False Conservative Talking Points

The GOP, the president and at least some of his supporters are making various false allegations in advance of the election. That is no surprise. It continues what has been going on at least since the 2016 election.

One false allegation is that democrats hate American because they are unwilling to compromise on a coronavirus relief bill. In fact, senate republicans are unwilling to compromise because they fear political blowback in the election. The New York Times writes:

“Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, privately told Republican senators on Tuesday that he had warned the White House not to strike a pre-election deal with Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a new round of stimulus, moving to head off an agreement that President Trump has demanded but most in his party oppose.

Mr. McConnell’s remarks, confirmed by four Republicans familiar with them, threw cold water on Mr. Trump’s increasingly urgent push to enact a new round of pandemic aid before Election Day. They came just as Ms. Pelosi offered an upbeat assessment of her negotiations with Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, telling Democrats that their latest conversation had yielded “common ground as we move closer to an agreement.”

The cost of their emerging compromise on a new round of aid to hard-pressed Americans and businesses has steadily climbed toward $2 trillion, inching closer to Ms. Pelosi’s demands even as it far exceeds what most Senate Republicans have said they can accept.”

Other republican lies include the false allegation that Joe Biden is a criminal and that Biden has, as one crackpot put it, taken a $1 billion dollar bribe from China. No source for the billion dollar bribe was given, but the president is now hinting at some evil afoot between Biden and China. As we now know, he source for the Biden is a crook, LOCK HIM UP!, allegation is the treasonous crackpot liar Rudy Giuliani, the always liar Russians and the radicals at the lies and propaganda New York Post. 

On the other hand, people are now starting to question the president's previously hidden financial ties with China. The New York Times writes:

“As he raises questions about his opponent’s standing with China, President Trump’s taxes reveal details about his own activities there, including a previously unknown bank account.

President Trump and his allies have tried to paint the Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as soft on China, in part by pointing to his son’s business dealings there.

Senate Republicans produced a report asserting, among other things, that Mr. Biden’s son Hunter “opened a bank account” with a Chinese businessman, part of what it said were his numerous connections to “foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe.”

But Mr. Trump’s own business history is filled with overseas financial deals, and some have involved the Chinese state. He spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company.

And it turns out that China is one of only three foreign nations — the others are Britain and Ireland — where Mr. Trump maintains a bank account, according to an analysis of the president’s tax records, which were obtained by The New York Times. The foreign accounts do not show up on Mr. Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he must list personal assets, because they are held under corporate names. The identities of the financial institutions are not clear.  

Mr. Garten would not identify the bank in China where the account is held. Until last year, China’s biggest state-controlled bank rented three floors in Trump Tower, a lucrative lease that drew accusations of a conflict of interest for the president.”

Once again, the president (i) at least has possible conflicts of interest that he hid behind his tax returns until they were leaked to the NYT, and (ii) tries to smear Joe Biden as a crook by pointing to Hunter Biden’s past business dealings. So far, the allegations against Biden have no authentic evidence to support them. One can conclude it is all lies, something that Trump and the GOP is very comfortable with using against political opposition. No moral qualms there.

What is amazing about this is the fact that the president himself, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump all have ongoing for-profit business dealings and conflicts of interest in the US and some other countries. No republican in office or any Trump supporter I am aware of complains vigorously about any that. They all just complain about how awful Biden is. GOP and Trump supporter hypocrisy on this point is just way off scale, off the hook and off the charts.

Other GOP crackpottery includes bogus reasoning based on red herring logic flaws, some of which are themselves lies. For example, one enraptured Evangelical claimed online that because the president tries to fulfill his campaign promises, he cannot be a liar about anything. That poor enraptured soul apparently did not realize that a person can fulfill promises and still be a liar about everything else.

Use by conservatives of the Motte and Bailey logic fallacy to deny climate science has been discussed here before. That false talking point is still going strong among the CCC (conservative crackpot cognoscenti). The lie that we do not know what is causing climate change is a real hit with conservative talking heads and cranks.

And, despite the false GOP claim that we are turning the corner on the pandemic and things are getting better, things are getting worse. Maybe we turned a different corner than the one that the president and his lying enablers had in mind.