The daily Astorian., June 13, 2016, Page 4A, Image 4

OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JUNE 13, 2016
Trump: Lord of the lies
Founded in 1873
By TIMOTHY EGAN
New York Times News Service
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Make certain
drinking water is safe
Parents, children and offi cials
are right to exercise great caution
when it comes to lead
ome believe lead contributed to the fall of the Roman
E mpire. Heavily used in ancient times for many purposes
including sweetening wine, it caused an array of illnesses
— everything from neurological damage to sterility. Added
to paint and gasoline in 20th century America, it is thought
lead’s corrosive effects on brains and bodies contributed to
youth violence and poor school performance by inner-city
kids.
The quantity of lead facilities — the state doesn’t
found in drinking water in have legal authority to insist
some Oregon schools is far on these tests.
It’s obvious that every-
below the astronomical lev-
els that once caused dev- one who looks after children
astating diseases. But par- should make certain drink-
ents, children and offi cials ing water is safe. Testing
are right to exercise great and prompt remediation of
caution when it comes to plumbing systems that leach
lead. Even a cursory search lead into water is essential —
on the internet for informa- sooner the better.
In Astoria and surrounding
tion about lead exposure
turns up literally millions communities, many homes
of frightening references. and commercial buildings
Symptoms include every- date from a time before there
thing from learning diffi - was much concern about
culties and loss of appe- lead. Even some relatively
tite to hearing loss and new homes have the poten-
tial of exposing residents to
constipation.
Modern-day Oregon par- unacceptable levels of lead
ents aren’t inclined to take and copper — the latter also
such news sitting down, par- can cause health problems. It
ticularly after shocking news wasn’t until 1991 that the fed-
of widespread lead exposure eral Safe Drinking Water Act
and offi cial indifference in began heightening awareness
of the issue.
Flint, Michigan.
None of this is panic-wor-
Astoria, Seaside and
Wa r r e n t o n - H a m m o n d thy. Rational precautions by
schools are all at various families and school offi cials
stages of conducting tests of will substantially lower any
drinking water, with results risk that might stem from
expected well before school low-level lead exposure.
starts this fall. Statewide, But it is worth paying atten-
Gov. Kate Brown has recom- tion to, and making certain
mended tests by school dis- authorities follow through on
tricts and licensed child care their promises.
S
Why not let
people vote?
Oregon’s vote-by-mail protocol
is an undisputed success
very four years Oregon
becomes a topic of
discussion. At a time when
Republican
legislatures
create hurdles to minorities
and working-class voters,
Oregon is expanding its
electorate and making it eas-
ier to vote.
Michael Wines of The New
York Times noticed Oregon’s
new access to voter regis-
tration through motor vehi-
cle licensing. “From January
through April,” wrote Wines,
“Oregon added nearly 52,000
new voters to it rolls by
standing the usual voter-reg-
istration process on its head.”
Comments from election
researchers as well as Oregon
Secretary of State Jeanne
E
Atkins make clear that reg-
istering voters does not nec-
essarily lead to more ballots
cast. It will take two or three
years to learn the full impact
of our motor vehicle voter
registration law.
But Oregon’s vote-by-mail
protocol is an undisputed
success. We Oregonians
are not forced to gamble on
how long we will wait at the
polls. We have three weeks
to cast our vote. Repeated
studies have demonstrated
there is minuscule fraud with
Oregon’s mail ballots.
Colorado and Washington
state have imitated us. And
sooner or later, other states
will see the wisdom of our
bold 1998 innovation.
his month, the world’s most
battle-scarred cable news net-
work did something extraordinary
in this year of vaporous political
contrails. While Donald Trump
was delivering one of his easily
debunked lies, CNN fact-checked
him — in near real time at the bot-
tom of the screen.
T
“Trump: I never said Japan should
have nukes (he did).” Thus read
the chyron that shook the television
world — maybe.
I no more expect CNN to set Wolf
Blitzer’s beard on fi re than to instantly
call out the Mount Everest of liars.
Trump lies about big things (there is no
drought in California) and small things
(his hair spray could not affect the
ozone layer because it’s sealed within
Trump Tower). He lies about himself,
and the fake self he invented to talk
about himself. He’s been shown to lie
more than 70 times in a single event.
Given the scale of Trump’s men-
dacity and the stakes for the free world,
it’s time that we go into the fall debates
with a new rule — an instant fact-check
on statements made by the candidates
onstage. The Presidential Debate Com-
mission should do what any fi rst-grader
with Google access can do, and call out
lies before the words hit the fl oor.
Setting up a truth referee is not dif-
fi cult. And while doing such a thing
is unlikely to ensure that the debates
would be substantive, it could at least
guarantee a reality foundation at a time
when fact-free speech is the language
of the political class.
