Is Donald Trump a misogynistic, racist, abuser? Or has he been chosen and anointed by God? Could both be true? I’m not going to try and answer these questions for you, but I do want to talk about Donald Trump and the media, including social media.
Normally, I don’t care all that much about politics, I do the best I can to research the candidates and then I vote. But this seems to be an unusual year. It seems that most voters believe that both of the primary candidates for President are evil and that our only hope as a nation is to vote for the lesser of two evils. As usual, there has been lots of mudslinging and it’s left up to the voters to wade through all of the BS and figure out who is telling the truth, what the real facts are. Maybe it has always been this way, but I don’t find the media very helpful this go around at all! Bias seems to be everywhere. Endorsements I understand, but when did reporting facts, instead of opinions and even slander pieces, stop being the job of news outlets? When did news outlets begin taking sides by not reporting on things related to the candidate they endorse, while propagating anything negative they can find about the candidate they don’t, even if not true? I know they stopped proofreading years ago (a pet peeve of mine), but when did they stop verifying their sources?
Here is a short but very good example of what I am talking about (mixed in with some comedy) that I came across the other day (warning: strong language). And, to be fair, it does show that it happens with both candidates, despite my sense that it happens much more frequently with Trump; noting that Trevor Noah is clearly not a Trump supporter and has focused on him in many of his shows; though his is a comedy show, not your standard news outlet.
(CLICK HERE TO OPEN VIDEO IN NEW WINDOW)
But it’s not just the major news outlets. Anyone with a camera and an internet connection can broadcast their opinions to the world these days. And while there is much negative – and false – information floating around out there about both of the primary Presidential candidates in this 2016 Presidential Race, I do have to admit that I find myself having to defend Donald Trump much more frequently than Hillary Clinton, once I have looked into the allegations. Maybe that just means that I am more exposed to anti-Trump propaganda than I am to anti-Hillary propaganda, but I find that hard to believe since I seem to be surrounded by many more Trump supporters than Hillary supporters, at least when it comes to those who are being vocal about who they support. And the difference is a landslide difference, not just a small number.
I could get into many examples of what I am talking about, but that would require me to spend a lot more time than I want to going back to try and dig up past examples, so I am just going to use a video that one of my Facebook friends shared just this morning.
(CLICK HERE TO OPEN VIDEO IN NEW WINDOW)
The person in the video is Liz Plank, who I have never heard of before, so cannot tell you much about. In this video Ms. Plank accuses Donald Trump of being abusive. The video can be found on this Facebook Page.
Ms. Plank gives us several reasons why she believes Donald Trump is an abusive person.
Let’s look at them:
- Humiliation:
According to Ms. Plank, the press conference Trump held before the debate with the women who have accused Bill Clinton of rape, as well as the woman whose rapist Hillary Clinton defended years ago, was nothing more than attempt by Trump to publicly shame Hillary Clinton. She claims that Trump doesn’t care about advocating for these woman because he’s “actually insulted them in the past.” She proves this by playing an old video of Donald Trump called Paula Jones “a loser” and then points out that Paula Jones is among the women present in this news conference.
- Deflection
When asked about the tape of his conversation with Billy Bush, Trump minimized his behavior (“something else abusers do,” according to Ms. Plank) by calling it “locker room banter,” then he proceeded to talk about Isis.
- (Threats and) Intimidation
First because he threatened to put Hillary Clinton in jail. Then because “he spent a great deal of time standing right behind Hillary Clinton, in a way that almost made me feel unsafe for her.”
- Gaslighting
She defines this as “manipulating a victim to question their own memory and their own lucidity. She says that Trump is guilty of this because Trump blames Hillary Clinton “for the main thing which he founded his entire political career on, the Obama birther conspiracy.” She then played the clip of trump pointing out the fact that it was Hillary Clinton’s campaign who circulated the picture of Obama “in certain garb” (during her 2008 bid for President), which was “long before” Trump was ever involved in that conversation.
At the end, Ms. Plank tries to point out that Trump was just as abusive towards his male opponents as he was towards Hillary Clinton. To support this assertion, she played a tape of an earlier debate of Trump replying to Jeb Bush, who said: “This is a tough business,” by saying, sarcastically: “I know, you’re a tough guy, Jeb.” And another clip of Trump shushing Jeb Bush by holding his finger up to his lip while saying: “Will you let me talk, be quiet.”
My response to Ms. Plank’s claims.
