trump tells vfw - believe me, not your lying eyes

[dherd]

'What You're Seeing... Is Not What's Happening.' People Are Comparing This Trump Quote to George Orwell

By MAHITA GAJANAN
July 24, 2018
President Trump drew comparisons to George Orwell’s 1984 in an attack on the media during a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention Tuesday.

In his address to the convention in Kansas City, Trump defended his decision to slap tariffs on the U.S.’s trading partners. As Trump told the crowd that “it’s all working out,” he warned those in the audience against believing what they see in the news.

“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” Trump said.

For some, the quote immediately recalled a line from Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”


David Priess

✔@DavidPriess

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

—George Orwell

http://time.com/5347737/trump-quote-george-orwell-vfw-speech/

 

[dherd]

“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

When the history of the Trump era is written, this quotation from our president will play a prominent role in explaining the distemper of our moment and the dysfunction of his administration. Trump was talking about media coverage of his trade war, but he was also describing his genuinely novel approach to governing: He believes that reality itself can be denied and that big lies can sow enough confusion to keep the truth from taking hold.

This has advantages for Trump, because it dulls the impact of any new revelation. Old falsehoods simply get buried under new ones.

Contrary to liberal fears, most of the country doesn’t believe him. Trump’s core support, measured by the proportion in Wednesday’s NPR/“PBS NewsHour”/Marist poll who strongly approve of him, is down to 25 percent.

The bad news is that, among Republicans, his strong-approval number stands at 62 percent. Trump’s hope of clinging to power rests on the assumption that he can continue inventing enough false story lines to keep his party at bay. His theory seems to be that a lie is as good as the truth as long as the right people believe it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...1e8-bcd5-9d911c784c38_story.html?tid=pm_pop_b