orange man bad (same argument - now featuring nuance!)

The creator of the Dilbert comic strip, Scott Adams, has said that he supports Trump because Trump was persuasive and because Trump's behavior "wasn't like regular politics." In a blog he wrote about Trump called "Clown Genuis," he identified "hypnosis and persuasion methods" Trump applied on people, called it "Persuasion 101," and said Trump's tactics reminded him of hypnosis. He again called Trump a "master persuader" in a podcast with Sam Harris. Adams even said that Trump would "warp reality until he gets what he wants." He's also talked about how Trump appeals to people's irrationality and emotion, bends reality, and Trump mastered identity politics. In addition to highlighting my point, this also highlights how stupid Adams is. He predicted the cult of personality and bought into it.

How stupid can you be? This is a Trump supporter saying this, openly admitting that they support a president who appeals to emotion and irrationality simply because they're persuasive in doing so. It's like identifying the tactics a used car salesman is using to manipulate you into overpaying for a bad car but still buying the car and then bragging about how impressive the salesman was at conning you to others.

General Terrible-ness

There have been more business minded people with little to no public sector experience in the Trump administration than any other presidential cabinet in history.

There are 281 lobbyists who have worked in the Trump administration and for every 14 political appointees under Trump, there is 1 lobbyist. There are 4 times more lobbyists in Trump’s administration than Obama’s.

Trump sucks at picking the right people to do a job, or rather the job he wants them to do: there has been more turnover in the Trump administration than any other administration in the past 40 years.

The Trump administration will not disclose White House visitor logs, despite the Obama administration doing so, and the logs will be kept secret for at least 5 years after Trump leaves office.

Trump tariffs will have a horrible economic impact: 0.26% decrease in GDP, 0.16% decrease in wages, 198,700 jobs lost, $88 billion worth of new taxes on Americans.

Trump has floated the idea of delicensing news outlets that he disagrees with, despite the fact that he nor the FCC can’t do that.

Trump signed a bill repealing internet privacy rules that would have given internet users greater control over what service providers can do with their data. This would have required broadband companies to get permission from their customers in order to use sensitive data like browsing history, geolocation and financial and medical information but since Trump signed that bill, now internet providers can get users data without even asking their permission.

Under the Trump administration the USDA removed some safeguards on food inspection. In 2019 the USDA published a final regulation which deregulates swine slaughter inspection according to the Center for Science and in the Public Interest and in 2020 the USDA officially deregulated inspection in some of the largest pork processing facilities - facilities which account for 92% of the pork in the US - by reducing the number of inspectors assigned to the slaughter line meaning there are less people making sure the meat we eat is safe to eat while the maximum inspection line speed was increased. Food safety was scarified for production so there is now more (potentially) unsafe meat for Americans to purchase! I guess Trump's administration values a company's ability to make more money more than the lives and health of Americans. There were several other questionable food related decisions made under Trump's tenure as president.

Trump and his administration enacted policies specifically and intentionally to separate children from their families to deter migrants from coming here to America. This policy was first thought up in 2017 and implemented in 2018 (albeit without explicitly stating "we are going to separate children from their families"). Still, the child separation thing Fox News even identifies "There is no law that dictates children must be separated from their parents when caught crossing into the country illegally, and there was a time when ICE policy didn’t call for detaining all families." A report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general noted that historically, separating children from families was "rare" and "occurred because of circumstances such as the parent’s medical emergency or a determination that the parent was a threat to the child’s safety." It also notes that there have been about 3,000 children separated from their families (2,737 to be exact) under Trump's administration. Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that, while Clinton and Obama both did separate children from families, "their rate was less than ours." She would go on to say that there was not a policy despite clearly stating here that there was and signing off on it and preferring it to other options on a memo (read what appears to be that memo here and there's more on it here). What a dumbass. This policy has "not had an observable impact on the number of families caught illegally crossing the border" according to a TRAC report. As of October 2020, the parents of 545 children still have not been found. It's worth noting that US immigration policy, particularly along the southern border, has always been pretty not good but Trump's child separation policy is the cream of the bad crop.

Trump is arguably the most "anti-nature" president in US history and has been dubbed as such by the Center for American Progress. They report that Trump is the only president in U.S. history to have removed more public lands than he protected. They calculate that over Trump's tenure as president, his administration has attempted to remove protections from nearly 35 million acres of public lands (Figure 8) and has stripped protection over 13.5 million acres of American land and water. They calculate that the Trump administration has lifted protections on over 1,000x more land than they protected. The administration's stripping of over 2 million combined acres from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante which alone amount to the largest rollback of federal land protection in U.S. history. Bears Ears shrunk by 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante shrunk by 51%. Trump has removed protections from 16.6 times the amount of land that Theodore Roosevelt managed to protect in the form of parks and monuments. The National Parks Conservation Association also identifies that under the Trump administration, there has been an undoing of public land and National Parks.

Military Stuff

Although the whole situation around US troops pulling out of Afghanistan is a whole mess and Joe Biden shares some of the responsibility and blame, Trump is the main culprit and he and his administration should share most of the blame. At a rally on June 26th, 2021 in Wellington, Ohio he said this regarding Afghanistan: "Where I started the process and all of the troops are coming back home. By the way, I started the process. They [Biden administration] couldn't stop the process. 21 years is enough, don't we think? They could not stop the process, they wanted to but it was tough to stop the process when other things were at yes, thank you thank you [he receives applause here from his supporters at the rally]. It's a shame, 21 years, by a government that would not last - what are we going to say? We will stay another 21 years? The whole thing is ridiculous. But we are bringing our troops back home from Iraq and Afghanistan. We brought them back home..." He goes on to say "So I started bringing them [US troops in Afghanistan] home." In February of 2020 Trump negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, so this is what he's referring to when he talks about starting the process. The Trump administration didn't even include the Afghan government in this agreement though, so it was kinda doomed to fail from teh start. Despite this, idiots like Josh Hawley blame Biden for this "weak" move even though Hawley tweeted in support of it and identified that it was the Trump administration that had planned the withdrawal of US troops. This dumbass even said Biden should resign for doing so. I guess Hawley is so stupid that he doesn't realize the implications of these tweets - that a president taking an action that Trump planned and did himself means they should resign and are weak and/or incompetent.

Since Trump took office, the rate of drone strikes rose by 432%. These strikes are highly inefficient. In Yemen, for example, a third of the deaths are civilians, not terrorists.

Trump has actually increased drone strikes on Afghanistan every year he has been in office, with record numbers in 2018 and 2019 (see Figure 15 below).

Trump revoked an Obama-era policy requiring US intelligence officials report civilian drone strike deaths outside of war zones.

Trump increased military spending to $750 billion, a 4.7% increase from the previous $716 billion, far more than the 2.4% increase that was planned.

Race Issues

Trump defunded programs, such as Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), that targeted white supremacy. Under the Trump administration, at least 85% of CVE grants target minority groups (Muslims, Black Lives Matter, LGBT movements, and refugees) despite the fact that white supremacy is the biggest domestic terrorist threat.

Trump's Opportunity Zones actually exacerbated the gentrification of black communities. Furthermore, Trump’s opportunity zones haven’t really done much for their areas, and have flaws which disincentive investors from helping the local community.

Trump retweeted a video on Twitter in which a presumed supporter of his yelled "white power!" In the tweet, Trump referred to his supporters, including this person, as "great people."

The Trump administration blocked an Obama-era rule that would have enabled the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to collect annual pay data by gender, race, and ethnicity from large employers. This would have no doubt been used to see if companies and businesses were paying people of a certain race or gender less. Perhaps this is why the black/white wage gap has grown during Trump's time in office. The gap in median income between black and white families actually rose from 2016 to 2019 according to a study done by the Federal Reserve.

Trump's 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs act is a regressive tax that would widen the racial wealth gap.

LGBT Issues

The Trump administration reversed protections for transgender individuals against discrimination in health care. Specifically, the Department of Health under Trump redefined sex discrimination to only apply to cis males and cis females. The provisions allow for hospitals and insurance providers to refuse transition-related care for trans folks. This goes against what the United Nations and American Psychological Association have to say on the treatment of transgender individuals.

• From the US Department of Health and Human Services "HHS will enforce Section 1557 by returning to the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word 'sex' as male or female and as determined by biology. The 2016 Rule declined to recognize sexual orientation as a protected category under the ACA, and HHS will leave that judgment undisturbed."

• This deviates from a Supreme Court decision that federal law bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In October of 2017 the Department of Justice issued a memo which asserted that transgender individuals can be discriminated against in employment.

These three are all kind of the same thing

• Despite research suggesting that it isn't the sex or gender of a child's parent that matters, rather a child just having two parents matters, Trump submitted a brief to the Supreme Court on Wednesday arguing that a taxpayer-funded organization should be able to refuse to work with same-sex couples.

• During some of his final days in office, Trump's Health and Human Services department finalized rules which would allow social service providers to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This could mean that adoption agencies which receive taxpayer money could deny same sex couples from becoming foster parents and that homeless shelters and senior centers which receive taxpayer money could discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender.

• Under the Trump administration an Obama era policy that Health and Human Services grantees could not discriminate on the basis of sex, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity was rescinded. The rule also rescinded the requirement that HHS grantees treat same-sex married couples as valid. Under the Trump administration health and welfare programs could still receive federal funding even if they discriminated against a person's sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

In April of 2019 the Trump administration proposed a policy that would remove data on LQBTQ+ children in foster homes.

