(02-16-2017 07:08 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(02-16-2017 06:28 PM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  

(02-16-2017 04:07 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(02-16-2017 03:41 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Not the most important thing, but why does Trump keep saying (at least two times today) that he had one of the biggest electoral wins in history? I mean it's patently false. And it doesn't really matter other than that he keeps lying about it. He's weirdly obsessed with this particular "alternative fact". Makes me wonder about his overall mental state.

I've said this a number of times. My best guess is that Trump is an ESFJ on a Myers Briggs personality type indicator.

F ('feeler') vs. T ('thinker' or 'truth-based' on decisions, if that makes more sense)

He may be extreme in some of these preferences.

At any rate. Feelers react to their emotions and how they feel. At some point they have faith in what they believe to be true. While it may or may not be fact based, any reasonable (or unreasonable) rationalization that supports their belief is adequate. If I'm accurate in this assessment, he is not alone in this preference, although he may be one of the most extreme cases out there.

Continuing to fixate on what is, in this case, an inconsequential statement/belief, distracts from more serious issues.

At this point, people bring this particular issue up if they particularly want to irritate him, and to keep the non-relevant issue active.

Pick your battles. His personality may annoy you, but his actions, good/bad, right/wrong, are much more important.

Someone may firmly believe the moon landings were 'staged'. If they are donating $2,000,000 to your favorite charity, who cares? By the same token, if they are a serial killer, also, who cares?

This analogy is far too narrow. The reason it's important when Trump lies out of his you know what is that a not-insignificant portion of the electorate actually believes him. That, in turn, has real consequences. When he tweets blatant lies like "any negative polls are fake news," or that millions of illegal immigrants voted in Hillary's favor, etc., it affects public sentiment and, at least in his mind, gives him carte blanche to pursue the "real" issues people care about. Contrary to your moon-landing skeptic, Trump has real power and can take actions that affect millions of people.

I have no idea of what percentage of the electorate believe him when he makes erroneous statements.

I suspect it's smaller than you fear.

I suspect that a lot of Trump's supporters understand when he is speaking off the cuff and based on what he believes, as opposed to facts (in some cases minor, often major) and frankly they don't care.

In either case, arguing to the ground stuff like this won't change either group's support for Trump.

One knows he 'exaggerates' and doesn't care.

The other group believes him and explicitly won't believe those who oppose him no matter how often CNN or ABC or anyone else verbally calls him on his gross inaccuracies, since they also believe the press is out to get him (and, let's face it, . . . . . . ).

Focusing on the popular vote versus electoral vote issue (or the 'how much he won California by' issue) will never change anything.

At some point, the press is only fighting to try and force a backtracking that will never happen, or more likely, just to continue to antagonize him, because they know it bothers him.

Since it won't change anything, it becomes like poking a bear with a stick to see how much you can antagonize him, and make him behave foolishly. While that may be satisfying because he clearly was unqualified to hold this position . . . . . it is not in the best interests of the country. At some point it becomes childish.

That's not to say that there aren't real issues that need to be bird-dogged and that close scrutiny applied. But could we be smarter about it?

I'm sick of the soap opera quality of everything coming out of Washington. It would be difficult to deal with at times anyway, but it would be easier if it didn't feel like EVERYTHING the Administration does is going to be criticized roundly.

Read someone yesterday that said 1/3 will always dismiss his claims, and 1/3 will accept them. The remaining 1/3 will split the difference. "He says there were 3 million fraudulent votes cast. The other side says there were none. Maybe it was a 1.5 million."