Does this idiot have an off switch?
“Donald Trump may be a loudmouth and a bigot, but at least he gets the job done – he cares about ordinary folks like you and me.” This is probably one of the most common arguments you hear from a typical Trump supporter who at least knows enough to not discuss the nuances of any political issue. While we know that Trump and the GOP leaders who enable him are objectively terrible for America by any measure – there’s one simple statistic that sums up his catastrophic presidency better than any single argument.
According to data from the Trump Twitter Archive, Donald Trump has insulted Democrats 100 times more than he’s promoted social programs that help Americans. That may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not. Trump has tweeted (and retweeted) the word “Democrats” a total of 1,317 times since he was inaugurated.
The words Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security were tweeted or retweeted just 13 times. He’s spent more time on attacking Nancy Pelosi alone than he has on mentioning these programs, which comes as no surprise as his upcoming budget proposal calls for significant cuts to all three.
Despite his repeated campaign promises to protect social security in 2016, Trump and the Republicans have made it clear they’re going to try and privatize it once and for all should they prevail in November. They’re also planning to do away with pre-existing conditions despite Trump’s lying that he’ll protect them. You may not always read Trump’s tweets – and it’s far from something we’d recommend doing – but the numbers lay out clearly who he is: a vindictive and lazy president who cares more about attacking the people he thinks are his enemies than he does about fulfilling his campaign promises or helping everyday Americans. An analysis of these numbers shows he couldn’t possibly care less about ordinary folks like you and me.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making