- Humiliation
Donald Trump is not the only person in this race who has said things during this race that are contradictory to things he has said in the past. Even Hillary Clinton is guilty of that. So is President Obama, who said some very hateful things about Hillary Clinton while running against her in 2008, though he is saying exactly the opposite about her now. This is a race for the President, Ms. Plank! This is EXACTLY the type of behavior we see in EVERY Presidential election. Each candidate tries their hardest to discredit and disqualify the other. We see it every four years! And pointing out Hillary Clinton’s complicity in the actions of her husband with regard to these women is decidedly not abusive behavior, if it is the truth. And, if true, Hillary Clinton ought to be ashamed! Are you trying to suggest that such behavior is irrelevant to this race, irrelevant when it comes to the character of someone running for President? Assuming these accusations are true, whose character is really in question here? - Deflection:
While it is true that Trump went from defending his taped conversation with Billy Bush by calling it “locker room banter,” that he regrets, to talking about Isis (and other things), I fail to see how this makes Donald Trump an abuser. This is something that Trump does with almost every question he is asked. While it is incredibly annoying, it was not something he did in response to this particular question only. It’s a bad habit he’s had all along. He seems to have an incredible inability to simply answer the question that was asked without trying to answer 20 others that were not. He seems to try and cover every topic in every answer. And that has nothing to do with the personal nature of this particular question, as far as I can tell. Incredibly annoying, yes. Abusive behavior, no. - (Threats and) Intimidation
I watched the entire debate again, just for this one, and I find Ms. Plank’s accusation laughable, though she is not the only one to make it. I do not recall who I heard it from first, but I wonder if Ms. Plank borrowed this from someone else or if she actually felt that way while watching the debate. Either way, I would invite her to go back and watch the debate again and see that in every single case in which Trump was standing anywhere near Hillary it was Hillary who crossed the stage. The stage not being very large and camera angles being what they were, at times it might have appeared that Donald Trump was standing very close to Hillary Clinton, almost standing over her shoulder, even when he was not. And when the camera panned out you could clearly see that this was not the case. And, again, in every case, Donald Trump was standing on the side of the stage and near the podium and chair assigned to him. In every case it was Hillary Clinton who crossed the stage to address those on Trump’s side of the stage, yet no one is accusing her of any wrongdoing. Nor should they. Let’s also consider the fact that, in an hour and a half, this only happened 4 times and in only 1 of those cases was Donald standing right behind Clinton facing her. Here are some images:
This is a screen shot of the first time Hillary crossed the stage to talk to the audience seated on Trump’s side of the stage. Notice that Trump, while facing the same side of the stage, is standing at his own podium.
Here are two screen shots of the second time Clinton crossed the stage. Notice that Trump is not even facing her and he is still standing at his own podium and is not even very close to her, even though the first camera angle made it seem like he was standing closer than he was.
Here is a screen shot the third time Clinton crossed the stage. Do you see where Donald Trump is standing?
Here is a screen shot of the forth and, I believe, last time Hillary crossed the stage. Again, Trump is standing behind his own podium and not even facing Clinton.
If you think these screen shots do not properly represent where Trump was standing and what he was doing while Hillary was talking then, by all means, go back and watch the debate again for yourself, like I did.
Yes, Trump did do some pacing when he was not talking, but I don’t find that “abusive” behavior. Lots of people are pacers. I certainly did not find him hovering over Clinton in a threatening or intimidating way. But Ms. Plank thinks that maybe these things might have made us feel like we were going “insane”? And, if it did, we shouldn’t. But, by the end of her video, even before going back to take another look at the debate in light of her claims, I was asking myself… Is she insane? I even went to her Facebook Page to see if, by chance, she was a licensed Psychologist or Psychiatrist or something. The answer was no, as far as I could ascertain from the “About” section on her page.
4. Gaslighting
It may not be true that Clinton herself started the Obama Birther Movement, but it is absolutely true that this movement got started during the 2008 Election campaign and it originated with someone on Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff. They were fired for it! This can be verified by this article on Politico, which states, in part:
Clinton’s former senior aide Patti Solis Doyle acknowledged that a volunteer coordinator in Iowa forwarded a birther-related email. “Hillary made the decision immediately let that person go,” she said. “We let that person go. It was so beyond the pale of the campaign Hillary wanted to run and that we as a staff wanted to run that I called David Plouffe who was managing Barack Obama to apologize to say this is not coming from us, that this was rogue volunteer.”
“The campaign nor Hillary did not start the birther movement, period,” she said.
The rumors that Obama was born in Kenya dogged him as he entered the general election fight against John McCain (who similarly steered clear of the issue). Some conservative blogs picked up the rumor as well. To counter the claim, the Obama campaign released a copy of his short-form “certification of live birth” to the liberal Daily Kos.
