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Notes -
Abortion is in my mind due to the debate last night which has led me to this article:
https://thedispatch.com/article/claims-about-children-born-alive-after-abortion-attempts-in-minnesota-are-true/
The gist is: in Minnesota, if a baby was born you were required to care for it to keep it alive. Sometimes an abortion would result in a living baby being born, and doctors were required to give that baby supportive care (they were likely premature, so wouldn’t necessarily survive, although premature babies born wrong 23 weeks survive frequently, that said none of the cited instances of this led to a baby surviving).
In 2019 this was changed to allow doctors to let a baby sit there until it just dies on its own.
Here’s some thoughts about this:
At the point where this is even a question, you’re clearly talking about a living human being.
Simply ignoring a baby until they die is the way that infanticide (usually killing baby girls) is done all over the world
This is another instance of “conservative politician says something that gets immediately ‘fact checked’, but it turns out is at least directionally and likely just literally true.
We should be caring for living human babies whether the mother wants to kill them or not. “Oops I meant to kill it before I could see it out here in the world” is not a valid excuse.
If anything the fact that there were so many cases of this in a single state in such a small period of time moves my needle even further towards being aggressively anti abortion, up to jailing the doctors doing this and charging them with murder.
Ironically, I think Trump uses this (maybe unintentionally?) to his advantage. He can say something that sounds outrageous, and is indeed only half-true. But the second somebody goes to do any research to confirm or debunk it, they discover that the actual truth is less bad but... still pretty fucking bad. And now they have that information in their head, and it makes them marginally more likely to vote Trump.
By making his puffed up lies that have a core of truth so ridiculous-sounding, it basically invites someone to be like "NO WAY that is true" and actually look up information.
People here have talked about how Trump lies like a used car salesman whereas most politicians lie like lawyers, and that's an example. Same with him making claims about dogs and cats getting eaten. Maybe not literally true, but a bit of research will bring other things to people's attention.
I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but in my case I would absolutely still resent Trump for lying about it. Why not just tell the actual truth? Why should I have to automatically discount any claim he makes by 30%, and go digging around for the 70% that’s true, when instead he could have just said 100% of the truth up front? Why are people giving him a pass for wildly inflating so many of his claims?
I still agree that lying like this is bad and he shouldn't do it, but it doesn't seem like you've interacted with the core of the counterargument. The fact that his statements are exaggerated makes them bait for the media to debunk and therefore signal boost them.
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Do you resent any other politician for their lies?
Anyone who pays attention knows politicians tell tactical lies nonstop.
If you hold Trump to a special standard I think that's ridiculous. Otherwise yeah, resenting the lie is probably the most rational response possible.
As to WHY?
IT WORKS. CONSTANTLY. Because when it comes to politics most people are fully prepared to accept lies from their team.
This is my great frustration. I have the superpower known as "a functioning memory that recalls events older than a week" so I know how much all politicians are lying at all times, and they count on people forgetting or forgiving things that happened too far in the past. And I'm doomed to watch the voting public fall for this every time.
I don't agree that Trump is lying is most cases like this. Almost worse, it's that he doesn't care to know if it's the truth. It sounds good to him to say, and the truth of it is irrelevant.
How many things does Trump say during debates and his speeches that are merely poorly remembered memes he saw on X or Truth?
IMO, it should behoove a leader to care to make the best case for their argument, and that includes understanding and optimizing for the biases in the medium through which the argument is presented. If Trump knows he is going to be mercilessly fact-checked, it's on him to make life tougher not easier for the fact-checkers. He makes valid arguments sound like lies because he doesn't bother to make them sound as true as possible, and that's unforgiveable.
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