A Response to a Pro-Trump Quoran

I was on Quora when I came across one of those typical political threads about Donald Trump. I posted the first part of this response there (regarding name calling...OP was upset that someone had called Donald Trump a clown in the reponse), but the last thing I wanted to do was muddy the clarity of that issue by addressing the other issues raised by OP in their response (lies told by people who aren't Trump, especially Schiff). So, here's my full post because I'd like to have it handy for reference if needed.

I’d just like to note that you say resorting to name calling is petty, disrespectful, and childish. I agree. It’s a tactic that Donald Trump used on the campaign trail and continues to use every day. Just reflect on it for a moment. One of Donald Trump’s primary political tactics is to apply some kind of disrespectful adjective to his opponents’ names and tweet it repeatedly and say it at rallies until it sticks. It’s an elementary school level tactic that has lowered the political discourse in this country significantly, and there was literally nobody in contemporary presidential American politics doing this before Trump began campaigning. Obama, W. Bush, Clinton, H.W. Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon…none of them or their opponents ever stooped to name calling. In terms of the words they themselves uttered in debates and interviews, they engaged their opponents with respect, decorum, and maturity.

Regarding the lies, there has never been anyone in politics who lies as frequently or for as little reason as Donald Trump does. Do a little research. Check out the Wikipedia page on it, or factcheck.org, or any of the other sources that have documented just how much he lies. It’s a real problem. It’s not just the fact that he tells lies, but that he often lies when there isn’t even a reason to do so, and refuses to acknowledge when he was wrong. Yes, most politicians lie, but nobody lies quite like Donald Trump.

Regarding Schiff, if you haven’t read the Mueller report, actually read it and not just listened to some talking points about it from your preferred media outlet, your statement that Schiff lied about this can’t be taken seriously. I’ve been reading it. Part 1 of the report outlines significant coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. There wasn’t enough evidence to prove conspiracy (the legal term of art that applies here), but there was obvious collusion, or coordination, or whatever you want to call it between the campaign and Russia. The report also clearly states that in pursuing this question, they’re fairly certain a lot of evidence was destroyed, and that some witnesses pled the fifth when it wasn’t actually appropriate to do so (i.e. when it wasn’t about protecting themselves from self-incrimination but about protecting someone else).

The facts regarding coordination between the campaign and Russia were further verified during the Roger Stone case. If you believe that the report is a fabrication, then Schiff (and the rest of us) certainly have evidence that the Trump campaign worked directly with Russia, and that Donald Trump knew about it. With the available evidence it doesn’t pass the legal bar for conspiracy, but that doesn’t mean that it was okay or in the best interest of the American people, and given what the report does contain, it definitely doesn’t make Schiff’s statements lies.