I replied “I have no problem with your personal characterization of Trump; everyone is welcome to their opinion including you and me. I’ve stated more times than I can count since 2015-2016 that Trump’s public persona is that of a loose cannon-mouthed narcissist with the tact of a bull moose in heat. He’s an equivalent to an internet troll that’s trolling his haters at every turn. No Kurt, I’m not a Trump fan and I’m not offended by other people’s opinions of him. Here’s your “happy to argue facts” based challenge: Please provide actual facts/actions taken by President Trump that are an actual “assault on democracy” and describe why the action(s) are an “assault on democracy”. While thinking critically about this, remember how our federal system of government is designed to work and how Presidents have done things over the years that have been overturned by the courts. This is nothing new.”

The reply I got back from Kurt wasn’t what I expected to see after he had just written “I’d be happy to argue facts…” He wrote,

“This is hardly the forum for a thoughtful discussion of anything. A simple Google search will unearth impartial, detailed information about, for example, the tactics of authoritarian governments.”

Kurt had just made two really bad choices that revealed his lack of integrity. I replied,  “So this is the forum to make accusations but “hardly the forum” to support your accusations? That, Kurt, is a baldfaced, unethical cop-out especially after you stated that you were “happy to argue facts.” YOU expect ME to go find evidence to support the assertion of fact accusation that YOU made? Do you know how intellectually dishonest and immature that is? You’re arguing like a partisan propagandist with no integrity. You are not arguing in good faith. Why can’t people like you simply be honest with yourself and everyone else when you make a mistake like you did? That’s what people with integrity do. But nope—you make an accusation that you cannot support with facts, then you try to lay the burden of proof on others to do your job after being challenged to prove your claim. I’ve run into this kind of immature arguments far too many times when I ask people to support their claims. It’s really sad.”

That’s the summary of what transpired. I keep experiencing this phenomenon when challenging progressives, the Trump Deranged, and a vast majority of 21st century Democrats to support their assertions and accusations. It is signature significance : it shows that the person engaging in it has either has gullibly swallowed the massive amounts of anti-Trump propaganda as absolute truth without a shred of critical thinking, thus willingly becoming a propaganda parrot, or they actually know what they’re doing and have deliberately chosen to be part of a political propaganda machine that constitutes morally bankrupt “the end justifies the means” tactics.

It seems to me that a huge swath of the outspoken political left goes out of their way to make repetitive assertions of claims and/or accusations they are unable to support with actual facts. It is as if they believe that the accusation itself is all the “proof” they need. Most of the Trump Deranged argue their narratives using pure opinion, emotion, spin, and propaganda talking points as if what they write and say are all verified facts, and openly smear anyone that challenges what is really a partisan narrative.

Again; how many rationalizations on the Unethical Rationalizations list do you think apply to what Kurt did in this engagement?