How can we discuss the econ-
omy when Trump suggests that the
unemployment rate, just under 5 per-
cent, is actually 42 percent? Or debate
the Paris climate accord, when Trump
falsely claims it “gives foreign bureau-
crats control over how much energy we
that got Trump into his pres-
use on our land”? Or deal
ent cauldron of lies — call-
with terrorism, after Trump
ing the Indiana-born judge
said he knows “more about
in the case a “Mexican.”
ISIS than the generals.”
By that standard, Trump is a
The debates are meaning-
German, with a grandfather
less without a neutral party
from Kallstadt.
screening the garbage.
Some of Trump’s lies
Professional truth-seekers
are the everyday speech of
have never seen anything like
a charlatan — trade talk.
Trump, surely the most com-
At a bizarre news confer-
pulsive liar to seek high offi ce.
Timothy
ence in March, he called
To date, the nonpartisan Politi-
Egan
Trump Winery “the
Fact has rated 76 per-
largest winery on
cent of his statements
Sadly, a lot
the East Coast.” Not
lies — 57 percent false
even close, accord-
or mostly false, and
of voters
ing to PolitiFact.
another 19 percent
Last month he said
“Pants on Fire” fab- don’t care if
he had more employ-
rications. Only 2 per-
a candidate ees in New Jersey
cent — 2 percent! —
“than almost any-
of his assertions were
is a
body.” Not a chance.
rated true, and another
There’s a word for
6 percent mostly true. pathological
this kind of person,
Hillary Clinton, who is
the guy who spits on
not exactly known for
liar. But
your tie and then tells
fealty to the facts, had
most of us
you he likes your
a 28 percent total lie
sheen, but The New
score, including a mere
should.
York Times does not
1 percent Pants on Fire.
allow me to print it.
The Washington
For a while, I tried to chart the days
Post’s Fact Checker has dinged Trump
with 30 of its Four Pinocchio ratings of his lies, and just got overwhelmed. He
— lying 70 percent of the time. Trump said the suicide of the former Clinton aide
cares so little about the truth that when Vince Foster was “very fi shy,” when fi ve
the Fact Checker reaches out to him for separate investigations found it to be a sad
an explanation, he never responds, the self-killing and nothing more. He could
have looked at the U.S. Drought Monitor
paper noted.
Trump got his start on the national before saying “there is no drought” at the
political stage as a liar, playing to the very California site that is now in its fi fth
birther fantasies of Barack Obama’s year of an epic arid spell.
He even lies about his lies. He
worst haters. One of the questions he
might be asked in the three fall debates claimed he wanted to keep a personal
is what, exactly, he discovered when donation to veterans private, when in
he claimed his investigators “cannot fact he’d boasted in January of a $1
believe what they’re fi nding” in Hawaii million gift, which wasn’t sent out until
the press began questioning him on it
fi ve years ago.
With Trump University, he created a months later.
Sadly, a lot of voters don’t care if
business model built on a house of lies.
An executive called it “a total lie,” and a candidate is a pathological liar. But
a sales manager said it was a “fraudu- most of us should. It’s up to the debate
lent scheme” designed to bilk vulner- commission, as they set the rules for the
able clients, according to court testi- fall, to ensure that truth has a place on
mony. It was that class-action lawsuit the stage.
Hillary and the horizontals
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News Service
spent much of this politically
momentous week at a work-
shop on inequality, where papers
were presented on everything
from the causes of wage dispari-
ties to the effects of inequality on
happiness. As so often happens at
conferences, however, what really
got me thinking was a question
during a coffee break: “Why don’t
you talk more about horizontal
inequality?”
I
What? Horizontal inequality is the
term of art for inequality measured,
not between individuals, but between
racially or culturally defi ned groups.
(Of course, race itself is mainly a cul-
tural construct rather than a fact of
nature — Americans of Italian or even
Irish extraction weren’t always con-
sidered white.) And it struck me that
horizontal thinking is what you need
to understand what went down in
both parties’ nominating seasons: It’s
what led to Donald Trump, and also
why Hillary Clinton beat back Bernie
Sanders. And like it or not, horizontal
inequality, racial inequality above all,
will defi ne the general election.
You can argue that it shouldn’t be
that way. One way to think about the
Sanders campaign is that it was based
on the premise that if only progressives
were to make a clear enough case about
the evils of inequality among individ-
uals, they could win over the whole
working class, regardless of race. In
one interview, Sanders declared that if
the media were doing its job, Repub-
licans would be a fringe party receiv-
ing only 5 or 10 percent of the vote.
