Don't Become What You Are Fighting Against

There have been a lot of stories in the news recently questioning Donald Trump's credibility.  Time after time he says things that simply aren't true.  Does he know they aren't true and then just says them anyway?  Does he think he's telling the truth?  Or maybe he doesn't know the difference between a lie and the truth.  Maybe his mouth functions faster than his brain and this stuff just slips out before his brain can put the brakes on.  I just don't know what the problem is.

What's more troubling than our president's obvious lack of credibility is that, when questioned about it later, he either denies saying it or attempts to discredit the person challenging him.  Fake news.  Dishonest media.  Paid liberal protesters.  This is particularly troubling when we see video of him making some outrageous claim, yet the next day he  denies making it.  Figure that one out.

This post isn't about Donald Trump's credibility.  If it were, then it would be pretty short because there's not much question in anyone's mind that he lies and distorts facts on a regular basis.  This post is about his detractors who exaggerate his actions to make him look even worse than he already appears.  I want them to stop it.  Donald Trump loses a little credibility with the American public every time he opens his mouth.  Eventually he will be the cause of his own demise.

I'm talking about people and organizations who only tell part of the story in order to make his words and actions seem even more heinous.  I usually wouldn't do this, but I'm going to pick on one group -- Occupy Democrats.  I started following them on social media because I was excited about the whole Occupy thing a few years ago.  I thought Occupy Democrats was a grass roots organization formed to take our country back from the do-nothing congress and get things back on track.  It may have started out that way, but it isn't like that anymore.

For several years now I've been reading their posts with outrage.  Crazy stuff.  In fact, it got crazier and crazier over time.  At first I thought that they were really skilled at rooting out corruption and mismanagement in our government, but their posts became more and more outrageous over time.  I started to question the things they posted.

The real turning point was when I watched a Republican Senator on the evening news during a press conference.  I think it was Mitch McConnell, but I don't remember for sure.  I listened to what he was saying and, as usual, I disagreed with most of it.  Now I can't even remember what he was talking about.

The next morning I was perusing Facebook while I had my coffee and I noticed a post from Occupy Democrats that appeared to be about what I had seen on the evening news the night before.  As I read through it I realized that, although what they were saying was technically true, they were spinning the information to make you draw a completely different conclusion from the intent of his words.  Parts of his speech were omitted and the Occupy Democrats editors had mixed his remaining words with their own opinions to make it sound like it was something much worse than what I heard coming right out of his mouth the night before.  That was it.  The credibility of Occupy Democrats went right into the crapper for me at that moment.  I knew they were trying to manipulate my opinion in a way that I really didn't appreciate at all.  They were trying to play me like some kind of fool.

What I'm trying to get at here is that it does no good to point out things you disagree with if you don't do it truthfully.  If you're trying to make a point about someone else's credibility, then don't damage your own in the process.  Eventually no one will listen to you.  If you have an opinion about something and you want to tell others about it, just make sure you say that it's an opinion.  And tell the whole story.  Don't say that you're telling the whole story if you're really just telling the parts of it that support your opinion.

I think the Donald Trump credibility problem will eventually take care of itself.  He'll either do something illegal and get in trouble for it or we'll all just get tired of listening to him and ignore him.  We should be much more concerned right now about the things he's doing rather than the things he's saying.


Note to the reader:  This would be a good time for me to say that anything you read on my blog is my opinion and nothing more.  If you agree with me, well that's great, but it's also great if you don't.  It's a free country (at least for now).