Puffery: in law, puffery is a promotional statement or claim that expresses subjective rather than objective views, which no "reasonable person" would take literally; the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defines puffery as a "term frequently used to denote the exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a seller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precisely determined"
Puff piece: an idiom for a journalistic form of puffery: an article or story of exaggerating praise that often ignores, downplays or rejects opposing viewpoints or contrary evidence or logic
Bill Maher aired an interview with Ann Coulter, a well-known Fox News political entertainer. She is a staunch Trump supporter and was given by some or many people almost exclusive credit for flogging President Trump into shutting down the government to force the border wall to be built. In this 7-minute segment, she makes it crystal clear that building a border wall will be highly effective in stopping illegal immigration. She strongly rejects any assertion to the contrary on that point.
However, what she has to say about Trump's rhetoric and the truth is arguably just as or more important.
Context: In the months before and the months after the November 2016 elections, many Trump supporters nearly everywhere, including on this channel, vehemently denied that Trump lied even once during the election and in the months thereafter. No amount of citing contrary objective fact or obvious truth budged Trump's base on this point. Some supporters were more subtle about it and made the incoherent assertion that one needed to take Trump seriously, but not literally.
The complete irrelevance of Trump's lies to his supporters was utterly baffling in view of how plentiful and obvious the lies were and still are. The apparent complete obliviousness of Trump supporters to the torrent of obvious lies to this day remained utterly baffling to this observer. Baffling, until Coulter's explanation to Maher. Now it is understandable, but still incoherent.
In the interview, Coulter claims to speak for Trump's base and is adamant on that point. Given her popularity, one can assume that is mostly true. So, how does Coulter speak by proxy for Trump's base about his endless, obvious lies?
Simple. Coulter just dismisses Trump lies as mere puffery of little or no importance or relevance. The lies are just a rejection of a bipartisan political establishment that has misled and lied about immigration control. She asserts that the only thing that is relevant to the base is that Trump deliver border control, and a wall would be highly effective.
As is the case for journalistic puff pieces (an oxymoron, marketing is what puff pieces are, not journalism), Coulter completely rejects any of the contrary evidence that Maher offered as rebuttal to her assertions. In asserting the puffery defense for Trump's lies, consciously or not, Coulter seems to use a definition of puffery that excludes the possibility that any person who sees lies is not a reasonable person. Given the logical incoherence of Coulter's argument, it is doubtful she ever bothered to look at a definition or think about it.
Incoherence aside, if Coulter really does speak for the Trump base, the base has moved from a position of 'no lies' to 'just puffery and you are unreasonable if you do not see it our way'. This is the defense of the greatest presidential liar in US history.
Is that defense persuasive? Or, is Coulter herself honestly self-deluded, or just a bald faced liar? Or, is she right that Trump is not lying, but simply puffing on us and people are being unreasonable about this?
Coulter's arguments reveal another thing about the Trump base. They want border and immigration control for economic reasons, not social or demographic reasons. That is contrary to research that suggests that perceived threats from globalization and social or demographic change, not economic reasons (job loss), was the most important reason that people voted for Trump.
No doubt, Coulter would reject that data too because it contradicts her story.
B&B orig: 1/26/19
No comments:
Post a Comment