Kobach witness can’t support claim that illegal votes helped Hillary Clinton

[Dill]

(03-20-2018, 01:53 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Pettiness is not dependent on the veracity of a topic. Pettiness is dependent on the seriousness and/or importance of a topic.
Trump lying about the popular vote is a petty subject because it does not matter. There are far more serious topics and many more egregious things Trump has done that warrant discussion that render a topic such as this petty.

I agree with you on the substance of your post, Philhos. Trump has done more egregious things.  But we are complaining about those too. They are connected to "the petty" more so in him than any other president.

So we differ on what is petty and the importance petty in this case. 

I take the lying seriously because it is quite possible that Trump believes there are millions of unregistered voters tipping the scales towards Democrats. If that is true, then his ability to judge social reality and assess policy is very limited. And he is the Commander in chief of the Armed Forces and the nations Chief Diplomat. How can he possibly asses intel accurately from places like Palestine or North Africa?

Even if he knows he is lying, lying tweets from him have the authority of the office for many. They support conspiracies which have real world consequences in terms of the policies and people millions of people vote for. If Vlad or Djam throws up post claiming 3-5 million illegals voted, that has no effect. It would indeed be a waste of time to write newspaper articles about that. But when the president says such things, with his tremendous power to shape policy and shift federal monies about, then it is a very serious issue.  Masses of people are moved to "prevent illegals" from voting.

Another way to put this. These kinds of views were once fringe and could be ignored. No one in the leadership of either party or in important government offices with great responsibility would make such outrageous claims.  The import of the Trump presidency is that the fringe has come to the center of power, where it can really do damage. The tweets are part of that damage. They shore up "the petty" as policy.