When speaking about gay rights in a New Yorker interview, Trump said to not mention gay people to vice president Mike Pence because "he wants to hang them all."

Trump opposes the Equality Act, which sought to create standards for LGBT nondiscrimination, giving LGBT people the rights they have in California and Massachusetts nationwide.

The Trump administration urged a US appeals court in Manhattan to rule that federal law does not ban discrimination against gay employees.

Trump banned transgender individuals from serving in the military, which had a drastically negative effect on military readiness and but shrank recruiting pools.

Trump's administration was hostile to LGBT employees, and fostered a climate where six staffers who are LGBT described removing their wedding rings before coming to work in the morning, taking down photos of their partners and families or ultimately finding new jobs further away from certain political appointees according to Politico.

More stuff: https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/lgbtq-rights-rollback

Anti-Worker

An analysis of Trump's revised tax plans in 2016 show that the highest income households would benefit the most from his plan.

Under Trump’s healthcare plan, 14 million more people would be uninsured.

The Trump tax cut disproportionately benefits the wealthy: family earning under $25,000 per year: $40 tax cut / 0.3 percent boost in after-tax income, the top .1% earning $3.4 million a year: $937,700 tax cut / 13.3 percent boost in after-tax income.

On his first day in office, Trump reversed a middle class tax cut in mortgage insurance premiums issued by the Federal Housing Administration. These insurance fees are effectively a tax on middle-class homeownership. For a mortgage worth $200,000, this adds $500 to a homebuyer’s annual costs.

The Trump administration abandoned Obama-era plan to extend overtime protections to more Americans, instead opting to lower the salary threshold. Trump's rule would increase the minimum salary requirement for a worker to qualify for an exemption that would allow them to work more overtime. How many people would have the opportunity to earn less money? - The proposed overtime rule would cover 8.2 million less workers than the Obama-era plan. These workers would be earning an estimated $1.2 billion less under Trump's proposed rule.

The Trump administration made it harder for businesses to be held liable for wage violations against contract and franchise workers (wage theft). Trump's proposal would shield employers and businesses from liability for some minimum wage and overtime pay violations. Under this proposal businesses would have to self-report violations, determine the amount owed, and then pay back the employee. This is incredibly dumb: why would you trust a business (or any organization really) to report something they did wrong themselves, then investigate it themselves, and then figure out what is fair to rectify the mistake themselves?

The Trump administration ended an Obama-era requirement that contractors meet federal labor standards and complied with health and safety standards and anti-discrimination protections to keep the government’s business, meaning that these companies could violate federal wage laws, health and safety standards, and be discriminatory and still be contracted by the government and receive federal contract dollars.

The Trump administration erected some barriers which make it more challenging for individuals with disabilities to live independently and work outside of their homes. His proposed Medicaid cuts would end access to home and community based care services that allow many people with disabilities to live more free lives and seek employment outside of their home.

The Trump administration reversed protections against pesticides and chemicals that have been shown to cause illness and neurological damage, threatening worker safety and making it easier for employers to expose workers to hazardous conditions.

The Trump administration weakened workplace safety protections for particularly dangerous industries such as offshore drilling and mining. In a repeal of an Obama-era safety regulation meant to prevent a repeat of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

• From EarthJustice.org: "the Trump administration has been gutting safety regulations and scaling back enforcement against the recommendations of its own safety experts."

The Trump administration has reduced workplace safety enforcement. Activity by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has declined under President Trump, and the agency employs fewer inspectors than it has at any other time in the agency’s history. This was done despite the fact that workplace fatalities or catastrophes in 2018 rose dramatically - a strong sign that workplace fatalities are increasing under this administration. The Trump administration also stopped requiring employers to submit detailed information on workplace injuries and illnesses and limited OSHA’s ability to issue citations for violations.

It would be an understatement to say that Trump massively fucked up when dealing with the COVID19 pandemic. Not only did he call the potential severity of it a "hoax" but there are a slew of other actions he and his administration took that made them seem hugely incompetent in dealing with this pandemic that have been collected in this Twitter thread. I say "seem" because tapes have recently been released of interviews the president did with journalist Bob Woodward which show that he did know the severity of the virus but chose to give Americans a different story. In the interviews he says how severe the virus is, that it is spread through the air, that is is more deadly than a common flu, that the virus is dangerous to young people, and that he wants to downplay its severity. Furthermore, if he knew the virus was so "deadly" (his words) why not quietly prepare tests, look into manufacturing more PPE, and rehire the pandemic team he fired to cut costs?

Despite knowing of the severity of the virus Trump says he "always wanted to play it down." His excuse is that he didn't want to start a panic. Well, thanks to his reluctance to tell Americans the truth about this virus and share the information he had, almost 200,000 Americans are dead. And this comes from the president whose supporters say is so transparent, who tells it like it is, who doesn't bullshit. Well here ya go, Trump didn't tell it like it is and bullshitted all of America. So, Trump intentionally misled the American people with his words and actions regarding COVID19, leading to the death of almost 200,000 Americans. Had Trump been truthful with the American people and taken action sooner, even implementing social distancing one week sooner than it was which would have saved potentially 36,000 lives according to a study, less would have died. Trump's decision here to lie to prevent a potential panic is a false dichotomy - a logical fallacy in which only two choices are presented yet more exist, or a spectrum of possible choices exists between two extremes - as Trump implies he had two options: lie or cause panic. Obviously, it's a false dichotomy to pretend that "Show panic" and "Pretend like nothing's wrong" are the only choices. There was a whole spectrum of proactive response that could have been taken. It's also interesting how other world leaders managed to be up front with their populations without looking like they were panicking. Almost as though Trump's lies boil down to his incompetence. Additionally these lies have led to the US becoming the world’s most affected country by coronavirus, the country with the 5th highest deaths resulting from COVID per one million.

Later, in a press conference Trump admits that he did mislead the American people, saying "perhaps that's so" when asked if he mislead Americans on the severity of COVID. Ironically one of the few times Trump is being honest is when he admits the truth that he previously told a lie.

There are three other key takeaways from these interviews with Woodward:

1. Two of the president’s top officials thought he was “dangerous” and considered speaking out publicly. Gen. Jim Mattis, Trump’s former defense secretary, is quoted describing Trump as “dangerous” and “unfit” for the presidency in a conversation with Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence at the time. “Maybe at some point we’re going to have to stand up and speak out,” Mattis told Coats in May 2019, according to the book. “There may be a time when we have to take collective action.”

2. Trump repeatedly denigrated the U.S. military and his top generals. In a discussion with Woodward, Trump called the U.S. military “suckers” for paying extensive costs to protect South Korea. Woodward wrote that he was stunned when the president said of South Korea, “We’re defending you, we’re allowing you to exist.” Trump also said of US military officials: "They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals." He also described them as "weak"

3. When asked about the pain “Black people feel in this country,” Trump was unable to express empathy. Woodward asked if Trump was working to “understand the anger and the pain, particularly, Black people feel in this country.” Trump's response was "No."

Donald Trump is not a racist per se, but he has certainly enabled and emboldened racism. However, the argument can be made that those who are apathetic to racism, stir it up, or appeal to racists and bigots for their own personal gain are complicit in racism.

Interestingly, Anne Frank's step-sister has compared Trump to Hitler. She believes he "obviously admired Hitler."

Aside from the fact that there are Confederate idiots and neo-Nazis who support Trump, or at least people who bring Nazi flags and paraphernalia to pro-Trump events, his rhetoric surroundings Muslims is quite similar to how Nazi Germany treated Jewish people. Sure, he has not placed Muslims in concentration camps (that honor goes to immigrants at the Southern border) but he has:

• Said that he could "certainly implement" a database and system to track Muslims in America. He said this was "certainly something we should start thinking about" in an interview on Fox News. Making a database to record and track members of a certain religion certainly seems similar to Nazi laws that mandated Jewish people, businesses, and property be registered by the government.

• Trump backed the surveillance of Mosques and said he'd explore implementing surveillance on Mosques.

• Trump has advocated for shutting down Mosques, which could be in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

• Essentially succeeded in banning Muslims from America, accomplished with executive order 13679 which banned immigration from six countries: Iran (99.6% Muslim), Libya (96.6% Muslim), Somalia (98.5% Muslim), Sudan (71.3% Muslim), Syria (92.2% Muslim) and Yemen (99.1% Muslim). Data for the percent of Muslims in a country comes from the Pew Research Center. Although it is not explicitly labeled a "Muslim Ban" it seems it was Trump's intention with this order. In an interview with Fox News Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that when Trump first announced the executive order he said "Muslim ban" and asked Giuliani to put a commission together to show him the right way to do it legally. At a presidential debate he even admitted his initial intentions to ban Muslims, but that it grew into something bigger: "The Muslim ban is something that has morphed into an extreme vetting. We’re going into areas like Syria where they’re coming in by the 10s of thousands.”

Additionally:

• At a campaign rally in 2015 someone there said to Trump: "We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims...When can we get rid of them?" In response Trump said that he'd be looking into it. This obviously seems quite similar to Nazi Germany's stance on Jewish people: that they were one of the country's biggest problems and they needed to be gone, gotten rid of.

• From 2012-2016 there were a total of ~118 hate instances against Mosques and Islamic centers and from 2017-late 2018 there were a total of ~59 hate instances against Mosques and Islamic centers. That's an average of 23.6 per year in the five years under Obama and 29.5 in the almost two years under Trump. From 2012-2016 there were a total of ~105 media reports of anti-Muslim violence and crimes and from 2017-late 2018 there were a total of ~76 media reports of anti-Muslim violence and crime. That's an average of 21 per year in the five years under Obama and 38 under the almost two years under Trump. Data here comes from this source. That's an increase of 25% and 81% under Trump, respectively.

