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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTFG's admissions that he lost to Joe Biden
That statement will be used when TFG goes to trial
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
LetMyPeopleVote
(145,667 posts)I went and read the article cited in the Political Wire article and it was amusing. TFG really does not understand academics or how to argue to intelligent people.
Link to tweet
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/trump-interview-a-first-historical-assessment/629454/
But if anything, our conversation with the former president underscored common criticisms: that he construed the presidency as a forum to prove his dealmaking prowess; that he sought flattery and believed too much of his own spin; that he dismissed substantive criticism as misinformed, politically motivated, ethically compromised, or otherwise cynical. He demonstrated a limited historical worldview: When praising the virtues of press releases over tweetsbecause the former are more elegant and lengthierhe sounded as if he himself had discovered that old form of presidential communication. He showed little interest in exploring, or even acknowledging, some of the contradictions and tensions in his record
When the Yale historian Beverly Gage brought up the presidents relationship with the FBI and the intelligence communitythe subject of her chapter in our bookhe eventually turned to the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021. According to his memory, the expert opinion was off. The real story, Trump argued, has yet to be written. When Congress met to certify the Electoral College results, Trump told us, there had been a peaceful rally, more than a million people who were full of tremendous love and believed the election was rigged and robbed and stolen. He made a very modest and very peaceful speech, a presidential speech. The throng at the Capitol was a massive and tremendous group of people. The day was marred by a small group of left-wing antifa and Black Lives Matter activists who infiltrated them and who were not stopped, because of poor decisions by the U.S. Capitol Police when some bad things happened.
During our hour together, Trump didnt have many questions for us. Even in his attempt to correct the record, Trump mostly didnt acknowledge or engage with informed outside criticisms of his presidency. He did, however, admit to having sometimes retweeted people he shouldnt have, and at one point he said, when I didnt win the electionphrasing at odds with his false claim that the 2020 vote was stolen......
He seemed to want the approval of historians, without any understanding of how historians gather evidence or render judgments. Notwithstanding the C-SPAN polls, our goal is not to rank presidents but to analyze and interpret presidencies in longer time horizons. We want to understand the changes that take place to public policy, democratic institutions, norms of governing, and the relationship between White House officials and political movements. Though we are always eager to read oral histories by participantsand hear directly from a former presidentthese sorts of comments play only one small part in works that are checked and cross-examined with other contemporaneous sources. In practice, professional historians gather their evidence by reviewing essential written and oral documents stored in archiveswhich is why so many in my profession shuddered upon learning that boxes of material were initially carted off to the former presidents home at Mar-a-Lago rather than given directly to experts at the National Archives.
This article is really amusing. TFG is too stupid to make a good argument that would be accepted by an intelligent person and the historians who TFG tried to persuade were also amused.
Claustrum
(4,846 posts)Do you really expect him to form intelligent arguments like any real adults?
LetMyPeopleVote
(145,667 posts)I enjoyed the attempt TFG made to try to convince historians to change his ranking as POTUS. TFG does not deal well with educated people and this attempt amused me
UTUSN
(70,762 posts)LetMyPeopleVote
(145,667 posts)BlackSkimmer
(51,308 posts)What? What have I missed?
gulliver
(13,197 posts)Trump's way, way too good at this game.
One thing I wish a journalist would ask him, "President Trump, would you have done what you did even if you knew you lost?"
mzmolly
(51,010 posts)and he's a compulsive liar as well. A journalist asking that question would merit more lies.
gulliver
(13,197 posts)Did he know? Didn't he? Asking either question is itself part of his trap. The true answer is that there's no question. There's only an answer. He can't be allowed to do what he does, regardless of what he thinks.
mzmolly
(51,010 posts)It's a moot point.