I was just thinking this last night about trump. My parents assume all his accusers are liars but he is honest. If questioned on it, they will always use a whataboutism to say every politician is like that.
Gotta love the logic there.
“Trump is honest.”
“Here is a 1km-long scroll containg an abridged list of his more egregious lies.”
“All politicians are like that.”
“But you just said he’s honest. Are you arguing that he tells the truth, except when he frequently doesn’t, that this behavior still somehow qualifies as honest, but if not, is still okay because every other politician, most of whom you can’t name, much less quote, is an as equally prolific liar as the person you claim is honest? That would be as vague as it is self-contradictory.”
[Angry rationalization noises]
As you can tell, my community, too, has its share of personality cultists.
Yeah you pretty much got what they’d do. Except the emergency escape hatch to avoid justifying anything is just “let’s not talk about politics”. So they get to avoid questioning any belief they have. Because they don’t want to ever consider that they’re wrong. Funny, coming from parents who tell me I’m smart. I’m smart, just wrong about everything they’ve ever formed an opinion on.
Only antidote I can think of to this, assuming you aren’t reliant on your parents for survival needs at this stage of the game/would prefer they just shut up rather than continuing to poke at them, is the Toddler’s Gambit.
Just keep asking ‘why’ until the gears start turning or they have a meltdown.
(I have no idea if anyone else calls this the Toddler’s Gambit)
Ugh. I hate the “Let’s not talk.” I’d be on board with it if it were equitable. I tried it to avoid these kinds of conversations, but they keep talking. Then I start pulling at the logic. Then they say, “Let’s not talk.” Frustrating.
‘Lets not’ means ‘lets you not’ more often than not.
Yeah. Well my parents learned long ago that they have no argument so they pretty much never want to talk about it anymore. My mom slips up and mentions how Obamacare has ruined her life (with no precise explanation) occasionally, but otherwise “politics” are completely off limits
I don’t know that it’s fair to focus on the opinions about a person by only one particular demographic of their relationships, even if that demographic makes up about half the population. I feel like a more just assessment of a person’s character would include a broader scope of their personal social interactions so we don’t arbitrarily focus on the person’s flaws by invoking our own confirmation bias. I believe this is especially important for evaluating public figures for whom we tend to have many strong preconceptions. It’s tempting to dwell on the testimony of fraternal, romantic, and sexual relations, but those aren’t necessarily the primary means of socialization for a person.
As a businessman, Donald Trump’s network of relationships is a very different from the average person’s. He spends a lot of time with investors and their representatives, most of whom have called him a liar, and presented an overwhelming amount of compelling evidence, but it’s not just about them either. He also works closely with lenders to help fund his projects, most of whom have called him a liar and given sufficient evidence. Vendors relationshipsare important, too. They provide goods and services to his organization and so, spend time dealing with him personally. They’ve also, by and large, submitted a plethora of evidence in declaring him a liar. Employees are another important group of stakeholders in the business world. Most have said he’s a liar and given proof. Still, it wouldn’t be fair, to let those people determine Donald Trump’s character for his clients who depend on the services his businesses provide, who also with much evidence accuse him by majority of being a liar.
Donald Trump isn’t just a businessman, though. As president, he spends most of his time interacting with political and legal relations. Just because the majority of stakeholders in his businesses have called him a liar and supported that claim with a nearly insurmountable Everest of evidence, it doesn’t mean we can discount the testaments of his political and legal associates. There’s his party members, most of whom have called him a liar. His cabinet, most of whom called him a liar until they joined. Then there’s his foreign peers, the leaders of other countries. They also say he’s a liar. There’s probably no greater scrutiny than a court of law overseen by a judge and decided by a jury. One of those called him a liar, proved it, and gave him 34 felony counts for it.
In conclusion, it’s important to see Donald Trump from many different perspectives. While those hundreds of women did call him a liar, those people don’t represent the majority of his interactions with people, because at this point, let’s be honest, he’s not spending most of his time alone with women, at least not smart ones with a sense of self preservation. We must also take into account, all of his other relations in the interest of fairness. They’ve also shown him to be a liar, because he’s an inveterate liar, a person who lies frequently over a long period of time. Should we believe all women? Well, actually yes. I think few people have have been proven so incontrovertibly correct in their accusations than those women who pointed their fingers at one of the best documented and most prolific liars in recorded history.
This is a similar to energy saying “all lives matter” when someone says “Black Lives Matter.”
Your argument falls apart when you remember that “women” aren’t some isolated, homogenous block. Women are investors, lenders, vendors, employees, political associates, foreign leaders, clients, etc. They exist in every single demographic you claim we should be paying more attention to. Erasing “women” from the conversation doesn’t make your assessment broader. It erases the reality that women are part of every single group you’re describing, and Trump has assaulted multiple members of those groups.
Also, if we did remove women from the equation entirely, Trump has still exploited people from every imaginable class, nationality, and background. The problem isn’t that he’s being judged “only” through the lens of women, it’s that you’re suggesting women’s perspectives are somehow less valid when they’re the ones disproportionately targeted and disbelieved.
In fairness, I think this is a long-form joke. “You shouldn’t believe he’s a liar just because of these women’s claims. You should believe he’s a liar because pretty much everyone who has interacted with him in most contexts, including these women, call him a liar, most of whom have the receipts to back that up.”
Whether it’s in good taste given the specific claims on the table here, that’s a different question. I land on “chuckle-groan” myself.
Edit: Real talk, with a little editing I could imagine this getting read during a particularly ballsy episode of CBC’s The Debaters.
women are
No, sorry, a person can only be in one marked category.
^ AI slop
Why? Just why? You gave what appear to be real comments elsewhere.
On what grounds are you accusing them?
So, which man was this piece originally referring to? Because it describes way too many, unfortunately
But he lies about a ton of other shit, which can also be proven. So why would any particular set of lies be any different?
The thing is…. Like I’m pretty sure I know who you’re talking about, and im pretty sure the main post was too but not positive, but like…. Who? This could be for many different individuals….
I’m pretty sure the OP is referring to Trump’s sexual abuse of women that he lies about. My point is he lies about everything else, so this shouldn’t be surprising.
My point is this happens a lot, so when are we going to start believing women? we still arent about trump yes, almost everything that come out of his mouth is a lie, and we should hold him accountable to those he hurt
Uh, because its about women and how he treats them? What man woukd be disingenuous about that?
Well I’m convinced, pack it up girls
Shit fuck. This is it pack it in.