Targeting all people of a religion as a a problem that needs to be gotten rid of and/or implementing policies which restrict or infringe upon the rights of all people of a religion certainly seems similar to Nazi Germany's views and treatment of Jewish people.

Trump's creation of the 1776 Commission - a commission dedicated to reforming education so that education is more "patriotic" and children are not taught anything "un-American" - reflects how the Nazi party and Hitler's propaganda man Joseph Goebbels would do the same thing to Germany, getting rid of and banning anything deemed "un-German," even staging public book burnings.

Trump's "America First" slogan and rhetoric is quite similar, almost plagiarized, from the rhetoric of the Ku Klux Klan in early 20th century America. A photo from a KKK "America First" parade held in Binghamton, New York in the early 1920s shows Klan members marching with a banner that reads 'America First One God One Country One Flag." A KKK recruiting paper states that the Klan stands for "AMERICA FIRST.: First in thought. First in affections, and first in the galaxy of Nations." The Klan's Imperial Proclamation (this link is from a presentation to the House of Representatives and Congress) also includes similar rhetoric and states that the Klan "stands for America first — first in thought, first in affections, and first in the galaxy of nations. The Stars and Stripes forever above all other and every kind of government in the whole world." The Imperial Proclamation also states that the Klan aims to "keep centrally ablaze the sacred fire of a fervent devotion to a pure Americanism." It describes the objective of a Klan member to be, among other things, to "conserve, protect, and maintain the distinctive institutions, rights, privileges, principles, traditions, and ideals of a pure Americanism." A KKK token (other sites identify it as a coin) also has the phrase "America First" on it. A national membership coordinator for the Klan, Rachel Pendergraft, has said that Trump has helped the KKK recruit new members and his rhetoric "proves that our views resonate with millions," as per Vox and Mother Jones. The Daily Stormer (which takes its name from the Nazi publication Der Stürmer), a far-right website run by Andrew Anglin - your average neo-Nazi white supremacist, as identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center and others that have reported on his antics - described Trump as "Our Glorious Leader and ULTIMATE SAVIOR."

Trump's accusations of "fake news" and constant comments about the media lying and characterizing him unfairly mirror Hitler's treatment of the free press in his rise to power. Throughout his early rise to power, Hitler would use the term Lügenpresse - German for lying press - to turn the public against the press, undermine public trust in press, and get them to distrust them so his wild shit would seem less absurd and Germans would turn to him for truth and information rather than the press. In a speech on February 17th, 1922 Hitler would use the term regarding "Marxist" press. Joseph Goebbels. Hitler's right-hand propaganda man, would also use the term in a speech, the date I am unsure of (I think 1941), when referring to foreign press, specifically saying "anti-German lying press" a tone point. You can find various other articles online talking about the Nazi's use of the term, from The Washington Post to the New York Times to Time. While using the same term as the Nazis certainly doesn't automatically make someone a Nazi it is important to note that Trump used very similar means to build support and sway public opinion in his 2016 campaign (and onwards after being elected president) as Hitler did throughout his rise to power and as the Nazis did while they were in power. So using the same word as Nazis doesn't make one a Nazi but using the same term to describe the same thing to accomplish a similar goal, essentially using the same tactic as Hitler, is suspect. Some dude at a Trump rally even used the German term when referring to some press in 2016. He's probably just very dumb but why use that term when you're accusing media of lying?

Liberty Hangout posted some weird Trump/Nazi image back in 2016. You can check to see that they actually posted this thanks to the WayBack Machine Internet Archive or see it below in Figure 14.

Trump has committed tax evasion. Essentially he and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents. Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more.

Trump has violated the emoluments clause numerous times. This clause states that the president cannot receive any financial benefits save from the compensation for their “services” as chief executive and should not accept any gifts, financial or otherwise, from foreign states, kings, or princes. Firstly, he pitched his own struggling resort as a venue for a G-7 summit, as the Washington Post article will expand upon. Secondly, he has taken over 400 visits to his own businesses during his time as president thus far. Another example: Trump had Saudi royals bail out his failing hotel. The royals themselves did not even stay in his hotel yet provided Trumps business with enough money not to fail. The exact number of times Trump has violated this clause by making the decision to retain his business interests? 2,310.

Next, we will be looking at fraud. In November 2016, less than two weeks after he was elected, Trump settled three different fraud lawsuits related to his Trump University for $25 million. New York Attorney General Letitia James previously announced that the president was “forced to pay $2 million for misusing charitable funds for his own political gain,” and his Trump Foundation was “shut down for its misconduct.”

Trump is also a perpetrator of sexual assault, another crime. His former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who is serving a three year prison sentence for for campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud, and plead guilty to eight federal crimes, made illegal hush money payments to two women — Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal — who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. Both these affairs Trump had came only a few months after the birth of his son, Barron. It is know that Cohen “acted in coordination and at the direction of” the president himself. It can be assumed due to Trump’s response that these claims are genuine in nature. In addition to these two women, Trump also has sexual assaulted Summer Zervos during the taping of “The Apprentice,” with phone records corroborating Zervos’ story. 26 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct.

Moving on to obstruction of justice, Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election identified ten instances of possible obstruction of justice by Trump. Additionally, more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors agreed that Trump’s conduct, had he been a private citizen, would have resulted “in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.”

Next is the time Trump illegally withheld financial aid to millions of Americans. No, I’m not talking about the time he delayed stimulus checks for 2 weeks just so they’d have his signature on them, but the time when Trump withheld much-needed and congressionally appropriated disaster relief money for the people of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Trump told White House officials that “he did not want a single dollar going to Puerto Rico. … Instead, he wanted more of the money to go to Texas and Florida.

Moving on we now have perjury, lying under oath (this could also be seen as an obstruction of justice). The president told the Mueller inquiry: “I do not recall discussing WikiLeaks with [former adviser Roger Stone], nor do I recall being aware of Mr. Stone having discussed WikiLeaks with individuals associated with my campaign.” In November, however, his former deputy campaign manager, Rick Gates, said in court that Trump had been aware in advance of WikiLeaks’ disclosures in 2016, based on his conversations with Stone. The response of conservative lawyer George Conway, husband of Kellyanne Conway? “Perjury.”

Out of the belief that every immigrant coming to the United States through the southern border is a dangerous criminal out to destroy America, the Trump administration has violated several legal and moral standards by caging immigrants at the border without giving them the opportunity to legally enter the country and declare asylum, or having asylum claims improperly dismissed by US border agents and separating over 2,500 families. Trump has wrongly claimed that the number of people seeking asylum at the border is a "national crisis" even though reports by the US Customs and Border patrol show that southwest border apprehensions haven't been in the millions since 2006 and of those apprehensions 80% are not from Mexico, which doesn't reinforce Trump's contemptuous view of Mexicans. As stated in article 14 of the Deceleration of Human Rights, "everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution." This is an international law that the United States helped create following the atrocities of World War II. The Trump administration, along with attorney general Jeff Sessions sought to restrict this right the US helped create. Knowing this violated international law that the US has followed since it was first created, a federal court blocked this asylum ban. In addition to violating the Deceleration of Human Rights it also violated the Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA, which maintains that if a person makes it to U.S. soil — even if they've crossed the border illegally — they are eligible to apply for asylum. According to this US code from US Citizenship and Immigration Services Title II Act 208 US Code 1158, linked here, "Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien's status, may apply for asylum." The Trump administration has put into place policies such as the Migrant Protection Protocols where "asylum seekers are prevented from accessing the asylum process when they arrive at the U.S. border," as stated by the American Immigration Council. The AIC also states that the Trump administration has "began implementing a series of new programs that have significantly altered the traditional credible and reasonable fear processes once an asylum seeker finally is able to access those processes," and they also identify that the MPP does not let asylum seekers "go through the credible fear or reasonable fear screening process." Essentially, the Trump administration has violated asylum seekers rights to declare asylum as it is defined and protected by international and national law by changing the process to one which does not allow asylum seekers to exercise their full rights as such. In addition to the MPP, the Trump administration has sought to restrict asylum criteria, which goes against the international law the US helped create following World War II, tried to prohibit migrants from seeking asylum "if they have resided in a country other than their own before coming to the U.S.," which would essentially eliminate anyone who traveled to the border through Mexico and has no basis in US or international law, and tried to disqualify those who enter the country illegally from being given a chance to declare asylum despite the fact that US code from US Citizenship and Immigration Services Title II Act 208 US Code 1158 states that anyone who is in the US, whether they came in legally or illegally, can declare asylum.

Now onto the cages in which these people are being illegally held, which are concentration camps by definition. The dictionary definition of concentration camp - a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard - is aptly fitting as these people are members of an ethnic minority, some of which are also refugees, are being held in confined spaces while being watched by armed guards. Journalist and author of the book One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps Andrea Pitzer says that these places where immigrants are held are concentration camps.

