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Apr
2020
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Donald Trump Destroys Cliche of the Used Car Salesman

Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Glendale, California

Donald Trump Destroys Cliche of the Used Car Salesman

What sadness one feels at Donald Trump’s ending the halcyon days of comparing every falsifier, manipulator, liar, con-man, perjurer, or fabricator to:

A used-car salesman. 

This post has a remarkably simple, laser-like focus: 

Donald Trump’s lies.

According to the Washington Post, Trump told 16,241 lies in his first three years in office. Pronouncing falsehoods has been a distinctive part of his business and political identity. Myriad political commentators call this “unprecedented.” It took months for major media outlets to even call these mis-truths lies because of the weighty symbolism of the office. Only in June 2019 did the media began regularly referring to him as:

A liar.

Why the hesitation? 

Simple.   

No sensible person wants to call the American president a liar. 

It defames the office.

For the sake of brevity, I focus this post still  further—solely on the lies Trump has told regarding only the availability of Covid-19 testing in the US.

This requires unimaginable self-control.

Why?

Because Trump’s announcement last Friday that ingesting Lysol, bleach, or “inserting a light inside the body” could kill the virus almost literally begs for a years’ worth of discussion—maybe ten years’ worth.

But, back to the point. 

Here’s an analysis of the lies about testing based on multiple sources:

  1. On Wednesday, March 4th, Trump rolled back Food and Drug Administration regulations that limited laboratory tests that states could run. Displaying his propensity to externalize blame, he said: The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing. THIS IS FACTUALLY INCORRECT.
  2. On Friday, March 6th, Trump said:  Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. We—they’re there. They have the tests. And, the tests are beautiful. THIS IS FACTUALLY INCORRECT. America’s testing capabilities remain severely limited.
  3. On Friday, March 13th, Trump declared the regular flu a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now.” THIS IS FACTUALLY INCORRECT. In truth, Barack Obama declared a public-health emergency two weeks after the first U.S. cases of H1N1 were reported. Trump, in contrast, declared a national emergency some seven weeks after the first domestic COVID-19 case was reported—in Washington State.
  4. On March 24th and 25th, Trump announced the United States had outpaced South Korea’s COVID-19 testing, saying, We’re going up proportionally very rapidly. THIS IS FACTUALLY INCORRECT. In truth, when he made the claim, rates of testing in the U.S. were lagging well behind South Korea and many other countries. At that point, South Korea had conducted five times as many tests as a proportion of its population relative to the United States
  5. On multiple Dates in March 2020: Trump complained his administration had inherited a broken, bad, and obsolete test for the coronavirus. THIS IS FACTUALLY INCORRECT. Actually, the novel coronavirus did not exist during the Obama administration. Therefore, neither the CDC nor any private laboratory company could have produced a test prior to 2020.
  6. As of yesterday, Estonia, Italy, and the United Kingdom were testing more people per day than was occurring in the United States.

No offense, but ESTONIA?

Turning to the cliche about used car salesman, please note that, unless they are literally psychotic—out of touch with reality, hallucinating, and delusional—used car sales people would not lie about any obvious untruths. For example, if you were buying a car without an engine—intending to install one yourself—even the sleaziest, most psychopathic used car salesman would NOT tell you it has an engine.

Or, if your best friend owns a body shop and so you’re happy to get a great deal on a car with a bashed-in front end, no used car salesman would look you in the face and say,

Wow, look at that, the body’s in pristine shape!

Anyone who has matured past age FIVE knows Trump is lying.

So, finally, for those of you still supporting Trump, please ask yourself:

How can we have a leader who tells bold-faced lies daily, which the media confirms are untruths, resulting in a president who neither allies nor enemies can trust?

This must end.

Meanwhile, and a true boon to the reputations of used car salespeople around the globe, your negative cliche has been replaced.

Congratulations!

Instead of hearing phrases like, that businessperson is about as honest as a used-car salesman, people will now say, and ready yourself for the horror, that person is about as honest as the president of the United States.

Evan Vucci/AP Photo

And here is today’s confirmation.

The shame approaches the overwhelming.




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