But that’s a pipe dream. Defi ning
oneself at least in part by membership
in a group is part of human nature. Even
tion cuts both ways. Black
if you try to step away from
and Hispanic support for
such defi nitions, other peo-
Democrats makes obvious
ple won’t. A rueful old line
sense, given the fact that
from my own heritage says
these are relatively low-in-
that if you should happen to
come groups that bene-
forget that you’re Jewish,
fi t disproportionately from
someone will remind you:
progressive policies. They
a truth reconfi rmed by the
have, for example, seen
upsurge in vocal anti-Sem-
very sharp reductions in
itism unleashed by the
the number of uninsured
Trump phenomenon.
Paul
since Obamacare went into
So group identity is an
Krugman
effect. But the over-
unavoidable part of
whelming nature of
politics, especially in
I wish I
that support refl ects
America with its history
identity.
of slavery and its eth-
could say group
Furthermore, some
nic diversity. Racial and
groups with rela-
ethnic minorities know that it will
tively high income,
that very well, which is
like Jews and, increas-
one reason they over- be a battle
ingly,
Asian-Ameri-
whelmingly supported
of ideas.
cans, also vote strongly
Hillary Clinton, who
Democratic. Why? The
gets it, over Sanders,
with his exclusive focus on individual answer in both cases, surely, is the sus-
inequality. And politicians know it too. picion that the same racial animus that
Indeed, the road to Trumpism began drives many people to vote Republi-
with ideological conservatives cyni- can could, all too easily, turn against
cally exploiting America’s racial divi- other groups with a long history of per-
sions. The modern Republican Party’s secution. And as I’ve already men-
central policy agenda of cutting taxes tioned, we are indeed seeing a lot of
on the rich while slashing benefi ts has right-wing anti-Semitism breaking
never been very popular, even among out into the open. Does anyone doubt
its own voters. It won elections none- that a reservoir of anti-Asian preju-
theless by getting working-class whites dice is similarly lurking just under the
to think of themselves as a group under surface?
So now comes the general election.
siege, and to see government programs
I wish I could say that it will be a bat-
as giveaways to Those People.
Or to put it another way, the tle of ideas. But it mostly won’t, and not
Republican Party was able to serve just because Trump doesn’t have any
the interests of the 1 percent by pos- coherent policy ideas.
No, this is going to be mostly an
ing as the defender of the 80 percent
— for that was the white share of the election about identity. The Republi-
electorate when Ronald Reagan was can nominee represents little more
than the rage of white men over a
elected.
But demographic change — rapid changing nation. And he’ll be facing
growth in the Hispanic and Asian pop- a woman — yes, gender is another
ulation — has brought the non-His- important dimension in this story —
panic white share of the elector- who owes her nomination to the very
ate down to 62 percent and falling. groups his base hates and fears.
The odds are that Clinton will pre-
Republicans need to broaden their
base; but the base wants candidates vail, because the county has already
who will defend the old racial order. moved a long way in her direction. But
one thing is for sure: It’s going to be
Hence Trumpism.
And race-based political mobiliza- ugly.
Where to write
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 2338 Rayburn HOB, Washing-
ton, D.C., 20515. Phone: 202- 225-
0855. Fax 202-225-9497. District
offi ce: 12725 SW Millikan Way,
Suite 220, Beaverton, OR 97005.
Phone: 503-469-6010. Fax 503-
326-5066. Web: bonamici.house.
gov/
• U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D): 313
Hart Senate Offi ce Building, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20510. Phone: 202-224-
3753. Web: www.merkley.senate.gov
• U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D):
221 Dirksen Senate Offi ce Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510. Phone:
202-224-5244. Web: www.wyden.
senate.gov
• State Rep. Brad Witt (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court Street N.E.,
H-373, Salem, OR 97301. Phone:
503-986-1431. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/witt/
Email: rep.bradwitt@
state.or.us
• State Rep. Deborah Boone (D):
900 Court St. N.E., H-481, Salem,
OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1432.
Email: rep.deborah boone@state.
or.us District offi ce: P.O. Box 928,
Cannon Beach, OR 97110. Phone:
503-986-1432. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/ boone/
• State Sen. Betsy Johnson (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court St. N.E.,
S-314, Salem, OR 97301. Telephone:
503-986-1716. Email: sen.betsy john-
son@state.or.us Web: www.betsy-
johnson.com District Offi ce: P.O.
Box R, Scappoose, OR 97056. Phone:
503-543-4046. Fax: 503-543-5296.
Astoria offi ce phone: 503-338-1280.
• Port of Astoria: Executive
Director, 10 Pier 1 Suite 308, Asto-
ria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-741-3300.
Email: admin@portofastoria.com