Trump and his administration enacted policies specifically and intentionally to separate children from their families to deter migrants from coming here to America. This policy was first thought up in 2017 and implemented in 2018 (albeit without explicitly stating "we are going to separate children from their families"). Still, the child separation thing Fox News even identifies "There is no law that dictates children must be separated from their parents when caught crossing into the country illegally, and there was a time when ICE policy didn’t call for detaining all families." A report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general noted that historically, separating children from families was "rare" and "occurred because of circumstances such as the parent’s medical emergency or a determination that the parent was a threat to the child’s safety." It also notes that there have been about 3,000 children separated from their families (2,737 to be exact) under Trump's administration. Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that, while Clinton and Obama both did separate children from families, "their rate was less than ours." She would go on to say that there was not a policy despite clearly stating here that there was and signing off on it and preferring it to other options on a memo (read what appears to be that memo here and there's more on it here). What a dumbass. This policy has "not had an observable impact on the number of families caught illegally crossing the border" according to a TRAC report. As of October 2020, the parents of 545 children still have not been found. It's worth noting that US immigration policy, particularly along the southern border, has always been pretty not good but Trump's child separation policy is the cream of the bad crop.

It has recently (as of September 2020) come to light there there are even more human rights violations going on at these concentration camps where the US is holding asylum seekers. Dawn Wooten, a nurse at Irwin County Detention Center in rural Georgia, a private facility where immigrants are being held, has come forward with stories of forced and unnecessary gynecological procedures, including numerous hysterectomies, on immigrant women being held at Irwin County Detention Center. This claim is just one in a long list of complaints collected by a group of nonprofit organizations: Project South, Georgia Detention Watch, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network. Wooten is also represented by the Government Accountability Project. Wooten also alleges that the Irwin County Detention Center has underreported the number of coronavirus cases and generally neglecting the medical needs of those in the center. 173 legislators have demanded an immediate investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General. In regards to the forced sterilization procedures, a prominent civil rights lawyer in Atlanta, R. Andrew Free, is representing three women previously detained at Irwin says he has knowledge of as many as 35 other detainees at the facility complained about gynecological care. While still shocking that forced sterilization could be occurring on US soil, it is unsurprising given the previously reported neglectful and abhorrent conditions these immigrants live in. The main culprit of these procedures is named as Dr. Mahendra Amin in a report and has been refered to as the "uterus collector." Amin has been in trouble with the law before, agreeing to a $520,000 settlement with the Justice Department to resolve false claims he and others submitted to Medicare and Medicaid. Although ICE denies these claims, a 2016 report by the Congress’s Government Accountability Office found that ICE’s records may not be accurate. The report found that ICE uses two systems, one to approve procedures for detainees and a different one to track payments for those procedures, and in the preceding years, the number of claims paid for did not match the number of approvals for requested services in the same period — suggesting that doctors performed unapproved procedures or ICE approved procedures that were never done.

Donald Trump is not a racist per se, but he has certainly enabled and enbolbended racism. However, the argument can be made that those who are apathetic to racism or stir it up are complicit in racism.

A study done by the Anti-Defamation League found that counties that hosted a Trump campaign rally in 2016 saw hate crime rates more than double when compared to similar counties that did not host a rally. Another study corroborated these findings, concluding that "the words of presidential candidate Donald Trump as measured by the occurrence and location of his campaign rallies significantly increased the level of hateful actions directed towards minority individuals in the counties where his rallies were held." This data is corroborated by research done at the University of Alabama at Birmingham which found that counties that voted the most in favor of Trump had the largest increases in hate crimes afterwards: "by using panel regression techniques, we show that counties that voted for President Trump by the widest margins in the presidential election also experienced the largest increases in reported hate crimes." Research also shows that Trump's election correlated with the most number of hate crimes since the immediate aftermath of 9/11(Figure 10).

Throughout the president Obama's second term, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified that the number of hate groups in the United States decreased substantially, but in 2015, when Trump began campaigning for president in the 2016 election, the number of hate groups spiked, increasing by the highest percentage since 2001. The number of hate groups has continued to rise throughout Trump's presidency (Figure 1). They also report that in 2018, the number of white nationalist groups rose by 48%. The number of hate crimes have also been on the rise throughout the Trump presidency.

Documenting Hate, a media collaborative that tracks hate incidents across the country, has received more than 300 reports of people using President Trump’s name in hate speech incidents or hate crimes since 2017.

The BBC reports that there were roughly 900 hate crimes following Trump's election in 2016. This hate crime surge is backed by FBI data, as in 2015 the FBI reports 5,818 hate crimes, then 6,063 in 2016, and then the number increases substantially after Trump's first full year in office to 7,106 in 2017. In both 2018 and 2019 there were more than 7,000 hate crimes. The average number of hate crimes per year under Trump? - 7,082. The average number under Obama? - 5,343.

Trump defunded programs, such as Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), that targeted white supremacy. Under the Trump administration, at least 85% of CVE grants target minority groups (Muslims, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ movements, and refugees) despite the fact that white supremacy is the biggest domestic terrorist threat as the "Right Wing Extremists Account For Most Political Violence" section under the Crime Statistics page will show. FBI director Christopher Wray has also stated that racially motivated violence, specifically white supremacy, is the biggest chunk of the FBI's case portfolio and that white supremacists are responsible for the most lethal attacks over the past decade (as the data from that aforementioned section will show) as reported here. The Hill quotes him as saying "And within the racially motivated violent extremist bucket, people subscribing to some kind of white supremacist-type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that." Even back in 2019 Wray said that white supremacy was a "persistent" and "pervasive" threat - quoted as saying "We assess that it is a persistent, pervasive threat" by The Hill - and in 2017 the FBI opened up a slew of investigations into violent white supremacy under his direction. When talking to Congress in 2021 (skip to 43:00 in the video) Wray stated that the number of white supremacist arrests in 2020 was almost triple that of his first year as FBI director in 2017. So, according to Wray, it's evident that violent extremism is persistent and pervasive and the biggest chunk of that violent extremism is white supremacy.

In 2015 two men urinated and beat up a 58 year old homeless Mexican immigrant with a metal pole. After their arrest one said "Donald Trump was right; all these illegals need to be deported." Trump's response to this assault influenced by his rhetoric? - He said the two men, along with the others who follow him are "passionate." Then men would plead guilty to the attack.

Trump has encouraged his supporters to assault those protesting him at rallies, saying "If you see somebody with a tomato, knock the crap out of them," in reference to a protestor who threw a tomato at him and missed.

The number of white supremacist murders in the United States more than doubled in 2017 compared to the previous year according to the ADL (Figure 9).

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) endorsed Trump in his 2016 candidacy. A newspaper called The Crusader which is affiliated with the KKK and brands itself as "the premier voice of the white resistance," citing their belief in Trump to make American great again by returning it to a white Christian Republic. The former KKK grand wizard David Duke also expressed support for Trump (and for Tucker Carslon to be his running mate) in 2020. The Taliban has also endorsed Trump in 2020.

Trump's "America First" slogan and rhetoric is quite similar, almost plagiarized, from the rhetoric of the Ku Klux Klan in early 20th century America. A photo from a KKK "America First" parade held in Binghamton, New York in the early 1920s shows Klan members marching with a banner that reads 'America First One God One Country One Flag." A KKK recruiting paper states that the Klan stands for "AMERICA FIRST.: First in thought. First in affections, and first in the galaxy of Nations." The Klan's Imperial Proclamation (this link is from a presentation to the House of Representatives and Congress) also includes similar rhetoric and states that the Klan "stands for America first — first in thought, first in affections, and first in the galaxy of nations. The Stars and Stripes forever above all other and every kind of government in the whole world." The Imperial Proclamation also states that the Klan aims to "keep centrally ablaze the sacred fire of a fervent devotion to a pure Americanism." It describes the objective of a Klan member to be, among other things, to "conserve, protect, and maintain the distinctive institutions, rights, privileges, principles, traditions, and ideals of a pure Americanism." A KKK token (other sites identify it as a coin) also has the phrase "America First" on it. A national membership coordinator for the Klan, Rachel Pendergraft, has said that Trump has helped the KKK recruit new members and his rhetoric "proves that our views resonate with millions," as per Vox and Mother Jones. The Daily Stormer (which takes its name from the Nazi publication Der Stürmer), a far-right website run by Andrew Anglin - your average neo-Nazi white supremacist, as identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center and others that have reported on his antics - described Trump as "Our Glorious Leader and ULTIMATE SAVIOR."

Trump retweeted false crime statistics attributed to a fake organization which originated from a neo-Nazi twitter account (which has since been deleted). How the president of the United States is unable to fact check this stuff, didn't realize that the organization which apparently gathered the data doesn't exist, and fell for a fabrication by neo-Nazis is beyond me. What an idiot.

In 1973 Trump and his father Fred were sued by the Justice Department for turning away black tenants, violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The original newspaper story can be found here. in 1975 the Trumps and the Justice Department reached an agreement in which Trump Management was required to furnish the New York Urban League with a list of all apartment vacancies, every week, for two years. It was also to allow the league to present qualified applicants for every fifth vacancy in Trump buildings where fewer than 10 percent of the tenants were black. That agreement can be read here. Furthermore, research drawing on decades-old files from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, internal Justice Department records, court documents and interviews with tenants, civil rights activists and prosecutors — uncovered a long history of racial bias at his Trump family properties, in New York and beyond. A former Trump superintendent named Thomas Miranda testified that multiple Trump Management employees had instructed him to attach a separate piece of paper with a big letter “C” on it — for “colored” — to any application filed by a black apartment-seeker. The FBI recently released files pertaining to this case and some of the records recount the stories of black rental applicants who said they were told no apartments were available, while whites sent to check on the same apartments were offered leases. One of the people interviewed was a former doorman at a Trump building, who had this to say: A supervisor "told me that if a black person came to 2650 Ocean Parkway and inquired about an apartment for rent, and he, that is [redacted] was not there at the time, that I should tell him that the rent was twice as much as it really was, in order that he could not afford the apartment."

