Why Trump Can Lie and No One Seems to Care

[Triana]

Donald Trump is a serial liar. Okay, to be a bit less Trumpian about it, he has trouble with the truth. If you look at Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning site that examines candidates' pronouncements for accuracy, 76 percent of Trump's statements are rated either "mostly false," "false," or "pants on fire," which is to say off-the-charts false. By comparison, Hillary Clinton's total is 29 percent.

. . .

The Winchell Effect is alive and well in today's politics in two respects. First, candidates can get away with saying pretty much anything they want without being held accountable so long as what they say is entertaining and so long as they keep the comments coming. Trump has been the major beneficiary of this disinclination by the MSM to examine statements. The blast of his utterances always supersedes their substance. And the MSM plays along.

To wit: Trump announced his tax plan way back in September 2015. With kudos to the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, which did look at his plan, it is just this week that most of the MSM are getting around to examining it -- even as he changes it. (I may have missed it, but I still have yet to see a single story delving into Trump's tax policies on the network news.)

Perhaps better late than never, but the fact that he could throw out wild schemes involving trillions of dollars without the media feeling the need to vet them means that primary voters had no way to understand his tax plan and see its flaws. Of course, from the MSM's perspective, analyzing a plan would be tackling policy, not providing entertainment. And make no mistake, the candidate and the mainstream media are in the entertainment business.

THE REST: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/36045-why-trump-can-lie-and-no-one-seems-to-care

[Skittles]

1. this article is good too

"This part of America isn’t being artfully deceived, it is being willfully blind."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/opinion/trumps-asymmetric-warfare.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

[Triana]

2. Charles Blow is most always great. THIS...

....

There is no way to shame a man who lacks conscience or to embarrass an embarrassment. Trump is smart enough to know what he lacks — substance — and to know what he possesses in abundance — insolence.

So long as he steers clear of his own weakness and draws others in to the brier patch that is his comfort, he wins.

As MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said in December, this is asymmetric warfare. Conventional forms of political fighting won’t work on this man. Truth holds little power, and the media is still enthralled by the monster it made.

He is hollow, inconsistent, dishonest and shifty… and those who support him either love him in spite of it, or even more disturbingly, because of it.

...

[Fresh_Start]

3. I think that the supporters just want to communicate

a big old FU to their party.

And Trump is a tool to do that.
They know he's not going to do his most outlandish promises...and they don't care.
They like the fear they are inciting in the process

[Skittles]

4. it's cool to be angry, and excellent to fight back

the part where they veer off the logical path is thinking that DONALD F***ING TRUMP is in ANY way an answer