(03-20-2017 11:15 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Even Republicans have been calling on Trump to produce evidence or apologize for his accusations about Obama wiretapping him. Now Comey has also said there's no evidence.

At what point does honesty and integrity begin to matter for Trump supporters?

What I'm wondering about is why Comey says there's no substantive evidence for wiretapping (although that doesn't address the FISA court warrant...) but also says there's an investigation into possible links between the Russian government and the Trump presidential campaign, an event for which there is also no substantive evidence. I guess he's trying to play it like the investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mail server (although in that case there was substantive evidence that the use was occurring).

(03-20-2017 06:23 PM)erice Wrote:  Setting aside real policy differences, it seems to me that a lot of this can be summed up as follows:

Even us leftists can admit (with some admiration, in fact) that Obama could be a hell of a Spin artist when the need arose. He spoke the truth most of the time, and when the truth was inconvenient (e.g. You get to keep your doctor) he could bend it with acrobatic spin.

So let's say Obama was X% truth and (100-X)% eloquent spin.

When the truth is inconvenient for Trump it seems like even many of those who support him would agree he doesn't bother with spin, he just goes straight to bats*** crazy.

So Trump is Y% truth and (100-Y)% bats*** crazy.

And maybe we can't agree on the comparative relationship between X and Y. (Hint: I think X >> Y but whatever).

For some on the right maybe the way they see it is that if it's not the truth it really doesn't matter whether it's spin or it's bats*** crazy.

And for those of us on the left Trump's crazy often demeans the office of the presidency and/or makes the world a nastier place -- e.g. Obama was sick, McCain wasn't a hero, let's ban Muslims, that gold star Mom is just standing quietly because of her culture that tells her to, and don't get me started on the thing about the reporter with the disability. So we get pretty bent out of shape about it.

But boiling the state of affairs down to this too-basic math helps me accept that supporters of both sides can be generally well-intentioned Americans no matter how bad the s***show gets.

Basically, you're stating that Obama's ahead on style points. The fact is that both Obama and Trump are egotists - the difference is that Obama tried to hide it while Trump doesn't (which also puts Obama higher on the sociopath scale than Trump). That's actually a big part of Trump's appeal - he may come across as full of bluster and maybe even a little crazy, but at least he comes by it honestly; you know he's not trying to hide it. By contrast, Obama would try to spin (or, more accurately, lie) about things; you got the impression he spent long hours trying to figure out how to fool people. It gives the superficial impression that he was statesman-like and hid the reality that he was an ideological con artist. Trump doesn't care what you think about him; he says what he thinks and lets the chips fall where they may.