In 2016 Trump said that he loves the poorly educated. Research shows that "Less educated voters show more negativity toward every stigmatized group at every percentile," particularly women and minorities.

Trump has equated educating children on racism and certain systemic power structures (like this one the US government identifies) to child abuse, saying teaching it to children amounts to “a form of child abuse in the truest sense of the word.”

Trump has referred to the 1619 project, a project which focuses on the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans in American history, as "ideological poison."

In 1991 Trump was quoted as saying "I’ve got black accountants at Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it," in a book written by former employee of Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino John R. O’Donnell and continued on to say "laziness is a trait in blacks." Regarding these remarks, Trump said "the stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true,” in 1997 Playboy interview and then denied them in 1999. But, using Trump's beliefs regarding the central park five's initial admittance to guilt, it is evident Trump did say these things.

Under 52 US Code 30121 and 11 CFR 11.20(g), federal law and regulation prohibits requesting campaign assistance from a foreign national. The transcript of Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shows that he was willing and actively pursing dirt on Joe Biden and was trying to get Ukraine to dig up such dirt. Now, the campaign assistance prohibited by federal law and regulation is defined as “contribution or donation of money” and any “other thing of value." Yes, researching one's opposition is a "thing of value" and it is included in the definition. The Federal Elections Committee recognizes that even if the value of the things received from a foreign national is “nominal or difficult to ascertain,” this sort of contribution is illegal. So, in short, Trump broke federal law here.

Under 18 US Code 1343 and 18 US Code 1346, federal law prohibits fraud offenses which include a “scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” Trump's Ukraine call may have constituted what is called "honest services fraud," when a public official performs an "official act" in exchange for personal gain. The official act here being the nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine and the person gain being dirt on Joe Biden. So, Trump also violated these two federal laws here.

Under 18 USC 641, the use of government funds or property for personal use is prohibited. The $400 million Trump was going to give Ukraine if they did his bidding and got him dirt on Biden consisted of taxpayer funds appointed by congress, meaning Trump used government funds for personal use to benefit his campaign.

According to the Washington Post (their methods can be found here) Trump has totaled over 30,000 false or misleading claims over his four years as president. While these certainly not all of the lies Trump has told and promises he has broken, I would encourage you to check out three other sources - an article from the Prospect, PolitiFact's Trump-O-Meter, and PolitiFact's latest Fact-Checks on Donald Trump - and go investigate some of the lies that stand out to you. There really are so many examples, but these are the ones that stand out most to me.

Trump was always talking about infrastructure. In 2016 he said that the nation's infrastructure could only be fixed by him, in 2017 he pledged to spend big on infrastructure, saying "Infrastructure — we’re going to start spending on infrastructure big. Not like we have a choice. It’s not like, oh gee, let’s hold it off," in 2019 he called infrastructure a "necessity," and that he wanted to work with Congress to deliver legislation on infrastructure, and in 2020 he called for a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. Well, he didn't much to help the nation's infrastructure. Biden did just a year into his term as president.

A Trump golf course in North Virginia set up a fake Civil War monument - "The River of Blood." Historians say that there was never a battle that took place there, as per the New York Times. Trump challenged the historians by saying "How do they know that? Were they there?" Well, he certainly was not there so I don't know how he thinks he can know there was a battle that took place. Golf Digest even published an article on this titled "Donald Trump has Civil War plaque at his golf course commemorating battle that never happened." Rolling Stone and this source also discuss this fake historical monument.

Trump has said that "the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country." However, according to the Government Accountability Office "Of the 85 violent extremist incidents that resulted in death since September 12, 2001, far right wing violent extremist groups were responsible for 62 (73 percent) while radical Islamist violent extremists were responsible for 23 (27 percent)." The Department of Justice even has stated that the yhave no responsive records of Trump's claim here.

In 2017 Trump claimed that the murder rate is "the highest it's been in, I guess, from 45 to 47 years." This is wrong. The murder rate in 2017 was 5.3, the highest it had been in nine years. In fact, in that 47 year span Trump eludes to, the murder rate was higher than 5.3 in 39 years.

Trump has said that Americans need an ID to buy groceries: "If you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID. You go out, you want to buy anything, you need ID, you need your picture." This is obviously not true (unless you pay with a check sometimes or buy alcohol). What an idiot.

In 2018 Trump stated that "We have spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. You know what we have for it? Nothing. Nothing." This is not true. The paper we can assume he is getting this number from ESTIMATES that by 2053 the US will have spent over $7 trillion (see Table 5 on page 22).

In 2016 Trump claimed that he "worked hard" with Bill Ford to keep a "Lincoln plant" in Kentucky. This wasn't even something Ford was going to do. Ford does not operate a specific "Lincoln plant" in Kentucky - most vehicles made in the Louisville plant are Ford Escapes - and the auto manufacturer planned to move MKC production to another plant so it could increase production of the Escape which would not cause any job loss, as per USA Today. NPR reports the same thing: "Ford, however, said it neither planned to close the Louisville, Ky., plant nor reduce jobs there. The company said it had considered moving Lincoln production to Mexico to increase production of the Ford Escape in Louisville."

In 2020 Trump claimed that he had a phone call with Exxon Mobile's CEO regarding fundraising at a rally. The company tweeted this out: "We are aware of the President’s statement regarding a hypothetical call with our CEO…and just so we’re all clear, it never happened."

In 2019 Trump claimed that he "spent a lot of time" with 9/11 responders and was "down there" with them. Retired deputy chief with the New York Fire Department Richard Alles says otherwise: "I spent many months there myself, and I never witnessed him. He was a private citizen at the time. I don’t know what kind of role he could have possibly played." This quote was told to the New York Times. Another publication thatinterviewed him quotes him as saying "This is the first I’m hearing of it. There would have been no need for that. Between police, fire and the construction crews, we had it all covered." Politifact quoted him as saying "I was there for several months — I have no knowledge of his being down there." He also said that he knew of no one who witnessed Trump there and that there were no workers hired by Trump sent to help.

On March 18th, 2020 Trump said that the COVID-19 pandemic "snuck up on us." However, the day before Trump said that he "felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic." These statements contradict each other, so one is a lie or they are both false.

Throughout his presidential campaign in 2016 Trump said that he'd build a wall along America's southern border and make Mexico pay for it. A campaign page for Trump in 2015 stated "Mexico must pay for the wall." In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Trump said "Let me, let me tell you something about the wall. So I’ve always said we have to have a wall. I’ve also said Mexico’s got to pay for it—sometimes you know on occasion, I’d add who’s going to pay for it? Mexico. Well they will pay for it, OK? There are many forms of payment. I could name 10 right now. There are many forms of payment, I didn’t say how." While parts of the wall have been built Mexico did not pay for any of it.

In 2020 Trump stated that the closest thing to the COVID-19 pandemic was a pandemic that occurred in 1917 which "probably ended the second World War, all the soldiers were sick." WWII ended in 1945 and the pandemic he is referring to - the Spanish Flu - took place almost 30 decades prior. Here is a video.

Trump believed that he didn't win the 2016 popular vote because of voter fraud, Tweeting "In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally," and established a commission to prove his statement that there was massive voter fraud in 2016. This commission met only twice & was disbanded in a year after finding no such evidence of Trump's claims.

In 2019 Trump said that noise from windmills causes cancer. This is not true - wind turbine noise does not cause cancer. Here is another source talking about how it does not cause cancer.

In 2016 Trump said that if he became president he would approve of waterboarding: "I said I'll approve it immediately, but I'll make it also much worse." At a rally he also said "Would I approve waterboarding? You'd bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat." He has not approved waterboarding.

When campaigning in 2016 Trump told Hilary Clinton that if he was president she would be in jail. He was president for four years and she never went to jail.

When campaigning in 2016 Trump said "I'd be working for you I'm not going to have time to play golf" and made many other statements eluding to how he won't have time to play golf as president. As president, Trump played golf 298 times.

Please also see the tabs "Trump Supporters, Conservatism, and Lower Cognitive Ability" and "Interesting Tidbits About Republicans, the GOP, and Trump Supporters (Racism, Intolerance, Fear of Immigrants, etc...)" on the Miscellaneous page for more info on how being dumb and stupid leads to racism, bigotry, intolerance, etc...

Short answer? Yes. Long answer:

Study from the Social Psychological and Personality Science Journal - "Attitudes Toward Presidential Candidates in the 2012 and 2016 American Elections: Cognitive Ability and Support for Trump"

• This study used data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) to investigate whatever relationship or connection there may be between cognitive ability and attitudes towards candidates in the 2012 and 2016 US presidential election, ultimately finding that "analyses revealed the nature of support for Trump, including that support for Trump was better predicted by lower verbal ability than education or income." The study used the Wordsum vocabulary test to asses cognitive ability and skill.

  • The 2016 study "included 4,271 participants, of which 1181 were interviewed face to face and 3090 answered an online survey," and were random samples.

• There was a strong negative relationship between verbal ability and support for the Republican candidates, with Trump having a stronger negative relationship than Romney: "Verbal ability was associated negatively with support for the Republican candidate in both elections. However, its association with support for Trump was stronger than its association with support for Romney"

  • The study also identifies that there is generally a strong negative relationship between verbal ability and the Republican party but Trump was a special case, as his negative relationship with verbal ability persisted even after controlling for party affiliation: "the negative association between verbal ability and support for Romney is largely due to the negative association between verbal ability and support for the Republican Party: When party affiliation is controlled, the negative association between verbal ability and support for Romney, but not for Trump, disappears."

