There's a double standard when it comes to standards of evidence here. Trump does often grossly exaggerate and distort like he is engaged in a pro-US marketing campaign. He also acts in a manner similar to any other (lying) US politician although he takes things the next step with his 'the best ever' rhetoric. Most people can read between the lines when it comes to much of his hyperbole (except for the gotcha establishment media and people with TDS).
Trump does lie about stupid stuff, blowing people off, as chronicled many times by You Tube journalist Tim Pool. However, on many key issues he is outrageously honest, mentioning that the US would not be in the Middle East if not for Israel, that they were in Syria to 'get the oil', and that the US was stuck in many unjustifiable dead end conflicts (like Afghanistan). He is also honest about US politicians being bought by special interests (although he is not without conflicts of interest). The difference between himself and other Presidents is that he's said things about how the system works they would never openly admit, key things that his critics overlook.
In the above clip HA Goodman reveals that The Washington Post article, claiming thousands of Trump lies, itself contains many lies (about the economy) as checked against objective data or official statistics. One aspect of the WaPo spin can be understood through the following assertion: that Trump falsely claimed the US has/had the fastest growing economy in the world. It had the fastest growth in the developed world but not globally. This is another case of Trump acting as a hyperbolic marketing man - which is what he says people should do in his book. In the mean time he is acting to help restore US industry via his trade war with China and the closed southern border (to stop the influx of cheap labour). So we can see there is a level of rhetoric intended for a purpose (to instill confidence) while real action is taken. The situation is a problematic one but the media takes the simplistic and propagandistic route around the issue something that the TDS indoctrinated public tends to lap up.
And then there is the related unaddressed issue with official economic statistics - the fact they are rigged (proven by Shadowstats). The real US unemployment rate is MUCH higher than officially stated. An economy with 'full employment' should not have masses of homeless people or deflated wages. One has to then reflect upon Trump's 2016 election statements about the rigged figures and real economic situation to know that he understands what is really happening.
The big problem is that the media continually takes Trump out of context and never rules on his comments in a beneficial way like they did with Obama. HA pointed out that Obama lied repeatedly on many important issues especially regarding war. He (and the establishment) then engaged in conflicts against Libya and Syria (via proxy) based on the lies. Tens of thousands of people died. There was no continuous media fact checking of Obama (while there was some with Bush who killed hundreds of thousands with his illegal wars).
The Obama (and Bush) lies led to country destroying conflict, something that Trump has not done. It doesn't mean that the Trump sanctions on countries like Venezuela are good, or that his continuing support of the Saudis in their war against Yemen, or the assassination of the Iranian General in Iran was much better, but you can see there is a different standard being taken. There is a media cover-up of (all) issues relating to war.
There are also lies about the US Covid response that have appeared in short anti-Trump hit pieces, where the media neglects to remind people that the Democrats (and media) wanted to keep the borders open while Trump closed them (ineffectively), that the rest of the world also failed disastrously, that US Covid death statistics are inflated (according to many doctors), and that many of the issues relating to the US Covid response came down to how each individual State handled the situation, such as we saw in NYC (similar to other countries).
Further issues relating to anti-Trump media rhetoric often bring up Russiagate/Ukraingate and his impeachment by the House. This was a politically driven hit job driven by the establishment to deflect against Hillary Clinton's classified email scandal, and corrupt establishment ties with Russia. The FBI admitted they had no evidence of any Trump-Russia collusion. Minor Trump officials that faced prison like Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort did so on issues unrelated to Trump. Manafort was actually an agent of Obama's. Carter Page who the FBI investigated was actually a CIA contact and was cleared of any wrongdoing. George Papadopoulos' supposed Russian contact, Professor Mifsud, was almost certainly a Western Intelligence asset. The actual charges against people like Papadopoulos and General Michael Flynn were brought about because of misremembered dates that were immaterial to the case. Trump's own impeachment charges likewise had nothing to do with any Russia collusion - they were subjective charges leveled by the House for 'obstructing' their unjustified witchhunt (that ultimately boiled down to the Ukrainegate quid pro quo 'scandal' based entirely on hearsay 'evidence').
The facts that set the record straight are all in the public domain. What we are seeing in the media is a propaganda campaign against someone they didn't expect to win in 2016. Trump's real 'mistake' was the fact he is a Nationalist, albeit still a corporatist, who tread on too many establishment globalist toes when he pointed out too many unpleasant truths. To deflect from Trump's truth telling they accused him of incessantly lying.
[Posted at the SpookyWeather blog, December 27, 2020.]