But it was that gesture that proved the durability of the birther conspiracy theories. Immediately, those who questioned Obama’s birth declared the short-form birth certificate insufficient proof or even a forgery. But the issue had clearly moved even further to the fringe and seemed to dissipate until Donald Trump revived it in 2011, demanding a “long-form” birth certificate.
I don’t find it odd to hold someone responsible for the actions of their staff. I would find it odd for anyone to deny that this birther movement began with Hillary’s run against Obama during the 2008 campaign for President, regardless of who started it, which was clearly not Trump. It was fueled by the media, I am sure, and just to show you another example of how the media is doing more that just reporting the facts, look at this headline from 2008: “Clinton aides claim Obama photo wasn’t intended as a smear.” It’s about the photo of President Obama in African dress, referred to by Trump during the debate: That headline implies an admission on the part of the Clinton organization, yet the article actually says [emphasis mine]:
Aides for Mrs Clinton, who is fighting a last-ditch battle to keep her hopes of the White House alive, initially tried to brush off the furore, but later denied having anything to do with the distribution of the picture. “I just want to make it very clear that we were not aware of it, the campaign didn’t sanction it and don’t know anything about it,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson told reporters. “None of us have seen the email in question.”
In an electronically driven world, the media resorts to what can best be describes as “click bate” to drive traffic to their websites. Their headlines are oftentimes misleading, even if the rest of the information they give you, after you click, is not. And, unfortunately, I think many of us read nothing but the headlines.
Going back to Ms. Plank’s video, I did not watch the debate from which the clips containing Jeb Bush were taken, so I cannot comment, not knowing the context. I will only say that the use of sarcasm doesn’t prove abuse. If it did, they would probably all be guilty of it, not just Trump. We all would! As to the shushing, if Bush was interrupting Trump, and there isn’t enough in the clip provided to see whose turn it was to speak, he had every right to tell Bush to be quiet and let him speak. So it’s not what he said, but the gesture he made while saying it, that is the problem, I have to assume, and I don’t know if that qualifies as “abusive behavior.”
Look, I am not claiming that Donald Trump is President material. I think he has a huge ego, though I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing when it comes to this race. I think that could very well be the one thing he has going for him, actually. It may be the one thing that keeps him from failing to deliver on his promise to “make America great again.” Other than that, I’m not sure what he has to offer, other than not being Hillary Clinton, which seems to be the primary characteristic many of his supporters are drawn to.
My complaints about this particular debate would have been that, right out of the gate, beginning with the very first question asked, neither candidate answered the actual questions that were being asked. That did get better later in the debate, particularly with Clinton, but that is what annoyed me the most. What annoyed me almost as much was Trump’s incessant whining about not being treated fairly. I wanted to put him in time out and tell him not to come out until he has grown up.
I don’t know about you, but this entire Presidential race makes my head just spin. And I wouldn’t even address this at all, here, as I try to limit my posts to scriptural or spiritual matters, except for the fact that another aspect of this very complicated Presidential Race is the claim being made by many in the Christian/Evangelical world that Donald Trump is a modern-day Cyrus or Samson, a man chosen and anointed by God to win this election and save America from the fate of a Hillary Clinton presidency.
I have tried to look into this and I find some of the claims very interesting, though I have not reached a point of agreement.
One person whose voice frequently overwhelms my Newsfeed is that of Susan Vercelli. You can check her out here. I do not believe she is anyone of any prominence in the world of Evangelism, I think she is just a self-proclaimed Prophet who uses Facebook as her platform. Nonetheless, she has been extremely vocal about trump and is probably the first person whose claims about Trump came across my Newsfeed.
Another person who has popped up a lot on my Newsfeed is Lance Wallnau. He can be found here: Again, I am not familiar with Mr. Wallnau. I had never heard of him before this election cycle, but I assume he must be someone of some prominence within the Christian community given his Facebook Page has a blue check mark, indication that it has been authenticated by Facebook, and given the fact that he, apparently, has a seat at Donald Trump’s table. You can read his “About” page for more info or look him up on Google.
Here is just one article written by Mr. Wallnau. But if you would prefer another video, there are plenty on his Facebook Page.
Do I believe that God CAN use someone like Donald Trump? Absolutely! And I hope that no Christian would ever say otherwise, regardless of how they feel about him, his history, or his character. But that’s not the real question. The real question is whether or not Donald Trump IS being used by God?
I’ll have to let you answer that question for yourself.
Isn’t it interesting, though, that in this election it’s not about whether or not a particular candidate is the prophesied “Anti-Christ” of “the last days,” who will usher in the destruction of the world and the second coming of Christ, but whether or not one has been chosen and anointed by God for the restoration of America?
For The Love of the Word 