And at what point does that even matter? I'm being serious.
I feel like Trump has trained people to not believe anything he says, until it happens, and then people think he's doing exactly what he said he would do. The president said Amazon is going to have problems.
I think it's possible to tell by looking at his actions. If he actually believed in 2016 that there was massive fraud, and a risk of the same happening again in 2020, he would have done something about it. If anyone believes he was sincere, the fact he took no action for so long in inexplicable. You'd think it would be a matter of vital, urgent concern.
The fact that he ignored the whole issue until it was convenient for him to do so again speaks volumes. So I think it's perfectly clear, he doesn't believe a word of it because he doesn't act as though he believes it, and none of the people in the Republican party who say they believe him actually act as though they do either. They are doing nothing whosoever to address he problem, because there's nothing there to address and they know this perfectly well.
There's also a difference between being wrong about opinions (like statements about the future) and being wrong about things that are factual while making a claim that presents itself as a factual assertion. While the nature of what he's wrong about is banal, it represents an extremely dangerous disregard for facts. That he would make up facts out of whole cloth (or fully believe such a poorly done study because it suits his ego) should be extremely worrying to everyone. You knock Obama for his miscalculations, but if Trump's belief formation process is so defective when it comes to the banal, false beliefs are guaranteed to plague his decision making when it really counts.
No, it doesn't matter because the moment Trump 'changed his tune' all of his followers erased in their minds the history of him denying reality. To them, he was always acting with foresight.
You cannot discredit someone who robbed a bank and literally denies it the next day, along with millions of followers who also deny it even having seen the robbery first hand.
Your assumption of 'credit' implies some kind of rationality, there isn't. It's just a big personality fight.
Whatever Trump does or says is right, by virtue of the fact he said it.
FYI - the same could apply to popular characters of other kinds, this not just Trump, he's just a good example.
Edit: I should add, I feel this way specifically because I enjoy reading comments from various news sources as a measure of certain kinds of populism, and about 2/3 of the commenters currently on FoxNews are very pro Trump, often hailing is 'early action' etc. on the issue, completely disregarding the fact that only days ago, he was dismissing the issue as a hoax, literally indicating 'we only have a few cases, it will be zero soon' - all the while Wuhan and other places blow out of control. This should be enough to destroy any leaders' credibility. And of course, this is not a left/right/up/down thing, there are leaders of all political stripes who either do such ridiculous things or, who are credible - but still have followers who'll believe their statements over any kind of reality. I think this is more common than not: we believe personalities more than we believe facts.
Bullshitting is really a booming business. Regardless of what your views are on him, when you juxtapose what the US president says and what is real, he's a bullshitter.
As someone else noted above, "the media takes him literally, but not seriously and his supporters take him seriously, but not literally". Trump has since walked this position back to "extreme vetting" (though you can still find the original press release on his site).
Making exaggerated, hyperbolic statements that appeal to the emotional cortex is an intentional strategy employed by Trump to dog-whistle the media, and his masterful ability to bait the media is the only reason he's won anything up to this point. Showmanship is part of the game.
You need to look at the consistent elements in Trump's statements, which are abolishment of free trade, tight borders, and American protectionism. That's what he's serious about.
Donald Trump has been a notorious peddler of BS for over _40 years_... why anyone would believe _anything_ that comes out of his mouth about anything is beyond me; he obviously doesn't believe anything he says, why would you?
Do you actually have any evidence that he is doing any of this, or are we still at the wishful thinking stage?
Why is it that every time Donald Trump makes a statement like this, there are always large numbers of his supporters who believe he's still encouraging their bad behavior? I'd say he either knows what he's doing or his communication skills are dangerously bad for a politician. Am I missing a third option?
Whatever people's partisan feelings, surely Trump has established a track record that what he says is relatively very unlikely to be true. The above statement comes from Trump.
Exactly. He is fine with seeing if ideas or people will float or sink; it's his modus operandi.
Plus, Trump is a master at walking stuff back and saving face with his party and base. Net neutrality comes back? Well it's Trump net neutrality now, way better than broken Obama net neutrality. Obama job numbers fake, Trump job numbers great. Trump economy(which has basically not deviated from the Obama economy trajectory) doing great, Obama economy was broken. Etc, etc. All that matters is if it floats, and he can brand it Trump.
I feel like Trump has trained people to not believe anything he says, until it happens, and then people think he's doing exactly what he said he would do. The president said Amazon is going to have problems.
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