Jones: Democrats must call out Trump on his lies
AS I WATCH President Trump and his representatives distort the truth with what they've dubbed "alternative facts," I'm reminded of two words that forever changed the way the presidency is viewed.
AS I WATCH President Trump and his representatives distort the truth with what they've dubbed "alternative facts," I'm reminded of two words that forever changed the way the presidency is viewed.
"You lie!"
Of all the acts of disrespect that Barack Obama endured during his eight years as president, that utterance from U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) reverberates loudest. And it's the one Democrats must look to as they seek to counter Trump.
Wilson's 2009 outburst rang out after Obama told a joint session of Congress that illegal immigrants would not receive government-funded health care from the bill that became the Affordable Care Act. But Wilson's outburst was more than a childish insult. It was a political statement, which said that the office of the president no longer merited deference. That legislative decorum was a thing of the past. That truth was a matter of perspective.
The gloves were officially off.
In that moment, Wilson was a member of a Republican Party that was in the minority in both houses of Congress, and the president was the antithesis of everything the GOP stood for.
Not only was Obama a black man whose very presence in the White House offended the GOP's conservative base. He was a progressive whose politics leaned decidedly to the left. For Wilson, questioning Obama's truthfulness meant challenging his legitimacy. It reflected the racial animus of a largely white constituency. It was red meat to rank-and-file Republicans.
Democrats responded to the slight by demonizing Wilson, and, at first, it seemed effective. The South Carolina congressman apologized, and the House voted along party lines to pass a formal resolution disapproving of his conduct.
But then a funny thing happened. Wilson was heartily embraced by a constituency that despised both immigrants and the nation's first black president. Wilson's re-election campaign raised over $1 million in the week following his outburst. Republicans were emboldened to publicly challenge the president at every turn.
Now, the Republicans are in the majority in both houses, they occupy the White House, and they are poised to overturn the very law Wilson spoke of when he yelled the infamous phrase, "You lie!"
It's a lesson Democrats would do well to remember in the age of Donald Trump because just as Obama was opposed by the Republican Party's conservative base in 2009, Trump is loathed by the Democrats' liberal base today. And since Trump's statements are often often provably false, it is not only the media that should challenge him at every turn. It is legislators themselves.
When Donald Trump falsely claims that he would have won the popular vote if not for 3 million to 5 million votes cast by illegal immigrants, Democrats must stand up for the voters who legally handed Hillary Clinton a 3-million vote margin.
When Trump falsely claims that his inauguration crowd was the biggest in the history of the presidency, or that he won the electoral vote by a landslide, or that his business dealings do not present conflicts of interest, Democrats must stand up to challenge every word.
Because this much is clear: Trump has a strategy regarding facts. He intends to determine what the facts are, and he will attempt to silence anyone who challenges his view of reality.
We saw that when the National Park Service retweeted a picture showing that Trump's inauguration crowd was far smaller than the crowd that attended Obama's inauguration in 2009. Trump immediately directed the agency to stop tweeting until further notice.
If the president is willing to abuse his power to silence a government agency over something as inconsequential as the size of the crowd at his inauguration, what will he do regarding matters of greater importance? And will his tenuous relationship with the truth eventually threaten our national security?
I think it will, and that's troubling.
Trump has already shown us he is willing to disregard the truth for his own purposes. While campaigning, he told us he opposed the Iraq war from the outset, when he did not. He told us taxes in the United States are among the highest on Earth. Also not true. He spent years spreading the lie that Obama was born in Kenya. Then he falsely said that Clinton did it first.
But it's one thing to lie on the campaign trail. It's something else altogether to direct a campaign of lies as the leader of the free world.
Trump and his staffers must be made to understand that "alternative facts" are lies. And every time our new president or one of his representatives dips into his or her bag of untruths, someone on the other side must channel their inner Joe Wilson.
They must stand up, red-faced and outraged, and shout that now-infamous phrase.
"You lie!"
Solomon Jones is the author of 10 books. Listen to him mornings from 7 to 10 on WURD (900-AM).
@solomonjones1