Mark Green and Ralph Nader - Fake President

Copyright 2019 by Ralph Nader and Mark Green

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

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Cover photo credit: Getty Images

ISBN: 978-1-5107-5112-5

Ebook ISBN 978-1-5107-5113-2

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to Moses Gery Green born February 7, 2019and to all children who deserve lives of decency and justice.

Its also dedicated to Trump-leaning voters who should do some political homework to discover how hes harming American families hoping for a better future.

CONTENTS

Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images

AUTHORS NOTE & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

W e two have worked together for nearly 50 years on some 10 books and scores of causes.

Disgusted by Donald Trumps open war on truth and law in late 2018, we decided to collaborate on a Trump Bullshit Detector for the coming 2020 election. Our core premises: he is completely unfit to be President of the United States, and the 2020 election, as Jefferson said of the 1800 election, would fix our national character and determine whether Republicanism or aristocracy would prevail.

Now, a year later, Fake President goes to production the month when House Democrats have announced a formal Inquiry into possible Articles of Impeachment, triggered by his admitted effortcant say no collusion! this timeto pressure Ukraine to find dirt on a possible 2020 rival. That Inquiry appears likely to include other alleged crimes and abuses of power such as those detailed throughout this book.

While we each worked on all sections, Ralphs focus was on the introductory Essay and Epilogue and Marks on the Bullshit Detector and . We worked with a small team of excellent researchers/writers Douglas Grant and Chris Gelardi primarily, with supplemental research and editing from Harut Manasian and Deni Frand (who moonlights as Marks wife).

Fake President would not exist without the talent and devotion of publisher/agent Esther Margolis, whom we met at Bantam Books in 1972 while publishing our No. 1 bestselling Who Runs Congress? , and the very dynamic team at Skyhorse Publishingespecially publisher Tony Lyons and editors Michael Campbell and Julie Ganzfrom acceptance through publication. All were patient and encouraging. Were grateful.

Unless otherwise noted, quotes are straight from the mouth (or tweet) of Donald Trump.

This small volume is illustrative but not exhaustive given the previously unfathomable number of lies and scandals that have pockmarked his presidency. For more encyclopedic compilations, please see Glenn Kesslers Fact-Checker collection in the Washington Post ; Amy Siskinds The List ; and Daniel Dales continuing chronology in the Toronto Star.

If youd like to add to your library of knowledge about this unpresidented man, we suggest that you look at two early, probing books: David Cay Johnstons The Making of Donald Trump and Tim OBriens TrumpNation.

More recently, theres Bob Woodwards Fear: Trump in the White House ; David Corn & Michael Isikoffs Russian Roulette; Michael Wolffs Fire and Fury ; David Cay Johnstons Its Even Worse than You Think ; David Frums Trumpocracy ; Rick Wilsons Everything Trump Touches Dies ; Vicky Wards Kushner, Inc ; Cliff Simss A Team of Vipers; Joy-Ann Reids The Man Who Sold America ; Tim Albertas American Carnage; Steve Kornackis The Red and the Blue ; Greg Sargents An Uncivil War: Taking Back our Democracy ; Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matzs To End a Presidency ; Max Boots The Corrosion of Conservatism; Stanley Greenbergs RIP GOP; Peter Wehners The Death of Politics; Brian Klaass The Despots Apprentice: Donald Trumps Attack on Democracy; James Stewarts Deep State; Rick Stengels Information Wars ; and Susan Ohanians Trump, Trump, Trump: The March of Folly.

And at the risk of being understood, Mark Green read biographies of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini during this books gestation to learn from the worst authoritarians of the past century.

Mark Green

Ralph Nader

October 1, 2019

PROLOGUE: FAKING IT

H aving won over 270 electoral college votes in 2016 (despite losing the popular vote by nearly three million), Donald J. Trump is of course the lawfully selected president of the United Statesyet still a fake president. Hes a PINOa president-in-name-only.

Exactly a century ago, Woodrow Wilson was also a president in form but not function because a disabling stroke led his wife Edith to run the government behind the scenes during his final 18 months in office.

Trump similarly has the trappings of office. But due to a disabling messianic narcissism that allows his ego to warp his brainas well as an unusual lack of knowledge, integrity, empathy, and stabilityhe cant perform many of the duties of office that the Constitution anticipated.

Staff sometimes remove papers from his desk or refuse orders they consider untenable or unconstitutional in the hope that he might neglect to follow up. Indifferent to the separation of powers, he repeatedly obstructs justice and intervenes in judicial proceedings based on partisan whim. He makes rash decisions that may cause irreparable damage to Americans for decades in order to please Foxs prime-time lineup. He feeds on and fuels hatred. He erupts with a daily lava of lies that aim to bury truth and progress.

Were a CEO, lawyer, or retail clerk to utter an average of 13 false statements a day at work, as Trump does, they wouldnt have shareholders, clients, or customersthey wouldnt have a job.

FAKE: Untrustworthy deceptive false to persons due allegiance, especially to a nation or superior.

American Heritage Dictionary

To amend the famous axiom, there are lies, damned liesand frauds, the latter being an entirely different category. Not merely misstatements, mistakes, falsehoods, or white liesMark Twain generously called them stretchers but a space where con artists keep playing catch-me-if-you-can to escape accountability. Nor can anyone act surprised that weve reached this low point with the 45th president. When a leader relies on repeated falsehoods without a capacity to learn or apologizealways doubling and quadrupling down to keep his credulous base satisfiedwe almost inevitably end up with a president who keeps digging himself into ever-deeper holes.

Or, as the head of the Society of American Magicians once remarked, his members were popular because people wanted a fraud they could believe in. In movies, Trumps the antihero.