The lesser problem is that stats of ‘fact checkers’ aren’t any more neutral than anyone else*.
The bigger problem is that all inaccuracies in politician statements aren’t equal. Hillary Clinton does not have an aggressive and expansive style of speaking or debate to run off factual claims to support her arguments, especially not off the top of her head. She tends to speak in safe platitudes with less reliance on examples, she’s generally cautious, and to her credit she’s well informed. If anything she gets in more trouble telling the truth (eg. ‘I’m going to put lots of coal miners out of business’) in stump speaking or policy Q&A.
Her honesty problem is with fewer in number but in many people’s reasonable opinion more important false or half true statements about herself and her actions, as for example in the email case.
That’s not a relative comparison with Trump though. Trump’s problems are basically different and worse IMO, more potentially dangerous if he were President.
*as in ‘fact checks’ of the public that showed it was ‘wrong about the economy’ when some large % of people said ‘yes’ to ‘is the economy still in a recession?’ a few years ago. The National Association of Business Economists had declared the recession over…but the question wasn’t whether NABE had declared the recession over, to which the overwhelming answer would have been ‘WTF are they?’ It was is the economy in recession, which legitimately opens it to ‘feels like recession so yes’. AFAIK ‘fact check’ stats often have such issues, depends on how the fact checker interprets or frames the issue/question, w/ significant potential to turn differences in opinion into supposed errors in fact, and the checker’s own political assumptions factor in.
I’d also note that we hold politicians to a VERY low standard. The most “honest” ones still tend to have half of their checked statements be half true to not true at all. No professional politician would be taken seriously as an SDMB poster.
Because the citizenry in general is kneejerk and ill informed. The fact a good person wouldn’t get anywhere in politics is the fault of the public. In fact I think we hold politicians to a too high standard, at least is all the irrelevant matters that don’t affect policy. Our best leaders were never perfect men, our modern world doesn’t allow current presidents to avoid their imperfections.
I think both of these are true. I don’t see Trump getting down into the weeds of education policy and imagine he would let the Education Secretary run things (and then take credit himself). But even the “advise him” part is also true. The point is that it’s not that he would allow these experts to educate him - just to advise him, and these are very different.
Imagine that some big national security has to be made. Obama is president. Obama is a lot better informed and less of an idiot than Trump. But he is not a national security/foreign policy expert either. But he doesn’t make the decision himself, or in a vacuum.
He gets a lot of input from all interested players, e.g. the Secretary of State, the ambassadors to the relevant countries and the UN, the heads of various intelligence agencies, his Chief of Staff and other advisors, possibly the heads of relevant congressional committees, etc. etc. At some point, if necessary, they get together and brainstorm, but no decision is made without significant input from the relevant experts, and they narrow down considerably the range of options available, at the very least.
Now with Trump, the initial range of options is likely to be a lot broader than with someone like Obama, and might include things like “why don’t we just nuke them?”. But the point is he’s not there in a vacuum, and sanity will prevail.
Most of Trump’s troubles come from off-the-cuff nonsense. I imagine his spokespeople would be a lot busier explaining what he “really meant” than those of another president, but ultimately what emerges would not be all that much wackier than any other president.
Bottom line is that Trump himself is not likely to become educated about these areas, and may not truly understand why it is that we can’t just nuke them, for example. But I don’t think the actual policies and decisions that emerge from his administration would reflect his ignorance and incompetence.
It didn’t drop by much, if at all.
As long as Trump is just a candidate, then being on whatever panel of experts he puts together is going to be perceived as something of an endorsement of him and his policies. That’s where the stigma lies. If he gets elected, then accepting a position in actual government is not really different than accepting it from any other president. Bottom line is that someone needs to run the government.
And again, the reward for accepting a Trump position at this time, with his likelihood of success being pretty low, is also not comparable to accepting an actual position if he won.
That’s true. But there are quite a lot of “top people” around.
Again, I’m not saying that Trump is likely to be just as successful in running the government as a more conventional candidate. I’m just saying he won’t be the complete disaster that you might think he would be if you extrapolated from looking at him by himself. And that’s where you need to balance against other factors.
