Trumpisms

We've long since identified such obvious Trumpisms as "believe me" and "people are saying", but what about some of the lesser known idiocisms?

"If (or when) you look at (or into) [...]"
This is usually in regard to something that most people aren't questioning, but Trump wants to cause you to question. An example might be:
"Oh well, if you look at the statistics, of people coming - I didn't say about Mexic...I say illegal immigrants - if you look at the statistics on rape, crime, on everything, coming in illegally into this country, they're mind boggling"

Basically, he knows that few of his supporters will "look at it", they just believe what he says, and usually, when you do look at it, it's the opposite of what he's saying.

"We're looking at (or studying) that"
Not the same as "When you look at" - although both use the word "look".

"We're going to throw out a policy that appeals to my racist base, but that otherwise makes no sense"

Use of the modifier "wonderful"

1. Paul Manafort's wife
2. Meeting with shooting victims
3. Rex Tillerson
4. Ivanka
5. Donald Junior
6. Eric
7. Friendship with Macron
8. DREAMers
9. Eminent domain
10. Hurricane Harvey response
11. Michael Flynn
12. EU
13. Queen Elizabeth
14. Nancy pelosi (sarcastically)
15. Brexit
16. Relationship with Haitians
17. Brett Kavanaugh

Reminds me of VPW & LCM (if you know who they are) when he uses this word

Starting a tweet with "remember"
He usually follows "remember" with some half-baked, unsubstantiated opinion, such as "Remember, NAFTA is the worst trade deal in history", or "Remember, Mueller is leading a witch hunt"

The "Sir Alert
When Trump tells you that someone approached him and he starts the quote of what they said with "Sir..." you can bet that it's bullshit for example:

"So they said, 'Sir, do you mind cancelling Kansas tonight?' I said 'No way I'm cancelling Kansas, no way, no way'"

"Sir" is usually followed by some ridiculous story about someone approaching him to tell him how great he is or how wonderful is latest "policy" is

The Economic Idiot

It has become almost impossible to keep up with how off the rails our government, led by President Trump and the Republicans is. I have also surrendered myself to reality that most Trump supporters would continue to support him if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. Every day brings a new outrage, a new lie, a new scheme for lining Trump's pockets and the pockets of his friends. And it's not as if he actually accomplishing anything. There's only been one significant piece of legislation that he has managed to get through Congress, the corporate tax giveaway of 2017 - and that's with a compliant and complicit Republican Congress. He hasn't built his Wall or put a stop to Muslim immigration, two things his racist base loved him for. Our military is still in Afghanistan.

One thing that is doing well, is the economy. "Doing well" that is, for a certain value of "doing well". It is undeniable that unemployment continues to go down. Usually low unemployment goes hand-in-hand with rising real wages. Employers, competing for a smaller pool of qualified workers, compete with other employers by raising pay rates. But this hasn't happened. Average hourly  pay has gone up a paltry 2.7% while cost of living has risen by 2.9% - a net loss in purchasing power. Trump highlights the unemployment numbers (which he described as fake when he was a candidate, insisting the "real" percentage was closer to 40 than the actual number) and the "stock market". (see this blog post about the stock market:
https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/01/trump-and-stock-market.html )
So, while the owners of many stocks, on paper, have increased their wealth, it's not at all evident that this wealth has translated into better conditions for most Americans.

And it's not at all evident that the good things can even be attributed to Trump. Granted, nothing that he has done so far has caused the economy, as a whole, to tank. But for the most part gains in employment, investment, increased stock value etc, are merely a continuation of the trend that began early in Obama's first term. Whether or not you agree with Obama's policies, or attribute the growth to anything that he did, it's undeniable that all the positive trend that Trump cites are continuations of what had been happening for six - seven years before he was elected.

Since we're talking about the economy, Trump talks a lot about fairness in international trade and imposes tariffs and tears up trade agreements without any clear idea about what trade actually is. Trade is not a zero-sum game where if I win you lose. It's complex and there can be many winners. He seems to think that a trade deficit means that we are literally losing money or that reducing a trade deficit results in a smaller budget deficit, paying down the national debt. His ignorance was on display in his recent imposition of tariffs that had the result of closing overseas markets to American farmers, causing them economic hardship. He suggested that American farmers were patriotic and wouldn't mind taking the hit for the good of the country before approving a $12 billion bailout.

Getting back to corporate tax bailout, it was initially suggested that ordinary Americans would see "raises" in the thousands of dollars, and there was a flood of people talking about their bigger paychecks. More often than not, the math did not add up. Then the story became that the lower corporate taxes would trickle down to the workers as companies used their windfall to give their people raises. A small number of companies appeared to do that, although it was usually one-time bonuses, not raises, while even more companies used the lower tax bill to buy back stock, increasing the value per share and giving top corporate people bigger bonuses.

And finally, the hallmark of Donald Trump, not only as president, but for his entire life: lying. A large number of Trump's economic claims, when checked independently, turn out to outright lies, or at the very least, exaggerations.

Trump claims to have jump started the economy and made life better for all, but at best he has simply avoided bringing the whole thing crashing down.