to 627 on August 13; and 8 to 21 deaths, which gradually decreased to four on August 13.
The U.S. had 50,000 to 60,000 cases and 300-500 daily deaths, which quickly increased to 1000. Daily deaths have remained mostly in the 1000 range for the entire month of July and beginning of August. The U.S., in the first week of July, had 70-300 times the cases and 6-25 times the deaths of McEnanay’s specially selected nations.
Take two nations that have the same population. Nation A has 10 cases and 1 death, or a ten percent ratio. Nation B has 50,000 cases and 2000 deaths, or a four percent ratio. According to Trump, nation B is the leader; which nation would you prefer?
The bottom line is that the United States, with 4.5 percent of the world’s population has 25 percent of the world’s coronavirus cases and 25 percent of the world’s coronavirus deaths.
Trump has traded increased coronavirus deaths for an improved economy, which will then improve his election chances. Deceitful presentations to the public mask the actual seriousness of the pandemic and are criminal negligence, a crime by Federal statutes.
Criminal negligence refers to conduct in which a person ignores a known or obvious risk, or disregards the life and safety of others. Federal and state courts describe this behavior as a form of recklessness, where the person acts significantly different than an ordinary person under similar circumstances.
This criminal negligence should be highlighted.
Bankrupt country to inflate economy
Trump constantly exaggerates his contribution to the economy. What has Trump done to make him responsible for the low unemployment numbers and average growth of GDP? He has endorsed tax cuts on personal income and corporate profits, which is a Congress duty, promoted deregulation and trade pact renegotiations. What are the results?
Tax cuts on personal income only transfer purchasing power from the government to the public; they do not increase purchasing power or the money supply. Their effect on GDP is dubious, and they have increased the national debt.
A report at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-investment/1-5-trillion-u-s-tax-cut-has-no-major-impact-on-business-capex-plans-survey-idUSKCN1PM0B0 indicates that tax cuts on corporate profits did not generate a major increase in capital spending, and the spending that did occur, happened for a short period of time. Trump showed his ignorance of elementary economic news and his devious manner of using his failures to accentuate his self-approving wisdom when he stated, “If I knew corporations would use the tax cuts for stock buybacks, I would never have approved the tax cuts.” As for the personal income tax cut, lowering the corporate tax rate has increased the national debt.
Deregulation trades attention to environmental, unfair competition and ecological problems for some business benefits. Are the tradeoffs worthwhile or meaningful? Where is the data to quantify the results? Does Trump have any information?
Active operations from renegotiations of the trade pacts did not occur until late 2019. Because the data on the worth of the renegotiated agreement will not be available until mid-2020, Trump cannot use the renegotiations in descriptions of his economy. As a sideline to his thinking, Trump has made the outrageous assertion that the tariffs on Chinese imports, which are paid by the U.S. importers and usually raises the price of the goods, were paid by the Chinese government and the Chinese lowered U.S. deficit by adding to U.S. revenues. How can a president of any nation utter such nonsense?
Do U.S. presidents play much of a role in directing the economy, or is that more a function of the Federal Reserve and congressional budgets? The real GDP increased by $2.7 trillion during Trump’s first three years in office. During that time, the Federal Reserve reversed its decline in its balance sheet to reach close to pre-Trump levels and the government deficit increased by $3.2 trillion. Free money buys a lot of GDP. Free money raises the stock market.
Trump’s claim of achieving “the best economy that the world has ever had” is a meaningless and self-aggrandizing play on words. When a multitude of factors, rather than a few handpicked factors, is considered, during his term in office, U.S. economic progress has been meager — average of 2.6% annual GDP growth, reduction of unemployment from 4.5 to 3.5 percent, manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) down from 55, when Trump entered office to 52.5 before the pandemic. The economy was in decent shape before his Trump’s inauguration. The economic advance, since then, has been ordinary.
The principal reason given by those voting for Trump is his handling of the economy. Evidently, the electorate has not been presented with the facts.
Exaggerate danger to country
Cities have erupted during all presidencies. Trump’s attitude to the rebellions is similar to that attributed to Werner Von Braun, the German WW II V2- rocket developer - responsible for shooting the rocket up; not responsible for destruction caused when it comes down. Trump does not take responsibility for any problem; he accuses others of causing the problem and promotes himself as the universal resolver. Using scare words such as Radical left, socialists, anarchists, which have an effect, he intends to portray the United States as a lawless society and only he, the law and order sheriff can contain the mayhem. "The possession of power includes a disproportionately great ability to stir up fear, and stirred-up fear creates more power."
Well, if the United States, of which he is the president, is a lawless society, the buck stops with him.
Conclusion
Rather than using authenticated facts, logic, and specifics to combat Trump’s outrageous statements and directives, Democrat spokespersons, represented by Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and House majority leader, Nancy Pelosi, use scorn, attacks, opinions, and vagueness, which indicates they have no grasp of facts, and alienates the American electorate.
“He’s our president, and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists,” Pelosi said on CNN, “especially in his age group, and in his, shall we say, weight group: ‘Morbidly obese,’ they say.”
"What President Trump has done in his spreading of racist – the way he deals with people based on the color of their skin, their national origin, where they’re from – is absolutely sickening," Biden said in a virtual chat with union members.
How is it possible that a person of as low a caliber as Donald Trump can be elected president, be running again, and have a chance to win? Does this demonstrate the failures of the education, media, and communications systems. Does this indicate that national awareness is manipulated and democratic institutions are controlled?
When a political Party uses lies and deceit to advance an agenda, you know the Party has failed. When another political Party cannot sink the deceitful into oblivion, that Party has failed.
alternative insight
august 18, 2020