Do words matter?

[Dill]

(05-30-2017, 11:23 AM)Vlad Wrote: Jeez, another "we don't like Trump" safe space on a bengals board.

Since when did words matter, for any politician, any party...either on the campaign trail, or post election?
Well, since Nov. 8, 2016 I suppose.

For decades we've been whining about crooked, lying, dishonest, in it for themselves smooth talking career politicians.
Now for the first time in history a non politician is elected and you're still bitching.

Yes, Trump is highly inarticulate and sounds like a boob, but is that any worse than an articulate liar like Obama?

You may have forgotten when McCain refused to agree with a confused supporter who had heard Obama was an "Arab." He was not lying or in it for himself when he did that. What a contrast to the candidate known as the face of birtherism.

However, note that in Saudi Arabia words mattered even for Trump. He did not once mention the words "radical Islamic terrorism" he and his followers insisted HAD to be said if we were EVER going to with the war on terror.

Someone with integrity who knows a great deal about government and is a good person, as we had in Obama, is, yes much better than a lying inarticulate boob who knows nothing about government and is a bad person. I suspect part of what motivated Cage to start this thread was his surprise at how quickly people claiming to be all about truth and integrity were quick to throw all that out the window for Trump.

And ALL of us have not been whining about crooked lying and dishonest politicians. That is pretty much the Fox News approach to 8 years of Clinton and 8 years of Obama, undermining the credibility of the government and MSM. And that has been the primary support for all the false equivalences and oversimplifications and false rumors that put Trump in power.

So words matter in many ways. It is not just about whether a politician tells the truth and then contradicts himself. Propagandists know words matter, and choose them carefully, just as do politicians with integrity. Some voters really do demand integrity; some do not.

For Trump voters, integrity is about building a wall, banning Muslims, demeaning ethnic minorities, destroying ISIS bringing jobs back, getting out of foreign entanglements (welfare for foreign countries), draining the swamp and shocking liberals.  As long as Trump seems to be doing all that, it doesn't matter where Obama was born or if a Muslim ban complicates foreign policy or if Trump changes his mind about tax cuts for the rich or the minimum wage or women's equality or even about the Iran deal. I think these supporters do, to a degree, see what is in Trump's heart.