Anchor Struck

Clearly all is not right with this world, but I’m easing back into it after our memorable trip to the states.  I’ve chosen to avoid the increasingly acrid public discourse, mainly because Trump has the distinct home field advantage.  But there’s one incident I can’t resist commenting on.

Last Friday The Donald was rallying the troops in Nevada by bringing in a group of people who had family members killed by undocumented immigrants.  With the ever-hovering Mike Pence nearby, Trump introduced several folks to tell their truly heart-breaking stories.

He again showed his willingness to exploit the grief of others.  I told Jude that he’d sunk to a new low, but she assured me that he’d done worse.

As Trump exploited, a woman standing behind him said that since 9/11, “illegal aliens” had killed 63,000 Americans.  Without missing a beat (and not fact-checking), Trump picked up the thread.  “63,000,” he parroted.  “That number that they say is very low because things aren’t reported.  63,000.  You don’t hear about that.”

The reason we didn’t hear about it was merely because it didn’t happen.  Snopes, a fact-checking website found 99% accurate, says “not only is there no evidence for his claim, it would require a seemingly superhuman murder spree by the nation’s roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants.”

Certainly Fox News would have reported that.

It doesn’t bother me that Trump lied.  That’s a given, just as sure as his cheeseburger-scented breath.  What bothered me was the ease with which he folded it into his narrative.  No matter how far-fetched his “facts”, if it supports his worldview, it’s in.

Snopes speculated that this tidbit was based on misinformation spewed out by Steve King, a U.S. House member from Iowa.  King once claimed that a GAO report showed 25,064  “aliens” were arrested for homicide in the U.S. between 2004 and 2008.  The figure was correct, though the time frame was actually a 51-year span.

But how much can you rely on a guy who once fantasized about marijuana-toting Hispanics with “calves the size of cantaloupes”?

In contrast, a Cato Institute study of homicide conviction rates in Texas in 2015 found that rates for illegal and legal immigrants were (respectively) 25 and 87 percent less than that of native born Americans.

But none of these pesky facts matter in Trumperica.  How can you bother to take time to fact check when your Uber driver looks like an MS-13 gang member?

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In our public safety section, please be advised that the Buckeye, Arizona, Fire Department has warned citizens to beware of rattlesnakes in their pool noodles.  So if you have a swimming pool in or around Buckeye — or you are planning to — please check your noodles for rattling sounds.