    • "For Trump, there was a negative association between verbal ability and attitude. For the other three candidates, the association with verbal ability was either positive (for Obama and Clinton) or negligible (for Romney)."

• Also associated negatively for Trump? - education.

  • "Education was associated negatively with support for Trump, but not for Romney."

• Overall, the study concludes that "We believe that the present work suggests that cognitive ability may be a most basic explanatory variable underlying the apparent effects of socioeconomic variables on support for Trump." It also recognizes that certain left-wing and right-wing attitudes which are associated with higher cognitive ability are a "sharp contrast" to Trump's platform.

Study/Article from the New Political Science Journal - "The Cognitive and Emotional Sources of Trump Support: The Case of Low-Information Voters"

• This article opens with this statement: "This article provides empirical evidence for the hypothesis that Donald Trump distinctively attracted unprecedented levels of support from 'low-information voters.' The findings suggest that his campaign exploited a void of facts and reasoning among these voters that made them more vulnerable to relying on emotions, fear, anxiety, hate and rage, about Mexican immigrants, Muslims refugees, African American citizens and their disdain for the first African-American president Barack Obama."

• The data this article analyzes comes from the American National Election Studies 2016 Pilot Study.

• The article identifies that Trump voters "were more vulnerable to responding to emotional appeals that exploited their fears and anxieties"

• Even more so than Mitt Romney in 2012, Trump was able to attract a large number of low-information voters who were swayed by emotional appeals: "among whites something distinctive happened in 2016--low-information white voters had come to be disproportionately concentrated in the Trump constituency. In fact, the findings suggest that Trump was able to draw low-information white voters away from Clinton by using emotional appeals to people’s racial and ethnic anxieties, making his reliance on these voters much greater than 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney."

• After analyzing specific data from a January 2016 American National Election Study Pilot Survey, the article found evidence that "Trump’s overwhelming white support was comprised disproportionately of low-information voters, whose lack of basic facts about politics (and also lack of interest thinking about ideas more generally) made them vulnerable to relying more on their emotional fears and resentments about immigrants, Muslims, and blacks (but not their anxieties about the economy)."

• "Low levels of political knowledge may well be associated with disinterest in relying on ideas and critical thinking skills to process reasons for deciding to support a candidate." This means that many Trump supporters who have a low level of political knowledge (as seen in Figure 12) may lack critical thinking skills and are more open to emotional appeals.

  • "A lack of political knowledge and a de-emphasis on cognitive processing create an opening for emotions to predominate in the decision-making process."

  • It can't get any clearer than this: "it is distinctly possible that Trump attracted a relatively high number of low-information white voters compared to his opponent Hillary Clinton and his predecessor as the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. Further, it is likely that these low-information voters had a low Need for Cognition, and that given their lack of information and low levels of reliance on cognitive processing, these voters relied more on emotions in their vote decision, making them more vulnerable to acting on the basis of fears and anxieties regarding Mexican immigrants, Muslim refugees, African Americans, and even President Obama. And with emotions replacing facts and reasoning, this base of supporters for Trump may well have been more willing to ignore his deficiencies as a candidate and find themselves vulnerable to not being able to challenge his consistent misstatements, untruths and outright lies."

• Trump attracted more low information voters with who engage little in activities which require thinking than Mitt Romney: "not only have low information voters decidedly favored Trump in 2016, this appears to be a phenomenon that is unique to the 2016 election, and not based on a general tendency of low information voters to support the Republican nominee. Compared to Romney, who was arguably a more conventional Republican candidate, Trump has attracted significantly more support from low-information voters."

• The article finds that people how were less likely to engage in and enjoy activities that require thinking (a need for cognition - NFC) and a low level of political knowledge had "relatively 'warmer' feelings toward Trump, compared to those with higher levels of NFC and political knowledge."

  • "as we move to those with low NFC and political knowledge, a clear preference for Trump emerges."

• In regard to the charts referenced below:

  • Figure 11 displays how voters with lower NFC (people who engage in activities which require thinking) are much more likely to favor Trump over his 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton.

  • Figure 12 shows how voters with less political knowledge (answered two questions regarding US policies wrong) were more likely to favor Trump over Clinton.

Study from the American Politics Research Journal - "The Dynamics and Political Implications of Anti-Intellectualism in the United States"

• Studies the political implications of anti-intellectualism using "cross-sectional General Social Survey (GSS) data and a national election panel in 2016," and ultimately finds that it is associated with "the rejection of policy-relevant matters of scientific consensus" and support for politicians like Donald Trump.

• The study identifies that the trend of anti-intellectualism is growing and quite prominent on the right: "while anti-intellectualism may seem like it has been a unique feature of Donald Trump’s rhetoric in the 2016 campaign, recent research suggests that anti-intellectual attitude endorsement has been growing in the mass public for decades, especially on the ideological right."

  • "Unsurprisingly, at the individual level, conservatism has been shown to be a strong predictor of distrust toward scientists and experts. Relatedly, conservatism has also been shown to be associated with skepticism about the research experts produce even on issues where consensus does not contradict or even supports conventional conservative values and political opinions (e.g., the mass production of genetically engineered food)."

• Conservatives have cognitive styles which are not as diligent or detail oriented when compared to liberals: "conservatives tend to hold cognitive styles associated with less scrupulous information processing than liberals."

• In one of the models used in this study it was determined that anti-intellectualism was associated with an increase in support for Trump: " anti-intellectualism boosted positive affect toward Trump in the multivariate models, relative to Clinton, by 5% in the July wave of the CSPP Study, 9% in the September wave, and 8% in the October wave."

  • Trump attracts anti-intellectualism: "Perhaps support for Trump, and his rhetoric about scientists and experts, encourages individuals to hold anti-intellectual attitudes. While this account seems plausible, I find little evidence in support of it."

• Trump's campaign for president in 2016 was, at least initially, shaped by anti-intellectualism.

  • "the effect of anti-intellectualism might best be thought about as initially shaping support for Trump, which is then highly stable over time."

Research from Cambridge University - "The cognitive and perceptual correlates of ideological attitudes: a data-driven approach"

• This research aimed to investigate and evaluate whether cognitive disposition sculpts worldview and did this by exposing more than 330 US-based participants aged 22 to 63 who were to a slew of tests – 37 neuropsychological tasks and 22 personality surveys – over the course of two weeks. Their findings? - "Conservatism and nationalism were related to greater caution in perceptual decision-making tasks and to reduced strategic information processing, while dogmatism was associated with slower evidence accumulation and impulsive tendencies." Essentially, the further right someone is the more they suck at these mental tasks.

  • Furthermore, "Extreme pro-group attitudes, including violence endorsement against outgroups, were linked to poorer working memory, slower perceptual strategies, and tendencies towards impulsivity and sensation-seeking—reflecting overlaps with the psychological profiles of conservatism and dogmatism."

    • The research re-iterates this point later, stating "Interestingly, the psychological profile of individuals who endorsed extreme pro-group actions, such as ideologically motivated violence against outgroups, was a mix of the political conservatism signature and the dogmatism signature."

  • "these findings suggest that ideological worldviews may be reflective of low-level perceptual and cognitive functions," essentially saying that the Conservative worldview may be reflective of low cognitive and low perceptual functions.

• Specific excerpts on conservatism being associated with low cognitive function:

  • "Political conservatism was best explained by reduced strategic information processing, heightened response caution in perceptual decision-making paradigms, and an aversion to social risk-taking."

  • "the finding that political and nationalistic conservatism is associated with reduced strategic information processing (reflecting variables associated with working memory capacity, planning, cognitive flexibility and other higher-order strategies) is consistent with a large body of literature indicating that right-wing ideologies are frequently associated with reduced analytical thinking and cognitive flexibility."

  • The research draws similarities between conservatism and religiosity, stating that "The psychological signature of religiosity consisted of heightened caution and reduced strategic information processing in the cognitive domain (similarly to conservatism)"

• The Guardian published an article about this with the title "People with extremist views less able to do complex mental tasks, research suggests" which wrongly attributes the findings of the research to "extremist views" rather than conservatism but even in the article the authors of the research state that "the 'psychological signature' for extremism across the board was a blend of conservative and dogmatic psychologies" when interviewed for the article.

Research from the Psychological Science Journal - "Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact"

• Please note that I link to the full text on SciHub, as Sage Journals offers no free access to the full text.

• Ultimately the study finds that low intelligence in childhood "predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology" based on large scale data sets from the United Kingdom and a US data set "confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact." Essentially, racism/prejudice and some aspects of conservatism are liked to low cognitive ability and there is a correlation between the right-wing and prejudice. The study also notes that it controlled for education and socioeconomic status.

• The authors state "We propose that right-wing ideologies, which are socially conservative and authoritarian represent a mechanism through which cognitive ability is linked with prejudice."

• The study finds that "individuals with lower cognitive abilities may gravitate toward more socially conservative right-wing ideologies that maintain the status quo and provide psychological stability and a sense of order" and state that their findings are "consistent with findings that less intelligent children come to endorse more socially conservative ideologies as adults."

• The study uses g as a synonym for general intelligence and finds that links between low g (low general intelligence) and right-wing ideology: "Together, the well-established theoretical and empirical links between lower g and greater right-wing ideology and between greater right-wing ideology and heightened prejudice suggest a mediating mechanism by which lower g may be associated with greater prejudice." The study proposes a mode in which lower g (general intelligence) predicts greater right-wing ideology, which then predicts more prejudice attitudes (Figure 13).

