#In the presidential debate of October 16, 2020, President Trump: 1.) gave qualified support to QAnon, saying that they were at least "strongly against pedophilia." When pressed by moderator Savannah Guthrie, Trump said: "I know nothing about QAnon. I know very little. You told me, but what you tell me doesn't necessarily make it a fact." Later, he said: "I just don't know about QAnon. Guthrie: "You do know!" Trump: "I don't know."
2.) He claimed that 85 percent of people who wear masks end up getting Covid-19. He also contended he was "good with masks."
3.) He professed not to know if he tested on the day of the first presidential debate.
4.) He said his lungs had been "perhaps infected." When asked how, Trump said "I don't know."
5.) He claimed that the raid that killed al Queda founder, Osama bin Laden was some kind of hoax.
6.) He argued with the New York Times contention that he was $400 + billion in debt.
7.) In the dueling townhalls with Joe Biden, Trump lied that his decision to close the border "saved thousands and thousands of lives." He also told a big lie when he said of wearing masks: "I was OK with it... I say 'wear the mask.' I have no problems with it."
8.) Throughout his presidency, Trump has wavered between supporting a path toward citizenship for Dreamers and opposing it. At the townhall debate, Trump said: "We are going to take care of Dreamers. It's working right now. We are working very hard on the DACA program."
#President Trump claims he knows "very little" or "nothing" about QAnon, which the FBI labels a domestic terror threat, but he does know "they are strongly against pedophilia, and I agree with that." He had previously praised QAnon as "people that love our country, "and they like me very much." He added that "it is gaining in popularity." He habitually retweeted QAnon followers and their conspiracy theories.
In 2016, CNN's Jake Tapper got Trump to say that he doesn't know anything about David Duke, and "I know nothing about white supremacists."
#David Remick, "Trump Agnostics, The New Yorker, October 12, 2020.
"The contrast between Trump's airy dismissals of the pandemic's severity and the profound pain and anxiety endured by so many Americans has helped define the era in which we live. But, as a President and as a candidate for reelection, Trump should not count on the silencing of American citizens -- or a deference that he has never shown to the people whom he has sworn to protect and has not. Because of his ineptitude and his deceit, because he has encouraged a culture of heedlessness about the wearing of masks and a lethal disrespect for scientific fact, he bears a grave responsibility for what has happened in this country."
"The Center for Disease Control and other public-health institutions have long said that wearing masks is essential to minimizing the spread of the coronavirus. Trump has been of another opinion, a delusional one." "The President is obsessed with menaces -- posed by the shadowy members of a 'deep state,' by the 'radical left,' by foreigners of all sorts. But the gravest menace to public health and public order has come from within the White House. So long as Trump holds office, no manner of quarantine will suffice to contain it."
D.T Max, "The Shaming Pandemic," The New Yorker, October 12, 2020.
"Jennifer Jacquet, a professor at New York University, has argued that digital shaming can succeed when other forms of political action fail: a viral video of environmental destruction can become a worldwide scandal that forces a corporation to adopt greener policies." "Online shaming may not be as brutal as the Puritan stocks, but it can be devastating in its scale: a target of the ire which is trending on Twitter might receive hundreds of humiliating messages per second."
"Digital shaming seems to become particularly violent when there is no agreement on what constitutes correct behavior. Many COVID-19 statutes are vague; the epidemiology behind the disease is in flux."
#Sasha Abramsky, "Is Trump Planning a Coup D'etat," The Nation, September 21/28, 2020.
"Like earlier authoritarians, Charles Fried, Ronald Reagan's solicitor general, fears that Trump will utilize 'agents provocateurs, getting right-wing people to infiltrate left-oriented and by-and-large peaceful demonstrations to turn them violent to thereby justify interventions.' "
Stuart Gerson, acting attorney general under H.W. Bush, has concluded that Trump is only too willing to circumvent Supreme Court decisions, is perfectly capable of issuing illegal orders to the military to attack domestic opponents, and would likely show no compunction in ignoring an election result that doesn't go his way."
#Kali Holloway, "The White Back Lash Next Time," The Nation. September 21/28, 2020.
"An NPR/Ipsos, poll from late August found white people are the racial group least likely to report taking over even the most minor 'actions' to better understand racial issues in America since protests began sweeping the country. The white back lash is typified by what [Lawrence] Glickman, Cornell University historian, identifies as 'the smoldering resentment,' its belief that the movement [for Black rights] is proceeding 'too fast' in its demands for emotional and psychological sympathy."
"[President] Trump labeled the violence as a 'big back lash,' without realizing what he was admitting about the tradition of white American terrorism."
#Sasha Abramsky, "Ignoring Crises," The Nation, September 21/28, 2020.
"If you thought there were more important issues than attacking people for taking part in political protest, think again. Climate change be damned. Pandemics be damned. Massive unemployment and rampaging inequality be damned."
#Jennifer Horn,[a Never Trump Project founder] s said: "Look at the deficit since Trump took office --we're supposed to be the party of 'limited' spending. We're the party of a strong national defense -- we have a president who is colluding, basically, with foreign dictators."
#Rick Wilson, one of the Never Trump Project founders, says that "Policy can be debated after Trump is gone. Democrats need to present relentless evidence of the President's corruption, vulgarity, dishonesty, broken promises, and failed policies."
Since January, the Project has released will over a hundred ads, which on YouTube alone have attracted some hundred and forty million views. Economic inequality, climate change, and universal health care were not overtly addressed. The typical themes of attack were COVID-19, the shattered economy, Trump's weakness on national security, and as [Steven] Schmidt puts it, the President's 'total disgracefulness.'
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