Did Donald Trump have a extramarital affair with Vladimir Putin?
Think I’m wrong? Show me some evidence it never happened.
OK, I made that up. But that’s exactly the kind of “prove me wrong” atmosphere our new president-elect is going to promote in his tweet-loving style of communicating.
Here’s how it works: Skewer a person or an idea with wild statement while providing no evidence of its veracity. Then, when challenged for facts to back it up, put the burden on the challenger.
When Trump claimed millions of illegal votes had aided Hillary Clinton in gaining more popular votes than Trump, CNN Washington correspondent Jeff Zelany (and others) reported Trump had provided no evidence of his claims. Then Trump got busy retweeting statements full of this topsy-turvy logic, if one should call it that.
“[W]hat PROOF do u have DonaldTrump did not suffer from millions of FRAUD votes? Journalist? Do your job!” read a post Trump retweeted. “Just another generic CNN part time wannabe journalist!,” read the second.
But what if journalists did their jobs like Trump tweets? They’d just write a headline that said “Trump administration considers Selena Gomez as ‘tweet czar.’ Forget that the two haven’t met or that there’s no such thing (yet) as a “tweet czar.” Who is to say he’s not considering it? Prove it wrong.
Trump’s opponents are in overdrive, too, when it comes to criticizing the president-elect. They’re alleging Trump is a national security threat, a danger to democracy, that his heart is smaller than the cold, black heart of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas,
Unfortunately, I think, Donald Trump isn’t going to change his Howard Stern-like, shock jock ways. And it’s no accident. When there are serious matters for Americans to ponder and national journalists to look into, Trump will set us all scurrying into a tar pit of insignificance with a far-fetched tweet. It will be news simply because it’s the president saying such ludicrous statements.
Americans are going to have to adjust their filters to get through Trump’s hyperactive bloviating, because his administration is going to get busy changing government policies and programs. Those changes may be good or they may be disastrous, but the nation cannot afford to let them happen while we’re distracted by the latest social media diversion Trump is the master of creating.
If you listen to the language of political movers and shakers, they’re already making the ad justment as Trump moves from campaign to gov erning. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich asked about Trump’s pledge to build the wall between Mexico and the United States, offered this: “He’ll spend a lot of time controlling the border. He may not spend very much time try ing to get Mexico to pay for it. But it was a great campaign device.”
Campaign device? Is it now acceptable to say anything to get elected then dismiss it as a “cam paign device?”
Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake is a Republican who was a tough critic of Trump. He wrote in a vote for Evan McMullin rather than vote for Trump In an interview with National Public Radio last week, Flake dismissed concerns about the neg ative impacts of Trump’s campaign promises.
“There is a difference between governing and campaigning,” Flake said.
Well, there sure is, but voters can usually trust there’s a connection between the two.
Americans will need to respond to what Trump actually proposes. Perhaps more than with any other president, Americans will need to temper their reactions to what emerges from Trump’s mouth (or Twitter account) and con centrate on what’s actually being set in motion in terms of governmental changes.
While we’re all yanking our hair out over some rude comment by the president-elect, se rious people working for him will be going to work to promote policy changes. Getting familiar with those and responding to the facts will be far more crucial than leaping on a bandwagon of criticisms about the next stupid thing Trump says.
Am I saying he should get a pass? Not at all but Trump will be content to let everyone rail against an offensive tweet all day long if he’ making progress on policy changes nobody is paying any attention to.
In short, watch what he does far more than what he says.
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Greg Harton is editorial page editor for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Contact him by email at [email protected] or on Twit ter @NWAGreg.