  • Ultimately, "individuals with lower cognitive ability may be more attracted to right-wing ideologies that promote coherence and order, and because such ideologies emphasize the maintenance of the status quo, they may foster greater outgroup prejudice."

  • Also: "a review of the literature reveals meta-analytic evidence supporting a relation between lower g and greater endorsement of right-wing ideologies"

• In the data sample from the US, the authors note that "Lower levels of abstract reasoning also predicted greater right-wing authoritarianism, which in turn predicted elevated prejudice against homosexual." That is to say a person with limited or little ability to quickly reason with information to solve new, unfamiliar problems (that is what abstract reasoning is) was more likely to be attracted or apart of the right-wing. Conversely, "Individuals who had a greater capacity for abstract reasoning experienced more contact with out-groups, and more contact predicted less prejudice."

When looking at the average IQ by state, something Trump has fixated on as a measure of self worth, seven of the 10 states with the lowest average IQ - Louisiana, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee - voted for Trump in 2016. Only four of the ten states with the highest average IQ - North Dakota, Montana, Iowa, and Wisconsin voted for him. This data comes from a comprehensive study from Virginia Commonwealth University. Looking at the results of the 2020 election, which I will refer to Fox News for, it is evident that five of the 10 states with the lowest average IQ - Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, and Tennessee - voted for Trump and, like in 2016, only three states of the 10 states with the highest IQ - North Dakota, Montana, and Iowa - voted for Trump. Using this same set of data, the average state that voted for Trump would rank 27th on the IQ list and the average state that voted for Biden would rank 24th. So, on average, states which vote Democrat for president have higher IQs than states which voted Trump for president.

Data from the website FiveThirtyEight found that the main predictor of whether someone would vote for Trump or not is socioeconomic standing but intellect. In fact, the most educated counties - the county with the most people who had completed a 4 year degree in college, any college, any degree - had overwhelming support for the Democratic candidate Clinton and the counties with the least educated people showed overwhelming support for Trump.

Data from the PEW Research Center shows that among Clinton voters, 43% were college graduates, compared with 29% of Trump voters. And while non-college whites made up a majority of Trump’s voters (63%), they constituted only about a quarter of Clinton’s (26%). However, this isn't too surprising as many Trump followers see college and the concept of education in general some combination of "socialist/Marxist/communist/leftist brainwashing and indoctrination," and thus worthless.

Despite many of his followers being staunchly against pedophilia and sex trafficking, Donald Trump is well connected to many pedophilias. Jeffrey Epstein is the most obvious example. In a 2002 interview with Cosmopolitan, Trump said he and Epstein were "great friends" who had known each other for 15 years, putting the beginning of their friendship at around 1987. Also in 2002 Trump told New York magazine “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” They had a falling out in 2004 when both wanted to buy a certain property in Mar-a-Lago. Despite their falling out, there is 17 years of great friendship, partying, and such and with Trump's quote about how he and Epstein liked women on the younger side, it's likely he either had knowledge of or participated in Epstein's sex crimes. An Epstein victim has also said that Trump's former wife Ivana frequently accompanied Ghislaine Maxwell when she went to recruit pre-teen girls for Epstein.

Trump allegedly referred to his lawyer Michael Cohen's 15 year old daughter, saying "Look at that piece of ass. I would love some of that," while whistling, per Cohen's daughter.

Former chairman of Trump's presidential campaign in the state of Kentucky, Tim Nolan is now a convicted sex offender spending 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and coercing multiple women, seven of which were under the age of 18, to have sex with him.

Former senior leader of Trump's Oklahoma campaign Ralph Shortey has plead guilty to child sex trafficking. Police found Shorety in a hotel room with a 17 year old male and a police report indicated a search of the teen's tablet computer uncovered a series of sexually explicit exchanges in which Shortey referred to the teen as "baby boy" and offered him cash in exchange for "sexual stuff." In addition to all that, the FBI also found that Shortey had previously used fake names to send and receive child pornography and to go on Craigslist to seek casual encounters with males, the "younger the better."

George Nader, an advisor to Trump's 2016 campaign, has recently plead guilty to child porn and sex trafficking. Nader was first charged in 2019 for possessing pornographic images of children including some featuring toddler-age boys, baby goats and other farm animals and sex trafficking was added to the charge a month later when he admitted to to transporting a 14-year-old boy from the Czech Republic to Washington, D.C., in 2000 to engage in sexual activity with him . What's funny is that Nader had been charged with similar crimes several times before the Trump campaign brought him into advise. Nader served a one year prison sentence for sexually abusing minors in 10 different cases in the Czech Republic in 2003. He also was charged in 1985 for importing nude photographs of underage boys and engaging in a variety of sexual acts but evidence was conveniently thrown out.

Trump previously owned the Miss Universe Organization, which includes the Miss America and Miss Teen USA pageants. The Miss Teen USA seems pageant is quite exploitative of underage girls, considering a portion of the competition had girls as young as 14 parade around in a swimsuit for judges and others to look at. This swimsuit portion of the pageant was ditched in 2016, after Trump sold the Miss Universe Organization.

For more on Republicans being pedophiles or being weird regarding children please look under the "Republicans, Conservatives, and Pedophiles" tab on the Miscellaneous tab.

As Matt Gaetz correctly identifies, the Republican part is Donald Trump's party. The modern Conservative ideology/Republican party is just faith in and obedience to one man - Trump. Any Republican or Conservative who criticizes Trump, questions Trump, or takes a different stance on an issue (i.e. Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Mike Pence) is immediately cast out as a spineless "RINO" who has been bought out by the Deep State and is a part of the swamp that needs to be drained. Quite the tolerant group. The Republican party is characterized by total devotion to one man - Trump - and is a great example of the cult of personality.

GOP strategist Frank Luntz, a professional in polling Republican voters and counseling Republican politicians, answered the question "What is Republican?" by saying "There is no consistent philosophy. You can’t say it’s about making America great again at a time of Covid and economic distress and social unrest. It’s just not credible." Luntz has also said that the RNC should have been about America, not Trump. Unlike past conventions, the 2020 Republican National Convention had no part platform, no new ideas to offer, no definition of the Republican party other than: Trump :). Rather than roll out a new party platform ahead of the 2020 presidential race, instead opting to declare fealty to Trump’s agenda. Even before this, Republicans have expressed concern that Trump is destroying the Republican party (seems like he has at this point since the Republican party is devoid of anything other than Trump) and vow to vote against him. Now, this platform of everything Trump says goes, devoting the ideals of an entire political party/organization to one person is inherently feudal and fascist and quite similar to Stalin, Mao, and other dictators' cult of personality. The definition of fascism includes "a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader," and an autocracy is a form of governing in which one person possesses all the power. Obviously, that is Trump in the Republican party since the entire 2020 convention was dedicated to him, making Trump the autocrat of the Republican party. Following their 2020 convention, it is clear that the Republican party does not tolerate or believe in anything which is not parallel to Trump, even if those things come from those who identify as Republicans such as Mitt Romney and George W Bush. Additionally, fascism entails a strong sense of nationalism and the importance of the nation over the individual. This can be seen in Trump's rhetoric with his America first attitude, placing the success and image of the nation over the success, health, happiness, etc... of the people. Trump's announcement of a commission to provide a more "patriotic" education reeks of this same sentiment, that the image of the nation and the collective opinion of the nation is more important that the nation's people or accuracy in education.

The 2020 RNC's complete and utter infatuation, adoration, and mania for Trump is a perfect example of the cult of personality, a tactic which has been used to gain support by political figures such as Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong and Saddam Hussein. In a cult of personality, a political leader is deliberately depicted as a great individual who should be admired, loved, cherished, and there is all sorts of propaganda which serve to reinforce this manufactured image. A cult of personality thrives the longer a leader is in power and the leader will try and stay in power through any means. For example, China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin have crowned themselves “Presidents for Life" and Donald Trump believes he is entitled to a third term as president, despite presidents only being able to serve two terms. A pliant propaganda apparatus has created an aura of invincibility around leaders like Trump, building a culture of hero-worship where followers actively eat up and promote the superiority and infallibility of their leader. This propaganda often takes the form of images (duh) which nowadays are shared, liked, and commented on by followers on social media, pushing this manufactured image of their beloved leader. Trump himself has even engaged in creating and sharing such propaganda on Twitter, posting an edited image of him as Rocky Balboa, as well as sharing a video of the president's speech at the end of Independence Day with his face just superimposed over the actor playing the president.

