Studies have shown that Fox News viewers are some of the least informed people in America, and Donald Trump is doing nothing to reverse that. In fact, any American who trusts Trump on virtually any subject will end up just as, if not even more, misinformed. Tuesday’s Twitter storm by the president was no exception to this rule.
Each tweet contains at least some misleading information, others are complete lies.
In his first tweet of the morning, for instance, Trump insisted that “employment is up.” Most Trump supporter would agree and argue that Trump is doing a better job as president than his predecessor, Barack Obama, and that the economy’s trajectory is so insanely awesome than all of the scandals around Trump should be ignored since he is doing such a great job on the economy.
Those supporters would be wrong.
Employment is not up under Trump compared to President Obama. According to Forbes magazine:
‘Over the September to December timeframe, there were 163,000 additional jobs per month and for the year 171,000 jobs were added monthly. This compares to President Obama’s last six years where the job market averaged at least 174,000 per month and hit 250,000 in 2014.’
As for his second tweet, it may absolutely be true that Trump is “looking forward” to his meeting with the Japanese prime minister at Mar-a-Lago. However, it’s also true that he could be “working on trade and military security” from the White House and he could meet with the prime minister there. Instead, Trump is spending his 102nd day at one of his golf properties as president, trips that have so far cost the American taxpayers a grand total of $64,147,610.
The most misleading tweet comes in his third of the morning. It is true that Governor Jerry Brown has refused to send the National Guard troops Trump wants sent to California as some kind of immigration enforcement, or an ICE team on steroids. However, California does not have a disproportionately large crime rate compared large cities in red states. For instance, the sanctuary city of Los Angeles, California has a significantly lower violent crime rate than Dallas, Texas, which is most definitely not a sanctuary city.
As a state with a high immigrant population, California’s crime rate, in fact, is lower than red states with low numbers of immigrants. Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee all rank lower in safety and higher in crime rates than California. As for other red states with a higher percentage of immigrants, Arizona, Florida, and Texas all have higher crime rates. California is not a haven for criminals, no matter how many times Trump tries to convince everyone that it is.
As for his fourth tweet, “everyone” is not talking about how great Trump’s tax cuts are for the country. In fact, many economists argue against it, saying that the deficit will increase significantly and the cuts for lower-and-middle income Americans are only temporary and will not be effective in the long run. Even some of Trump’s own supporters are furious over his increase to the deficit.
Between Trump and Fox News, it’s no wonder Trump’s supporters are misinformed.
Twitter wasn’t buying it, either. See some of their comments below:
Featured image via Getty/Joe Raedle
