Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has become so enamored of the man he once referred to as a “jackass” and “idiot,” and a “lightweight” that he has taken to emulating Donald Trump wholesale, concentrating on eliminating the truth from his vocabulary as the first step in his uncanny impersonation.
Take, for example, the latest falsehood-filled tweet that Senator Graham sent this morning.
If @BarackObama's jobs numbers were anywhere close to what we’re talking about with President @realDonaldTrump……the media would stop the Earth from rotating to make sure everybody heard about it!
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 5, 2018
One would think that the Senator would at least try to do better than the president by lying about facts that aren’t so easily refuted by looking up statistics in public records.
However, if Graham has learned one thing from Trump, it’s that the people to whom he’s aiming his messages don’t bother with fact checking and distrust the mainstream media that does the hard work of discerning what the actual truth may be. Thus, it’s no longer even necessary to invent a credible lie to garner votes when you can say anything, no matter how outrageously and patently untrue, and achieve the same results.
In this case, many Twitter users who actually do care about facts and the truth schooled Graham on Twitter on the difference between the lies he tried to spread and actual reality. Take, for instance, this tweet from the editor of The Los Angeles Times Washington bureau.
Always thought of Lindsey Graham as a straight-shooter in the 2 decades I covered him, but his sycophancy for Trump now has him telling ridiculous falsehoods/lies– More jobs were created in Obama's last 21 months than in Trump's first 21 mos, half-million more. @LindseyGrahamSC https://t.co/FNoPKDVtYq
— Jackie Calmes (@jackiekcalmes) November 5, 2018
Or these many other tweets from journalists and other people who bothered to look up the real statistics.
As we've said many times before: Job growth under President Trump has been very strong. Job growth under former President Obama was even stronger.
Jobs added in first 21 months under President Trump: 4.05 million
Jobs added in last 21 months under President Obama: 4.48 million— scott horsley (@HorsleyScott) November 5, 2018
Not true. You gotta keep up Blanche. Obama's job numbers were better than Trump's, particularly once he led the recovery from GWB's economic collapse in '08.
— Peter Ames Carlin (@peteramescarlin) November 5, 2018
Under Obama, Republicans tried to unskew the BLS reports. Now they're just making up unstated numbers? Anyhow, job growth is down slightly and Lindsey Graham is lying. https://t.co/8fVcVDPMvG
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) November 5, 2018
I'm starting to believe you failed 1st grade math.
The 10 months leading up to the last midterm election: 2,447,000 jobs.
The 10 months leading up to the current election: 2,125,000 jobs.Source: Dept. of Labor pic.twitter.com/LCpWLNqnuO
— Mike Flacy (@mikeflacy) November 5, 2018
Obama’s jobs numbers were actually stronger than Trump’s which was why Sean Spicier at a press conference last year declared that the jobs numbers “may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.”https://t.co/Ssj4QrGk8f
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) November 5, 2018
Of course, none of the Twitter responders to Graham’s load of manure were likely intended targets of his message which was meant to be consumed whole by the kind of people who blindly accept the propagandistic drivel that Fox News excretes on a daily basis without questioning the underlying veracity of the info they distort.
Tired of Republican politicians spreading lies to try to maintain their hold on power and continue destroying the American political system? Go out tomorrow and vote every last one of them out of office! It’s your patriotic duty.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Elizabeth Preza at AlterNet.org.