Donald Trump's cult of personality shares many similarities with that of leader of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin and leader of the People's Republic of China Mao Zedong. Mao made sure there were pictures of him everywhere and that people sung songs about him that glorified him. Similarly, edited images of Trump which masquerade as educational despite hardly ever citing any sources, movie poster edits, memes, and outrageous shit like this are widely spread over the internet and occasionally retweeted by the president himself. Also there is a lot of legitimate art done by artists like this golden statue of Trump (which was made in China). There are also a plethora of songs Trump followers have written and proudly performed about their leader like this one, this one, this one, and these ones. Zedong also spent a lot of time, effort, and money on national defense, similar to how Trump has spent so much money on the national defense budget (more than the Cold War average and $100 million more than Obama) and resources into the border wall to defend the US from asylum seekers and immigrants. Zedong made sure any form of media, art, literature, etc... would conform to his ideal of what was acceptable for the masses. While Trump and his followers have not yet engaged in literal book burning like Zedong's followers did, they've done pretty much everything but. Trump's creation of the 1776 Commission - a commission dedicated to reforming education so that education is more "patriotic" - shows that Trump is willing and I guess able to change education and American history he does not find acceptable. Sports have come under the attack of the president and his followers who refuse to watch because of the social justice messages major sports leagues have embraced, with many calling for the disbanding of these professional sports entirely or for them to be defunded. Additionally, Trump and his followers label anything they disagree with "fake news" and eschew themselves from consuming any media which may challenge their ideals. Zedong also had his essays, poems, lectures, musings and mottos churned out by the million, similar to how nowadays you can find literally anything with Trump's "Make America Great Again" motto on it and he's still releasing statements as a president despite not being the current president. Many Trump followers have a myriad of his merchandise - hats, shirts, flags, etc... - much like how Moa's slogans and things found their way into every Chinese home. Much like Trump, who considers himself an expert on everything, Zedong posed as a renaissance man, a philosopher, sage and poet wrapped in one, a calligrapher immersed in the literary traditions of his country. Zedong and his party, which had no experience in government administration like Trump, changed education so that it would fall in line with his Soviet values. This is obviously similar to how Trump is trying to change education so it falls in line with his values. Zedong and his party saw education as a strategic priority in advancing the party and made sure that education served the party, much like Trump is changing education so it serves his worldview. Zedong put an emphasis on Soviet supremacy much like Trump's patriotic education puts an emphasis on Patriotic supremacy.

Despite many pro-gun nutjobs who base their entirely personality off firearms supporting Trump, he has said that he would be in favor of taking guns away from people early without due process. "Take the guns first, go through due process second," his exact words. Now as you could probably tell I'm not a big fan of gun obsessed folks but they shouldn't have their guns taken away without due process. Any form of gun control should be done with due process.

Trump is arguably the most "anti-nature" president in US history and has been dubbed as such by the Center for American Progress. They report that Trump is the only president in U.S. history to have removed more public lands than he protected. They calculate that over Trump's tenure as president, his administration has attempted to remove protections from nearly 35 million acres of public lands (Figure 8) and has stripped protection over 13.5 million acres of American land and water. They calculate that the Trump administration has lifted protections on over 1,000x more land than they protected. The administration's stripping of over 2 million combined acres from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante which alone amount to the largest rollback of federal land protection in U.S. history. Bears Ears shrunk by 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante shrunk by 51%. Trump has removed protections from 16.6 times the amount of land that Theodore Roosevelt managed to protect in the form of parks and monuments. The National Parks Conservation Association also identifies that under the Trump administration, there has been an undoing of public land and National Parks.

Trump saluted the US flag while the national anthem was being played on veterans day in 2020, something you are not supposed to do. 4 U.S. Code § 9 makes it clear that anyone who is not a member of the Armed Forces or a veteran should "face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, or if applicable, remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart." Violating or ignoring this code, Trump saluted the flag. Military.com is another good source for what US Code says about conduct around the flag. Saluting during the national anthem is also a violation of code, as 36 U.S. Code § 301states that those who are not members of the Armed Forces or veterans "should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, and men not in uniform, if applicable, should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart." You can watch the video of him saluting the flag while the national anthem is being played on C-SPAN. He's also done the same thing at an event at Mount Rushmore and you can watch the video on YouTube. He also saluted a North Korean military general. Not sure why he would salute a member of a totalitarian regime that is an enemy to America but ok.

Although Trump touts how great he is at creating jobs, it reality his administration's job production has just been a continuation of previous trends (Figure 6 below). He also recently like to talk about the effect he's had on the black community and - surprise! - data shows that he's do nothing more than continue a previous trend (Figure 7). According to the Associated Press, the racial wealth gap between white and black Americans has actually increased during Trump's tenure. he median income between black and white families actually from 2018 to 2019 according to a study done by the Federal Reserve. Additionally, Trump's 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs act is a regressive tax that would widen the racial wealth gap. So Trump hasn't done anything special aside from just continue the work those like Obama did before him. Bragging that you've just kept doing stuff at the same rate other presidents did before you is pretty cringe.

Central Park Five: Trump took out a full page ad in the newspaper that called for the death penalty to be brought back because he thought five minority individuals committed a crime. The crime in question was the rape and murder of a 28 year old white banker in Central Park in 1989. Police suspected a group of five black and hispanic teens because they were in the area around that time. Trump took out a full page ad, demanding the return of the death penalty for these five. He stated that "maybe hate is what we need," in an interview regarding his stance on the investigation of the five. The teens were coerced into pleading guilty to the crime, as many young suspects often are, and although there sere many discrepancies between their statements and other eyewitness accounts, a jury convicted them of the crime in 1990. However, in 2002 DNA evidence linked the attack to someone else entirely - Matias Reyes - who confessed to the crime. With this new evidence, the five were released and the city of New York reached a settlement with them for about $1 million per year of false imprisonment. Even after the DNA evidence and Reyes' confession which has exonerated the five, Trump maintains their guilt in what is a great example of the sunk costs logical fallacy (he invested time and money into the conviction of the five back then so he thinks if he admits he was wrong and there is contradictory evidence it will render that investment meaningless). Despite the DNA evidence Trump still (wrongly) believes the five did it. He also has claimed that none of the five "were angels" despite them never having been arrested before the Central Park incident.

Trump's "Trump Model Management," which has recently been shut down, profited from using foreign models who came to the United States on tourist visas that did not permit them to work in America. These accusations have come from four former models, one of which has the financial and immigration records to prove it. It's clear that Trump's TMM employed people who legally could not be employed in the United States. This agency employed models as young as 14.

Trump was obsessed with being Time magazine's person of the year to such an extent that fake, photoshopped covers of Time magazine with Trump on the cover were framed and hung at various Trump properties. Time asked for these to be taken down.

Trump has said that Americans need an ID to buy groceries. This is obviously not a thing (unless you pay with a check sometimes or buy alcohol). What an idiot.

Trump urged supporters to go vote in person, even after voting by mail, essentially telling them to vote twice. "So, send it [the ballot] in early, and then go and vote," he said to supporters in North Carolina. This would be a felony in NC, as is indicting someone to vote twice like Trump did here. This is stated in N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann. §163-275.

Trump singlehandedly sent the US stock market plummeting with just two tweets of his. Even Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade blamed Trump for crashing the stock market with his tweet.

British news network Channel 4 has reported that in 2016 the Trump campaign "strategically" detered 3.5 million black Americans from voting. These people were called "Deterrence" – voters that the Trump campaign wanted to stay home on election day. The Trump campaign hoped these people didn't show up to vote, which goes to show just how powerful voting really is. Channel 4 reports that black people were disproportionately targeted as "deterrence" in Trump's campaign: "in Georgia, despite Black people constituting 32% of the population, they made up 61% of the ‘Deterrence’ category. In North Carolina, Black people are 22% of the population but were 46% of ‘Deterrence’. In Wisconsin, Black people constitute just 5.4% of the population but made up 17% of ‘Deterrence.'"

In an piece written for New York Magazine Trump said of women, "you have to treat em like shit."

The Atlantic reported that Trump doesn't understand why an American citizen would voluntarily join the military and serve their country if there is no monetary gain and referred to members of the military as "losers" and "suckers." While it was mostly anonymous sources that were mentioned in their report, much of it was confirmed by Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin, who says her sources are "unimpeachable."

Trump once said to two 14-year old girls "Wow! Just think - in a couple years I'll be dating you." This was originally reported in the Chicago Tribune.

Trump allegedly referred to his lawyer Michael Cohen's 15 year old daughter, saying "Look at that piece of ass. I would love some of that," while whistling, per Cohen's daughter.

Trump has floated the idea of delicensing news outlets or challenging licenses that he disagrees with, despite the fact that he can't do that and neither can the FCC.

Trump has said he'd essentially force the US military to commit war crimes. Trump said that that he’d order the U.S. military to kill families of Muslim terrorists and institute interrogation techniques worse than waterboarding, itself widely condemned as torture. Torture and retaliatory executions are both war crimes under international law. Former National Security Agency and CIA director Michael Hayden said that the U.S. military might refuse such orders, which would constitute war crime. However, in regard to this Trump said "They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. If I say do it, they’re going to do it."

Trump has said he is in favor of waterboarding as a form of torture, stating that "Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would - in a heartbeat," and has advocated waterboarding as punishment even if it doesn’t help gain information, because “they deserve it anyway.”

Trump has encouraged his supporters to assault those protesting him at rallies, saying "If you see somebody with a tomato, knock the crap out of them," in reference to a protestor who threw a tomato at him and missed.

Trump has advocated for shutting down Mosques, which could be in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Trump repeatedly called deaf The Apprentice contestant Marlee Martin "retarded" according to people who worked on the show.

Trump sent out a tweet encouraging people to check out a critic's sex tape, then denied that he did so at a debate.

Following the murder of 49 people in Orlando, FL Trump offered no sympathy for these people or their families, instead taking the opportunity to brag, tweeting "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" A response quite lacking in pragmatism. How do you respond to the deaths of 49 people if you’re running for president? You could respond with an expression of sympathy, sincere or otherwise. You could respond with a cry for vengeance or an outpouring of rage. You could respond with a call for toughness, which is where Trump arrives halfway through the tweet. Or you could respond with, “Appreciate the congrats for being right.”

Trump has said that a judge who was born in the US (Indiana to be specific) has an "absolute conflict" when presiding over a case against Trump University because of "Mexican heritage." He went on to let a crowd boo the judge, Gonzalo Curiel at a rally just because he was hispanic and apparently a "Trump-hater" because he was presiding over a case against Trump.