OPINION: Voters’ grand appetite for lies

As we stumble into the election of our nation’s 47th president, there is great danger that an ignorant electorate will put a convicted felon and sociopathic liar, former President Donald Trump, back in the White House.

Ignorant, not unintelligent. Just ill-informed, misinformed and uninformed. That includes many highly intelligent voters with degrees piled higher and deeper.

No insult intended nor implied. “Just the facts, just the facts” to quote detective Joe Friday in the television show "Dragnet," three quarters of a century ago.

Voters aren’t getting facts from Trump or most other Republican candidates and officials. Fiction, fallacy, fantasy, myth and bare-assed lies are substituting for something that actually exists.

Trump’s brilliance lies in his ability to identify and appeal to voters who fail to recognize the foundational principles of democracy, upon which the U.S. Constitution is built.

Few citizens have been exposed to a meaningful foundational education for voting — and many (most?) — want what they want and the Constitution be damned.

There’s an old saw: “How do you know when a lawyer is lying?”

“His lips are moving.”

The same can be said of politicians.

When it comes to politics and religion, emotion trumps facts. No pun intended. And that’s the fundamental explanation of why voters have such appetites for Trump’s malicious lies.

• Biden “stole” the 2020 election. Fact: Two major Republican investigations found no supporting evidence.
• Trump inherited a disastrous economy from President Barack Obama and that he (Trump) accomplished an historic turnaround. Fact: Trump inherited a strong economy which was near full strength.
• Trump claimed that Kamala Harris spent all of FEMA’s billions of dollars housing illegal migrants. Fact: Trump continues to repeat this lie even after it has been proven false.
• Trump repeatedly claims illegal Haitian immigrants are eating Springfield, Ohio, pets and stealing jobs from local citizens. Fact: Springfield’s mayor, the president of the Clark County Commission and Ohio’s governor, all Republicans, say Trump’s claims are misinformation (lies).
• Trump claims only he can save our economy. Fact: Our economy already is the world’s strongest.
• Trump has repeatedly said that foreign countries pay tariff taxes. Fact: Most tariffs are paid by the companies that import the tariffed goods, which pass the tax along to consumers. If the goods are imported to the U.S. by foreign companies, taxes are wrapped into the price we pay.

The list could go endlessly on, but I finish with tariffs because of the great danger they pose for economies. They threaten foreign relations and invite retaliation with serious economic impact.

The worldwide, severe Great Depression (1929-1939) was exacerbated by passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930. It was many times worse than the “little” 2008-2009 “Great Depression.”

The Smoot-Harley Tariff was passed to protect farmers from agricultural imports. Farmers were among the group that was the worst hurt.

The Trump threat is that current law allows presidents to impose tariffs for national security without Congressional approval. And the law gives presidents broad authority to declare a national security emergency.

Terence L. Day and wife, Ruth, have lived in Pullman since 1972. In 2004, he retired after 32 years as a science communicator on the Washington State University faculty. His interests and reading are catholic (small c) and peripatetic. He welcomes emails to terence@moscow.com. Give him a piece of your mind.