(03-06-2020, 06:46 PM)The Real Marty Wrote:

(03-06-2020, 06:15 PM)MalabarJag Wrote: I guess that sort of fits. It wouldn't stoke fear in me. Sensible people don't look to the President (any president) for weather reports. If it caused some people in Alabama to waste two minutes checking the National Hurricane Center website then that's no big deal, and an idiotic reason to vote for someone who's policies are destructive to our country. And Marty's implication was that Trump is riling up people in anger, not just sending mistaken advice about an emergency.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...ar/498116/

“Countless innocent American lives have been stolen because our politicians have failed in their duty to secure our borders,” he said. His acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention similarly made clear the extent to which his message revolves around fear. “The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life,” Trump thundered. “Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country. Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally; some have even been its victims.”

Throw in the protectionism, the wall at the Southern border, the restrictions on travel from Muslim countries, and you see what Trump is selling- fear.   He calls the media "the enemy of the people."  He says the Southern border is being overrun by rapists and murderers.  He talks about conspiracies.  

He claimed Obama was born in Kenya and that he had sent investigators to Hawaii and they had all sorts of incredible stuff and he was going to release it, which he never did.  The birther stuff is a blatant appeal to people's fears.   And it was a total con job!  Where is that evidence he claimed he had, anyway?  

He falsely claimed the murder rate was the highest it had been in 47 years.  

https://time.com/4665755/donald-trump-fear/

"Fear has been a fixture of Trump’s oratory since the start of his campaign, which began with an attack on Mexican immigrants. On the trail he sometimes called to the stage the bereaved parents of children who were killed by people in the U.S. illegally. His inaugural address was a dark rumination on “American carnage”: the factories “scattered like tombstones,” the “crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives.” In his speech at the Republican nomination convention, Trump described the U.S. in a “moment of crisis,” then he cast himself as its savior: “I alone can fix it.”