Trumpery

Trumpery -- noun: Something deceptively showy; hence, vain or valueless things; rubbish. -- Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, second edition, 1957.

   The Republican candidate for President of the United States displayed his namesake characteristics again last night during the first one-on-one debate with the Democratic nominee.
   And throughout the evening, the issue became one of fact versus claims, but there were almost no challenges from the moderator or the opponent when false and misleading allegations were made, nor statements contradicting previous public comments were brought up, nor when one of the debaters failed to answer a direct question.
   When asked a specific question by moderator Lester Holt of NBC News, such as, "How do you propose to bring jobs back to America?" an issue that candidate Donald Trump has spoken of many times recently, claiming that millions of jobs have been "stolen" by foreign competitors, the candidate replied, "First, don't let them leave."
   That's a good start, but it didn't answer the question, which was how to bring them back. After that initial sentence, the GOP nominee proceeded to talk at length on his past allegations of who stole what, without giving any specifics.
   When moderator Holt asked when he would release his tax returns, as every Presidential candidate has done for decades, Trump replied, "I will release them after the routine audit is finished," and launched into a challenge that he would release them if his opponent, Hillary Clinton, "releases her 33,000 emails first."
   Holt interjected that the Internal Revenue Service has said that anyone can release his tax returns at any time, but Trump ignored that and resumed his attack on the email controversy.
   At another point, Trump criticized the Federal Reserve Board and Fed Chair Janet Yellen for "doing political things" rather than acting to improve the nation's economy. Fact: The Fed is an independent agency responsible for regulating the nation's money supply and encouraging full employment, and through those actions, helping to build economic growth.
   Other allegations perpetrated by Trump during the debate included a claim that "thousands" of people have been killed by guns so far this year in Chicago, and repeated the word "thousands" several times within a  30-second claim. Fact: FBI data released earlier yesterday showed an increase in gun homicides in the city of 478 in 2015, up from 411 the year before. So far this year, more than 500 people in Chicago had been killed by gunfire.
   That's surely a very high number, but it's not multiple thousands, as claimed by the GOP  candidate.
   Moreover, while crime nationwide "did increase over all last year, 2015 still represented the third-lowest year for violent crime in the past two decades," according to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
   In another claim, Trump announced that ICE has endorsed his candidacy. Fact: The department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a government agency, and cannot make political endorsements. It may be that an organization of officers and employees of the agency has endorsed Trump, but that's not to say that the agency itself has done so.
   To imply otherwise is gross trumpery.
   
   Finally, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has been caught bending or modifying truth to suit her agenda, but all politicians do that, and much depends on how important, showy, outrageous  or egregious the claim is.
   As for the email controversy, in which documents supposedly marked "secret" were routed through her private email server, Clinton has acknowledged that having her own email server was a mistake, but multiple investigations by Congressional committees and the FBI have shown no crime was committed, and not enough evidence was found to warrant prosecution.
   As for the many thousands of emails uncovered and searched by the FBI, fewer than 50 were determined to have been marked "confidential" or "secret," and there is doubt as to whether they were marked as such before they were transmitted.

   So who won the debate, and who is more qualified to be elected President? Voters will decide that on Election Day in November. Meanwhile, the decision will be based on who speaks with fewer questionable allegations, claims and rhetoric contrary to fact.