Given the way the primaries have progressed and the ongoing insistence that sooner or later the GOP voters would come to their senses and dump Trump, I’ve abandoned the assumption that “sanity will prevail” when it comes to the man.
Yes, he’s an uninformed buffoon - but he’s a buffoon who doesn’t listen to experts, who assumes he always knows best and who, when confronted with disagreement, always doubles down. And he’ll be the one in charge. If he digs his heels in and insists on a course of action he’ll take great personal pleasure in ordering the military (of whom he would be the Commander-in-Chief) and the Cabinet (who serve at his pleasure) to do what he wants or be fired.
That doesn’t mean he’ll be allowed to use nuclear weapons with impunity - even the most self-serving general may resist crossing that line without serious provocation. But what you end up with is a recipe for constant internal strife - with Congress, with the military, with civilians advisors - a ridiculously ineffective government, and the rapid deterioration of the country in both strength and stature.
The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men in history. *
Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, 1930.
Megalomaniac - check
Narcissist -check
Lunatic -check
Great man in history - check not found…searching…
I sincerely hope this isn’t prophetic.
ISTM from looking at the campaign that he tends to double down for a while and then back off.
And much of what gets him in trouble on the campaign trail - these stream-of-consciousness statements at campaigns, interviews, and tweets - will be severely limited as president. Presidents don’t do nearly as much of these as candidates do., and tend to be much more scripted.
50 Republican National Security Advisers disagree with you. Plus, Trump would almost certainly have plenty of press conferences and off the cuff meetings. A President saying something stupid in a press conference, or even at a photo op, can cause big problems.
Plus there is no evidence that he respects expertise. Look at his pitiful set of foreign policy advisers and economic advisers. Only one PhD in the latter, and he is a loony. A hedge fund manager is not going to be able to understand the implication of various policies versus someone who knows economics.
Not that Trump is likely to listen to anyone in his cabinet who disagrees with him. Not that Trump has shown any evidence of caring about policy.
The U.S. President has huge power even without a vote of Congress. Public announcements and private chats with other world leaders can have huge effects. A wide variety of executive orders are available. IIRC trade deals can be fine-tuned by the Pres without Congressional approval. Government bureaucrats at all levels can have large adverse effects if they choose loyalty to a deranged President. And POTUS has much discretion over the application of military force.
Of course some of the worst excesses could be thwarted if bureaucrats and generals are disobedient. (Do I recall correctly that generals were told to ignore Nixon’s worst orders, at least during his most disturbed periods?) But a paralyzed federal government is one that will blunder by default. And preventing a deranged President from telephoning foreign leaders or making public pronouncements might be difficult.
Trump wouldn’t rule completely unfiltered. Thank heavens for that — otherwise we could count on major trade wars, financial disasters, worldwide depression, mistaken wars and, perhaps, a misbegotten alliance between U.S. and Russia.
But even a well-filtered Trump would be extremely dangerous.
Obama had little foreign policy experience to start with but has followed a consistent set of principles now much admired by both the moderate left and the moderate right. Under Trump, the best we could hope for is that Trump would follow whichever expert he listened to last. Instead of addressing foreign problems, these experts would be playing games like “What did he mean by that?” or “You try playing the the bad cop this time, Wolfowitz. I’ll go to the Oval an hour later and play good cop.”
And with Trump eager to reward the stooges too partisan to denounce him, Cabinet officials and policy experts would be drawn from an inferior pool.
If Trump were extremely hands-off (or literally in a coma) for the 4 years, things might not get too bad, although the idea of a Mike Pence Presidency is horrid. But even small token involvement by Trump would be fraught with danger. Consider the Bush-Cheney Administration where Bush was aware of his own incompetence and let subordinates do most of the planning. Despite that GWB was a good-spirited man, his Administration made numerous serious mistakes. Imagine a similar situation but with the bad-spirited Trump in charge.
I think the dangers of a Trump Presidency are under-estimated, not over-estimated. This is especially true given the Putin connection.